Exercise restraint, NYT urges BD police, RMG workers

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FE Report The New York Times (NYT) in an editorial published on Wednesday urged police and garment workers in Bangladesh to show restraint in the wake of escalation of violence over the demands for wage hike in the garment industry. The editorial also suggested that all the stakeholders including the western retailers have a responsibility for restoration of industrial peace, which Bangladesh is unlikely to achieve without higher wages. However, it advised the government to take step first by stopping the use of tear gas and rubber bullets on mostly unarmed protesters. It has also said the relevant authorities should raise the minimum wage and make it easier for workers to form unions. "Both sides - the protesters and the police - need to show restraint," said the NYT, a prestigious newspaper of the United States, the country which alone buys garments worth more than $4.0 billion, out of more than $19 billion annual garment exports of Bangladesh. The protesting garment workers demand that the minimum wage to be nearly tripled to about $100 a month from the current minimum wage of $38-a-month, fixed in 2010, for the first time since 2006. But the factory owners are offering to raise the wages to $46, instead of demanded wage of about $100, sparking violent protests in the thriving garment industry, which fetches nearly 90 per cent of the country's total export earning. "We have supported efforts by labour groups to convince Western companies to help pay for factory-safety improvements, a process that should start in the coming months," said the NYT. Some retailers like H&M of Sweden have also asked the government to raise the minimum wage. "More Western companies should follow H&M's lead. They all have a stake in industrial peace, which Bangladesh is unlikely to achieve without higher wages," said the editorial. The NYT said the ongoing workers' protests were no surprise that as many as 200,000 people have joined the protests, and some have turned violent. Hundreds of factories have been closed after angry workers or their supporters set some on fire. And dozens of people have been injured in clashes with the police. The wage of workers in Bangladesh is the lowest in the world, partly because many of some 155 million people in the country are unskilled and can escape rural poverty only by taking jobs in garment factories, said the editorial. The government has also helped depress wages and the lawmakers have colluded with factory owners to keep workers away from forming unions to negotiate for better pay, alleged the editorial It said there were few collective-bargaining agreements in the garment industry and a recently approved labour law will do little to change that. "The absence of such agreements not only keeps wages low but encourages poor safety standards," said the NYT. In April, more than 1,129 workers were killed and many maimed when a poorly constructed Rana Plaza, that accommodated five garment factories and other business establishment, collapsed at Savar, near Dhaka. Hundreds more have died in garment factory fires in recent years. Tens of thousands of workers in Bangladesh's garment factories have been protesting in recent days to demand an increase in the minimum wage for their industry, which the government last increased three years ago. The government has answered by ordering police to shoot tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters rather than addressing the real grievances of the workers. This astonishing response is the latest example of the blindness of the leaders of Bangladesh, to injustices the rest of the world can see but they refuse to acknowledge, let alone address.