Readymade Garment (RMG) is the prime source of foreign exchange earnings for Bangladesh since the last two decades. RMG accounts for about 80 per cent of the total export earnings of the country. There are about 5000 garment factories operating in Bangladesh with 3.6 million workers, of which 85 per cent workers are female-- mostly from the rural areas. The industry is now in crisis due to repetitive labour unrest.
Recent unrest in this sector has caused a serious negative impact on export. The most common reasons claimed by the workers for labour unrest are non-payment of wages and the deferred payment. Some garment owners, they allege, do not pay salaries and overtime allowance on time. But the owners, in their turn, claim that they pay wages on time. So, it is a growing sense of mistrust that is fuelling the unrest. Examination of the situation, from what is being reported regularly in the media, reveals that there are a cluster of factors responsible for the unmitigated unrest. These include lack of benefits and irregularities in payment of overtime, deferred festival bonus, lack of motivational training programme, conflicting perception about the rich people of the society, demand of minimum wage, collective bargaining arrangements through trade unions etc. Given the magnitude of the issues, it is clear that unless meaningful improvement is brought to the system, things are going to deteriorate further in the days to come and the resultant impact on the economy would be too heavy to shoulder.
The core problem of labour unrest appears to be in the lack of intra -organisational relationships. It is no secret that when new employees come on board, the employer who hired them is beginning a new relationship. It is this relationship that he or she shares with every single one of the employees, and it is this relationship that will largely define the environment of the workplace. It need not be reiterated that strong employer-employee relationship often leads to greater employee happiness and significantly improve productivity.
There should be a balanced reliance in the relationship of both the employer and the employees. The employer relies on the employees to do his/ her job well for the benefit of the business; the employees rely on the employer to treat them fairly including providing them with welfare benefits. The employer must feel that the employees' efforts are instrumental to the company's productivity and success, while the employees must value their job and remain positively engaged.
Any healthy working environment involves openness and transparency. Employers can help create a forum of openness by asking employees candidly about their lives, families and interests. Employees can, in return, contribute to this setting by being forthcoming about their lives outside work. Employers should want their employees to reach their full potential and recognise when their capabilities exceed their current role. Leaving natural abilities to stagnate will breed boredom and frustration in the employees. Employees should be willing to show support for the company's welfare and progress, which may mean making sacrifices from time to time. Gratitude should exist on both sides of the relationship, but it is probably a larger responsibility of the employers to recognise and appreciate exceptional effort from their employees. When employees consistently deliver and receive little or no appreciation, it can be very natural for them to become disheartened, frustrated and apathetic about their job.
So, it is essentially a matter of mutually recognising the role of each party that emerges as the key binding factor. Understandably, there is a serious shortfall in this aspect that has unleashed much of the unrest in the RMG factories. To do away with this, improving intra-organisational relationship may be viewed as a starter.
The writer is an MBA student, University of Dhaka. shahin_mktdu@yahoo.com
