RMG factory owners intimidate workers for organising TUs: HRW

The Human Rights Watch (HRW) has urged the government to stop readymade garment (RMG) factory owners from intimidating and threatening workers for organising trade unions (TUs). It also sought prosecution of those who are responsible for attacks on labour leaders.
The New York-based international rights group in a statement issued on Thursday said foreign buyers, including major US and European retailers, should ensure that their Bangladeshi suppliers respect labour rights.
The HRW had interviewed 47 workers in 21 factories in and around Dhaka. The workers claimed some managers intimidate and mistreat them for being involved in setting up unions. They also threaten to kill them. The full report is available at http://www. hrw.org/news/2014/02/06/bangladesh-protect-garment-workers-rights.
Some union organisers said they were assaulted. Others said they had lost their jobs or had been forced to resign. Factory owners sometimes used local gangsters to threaten or attack workers outside their workplaces, including in their homes, they alleged.
Bangladesh amended its labour law in July 2013 after widespread criticism following the collapse of the Rana Plaza building, which killed more than 1,100 garment workers. The labour ministry had previously refused to register all but a handful of unions, but the amendments have made it easier for unions to be formed.
More than 50 factory-level unions have been established. But since the law still requires union organisers to get the support of 30 per cent of the factory's workers before registering a union, employer's threats and intimidation make it a difficult task, especially in factories employing thousands of people, it said.
"The best way to avoid future Rana Plaza-type disasters and end exploitation of Bangladeshi workers is to encourage establishment of independent trade unions to monitor and protect workers' rights," said Brad Adams, Asia director of the HRW.
"The government has belatedly begun to register unions, which is an important first step. But it now needs to ensure that factory owners stop persecuting their leaders and actually allow them to function."
There are more than 5,000 garment factories in Bangladesh. The US and European Union (EU) have both linked Bangladesh's continued access to trade preferences to making urgent improvements in labour rights and workplace safety.
The government and the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) should ensure compliance with the labour law, and sanction companies which abuse workers' rights, the rights group said.
In July 2013, Bangladesh ratified the International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions 87 and 98 on freedom of association and collective bargaining. The country is required to protect the rights contained in them.
Section 195 of the Bangladesh Labour Act (2006, amended 2013) outlaws numerous 'unfair labour practices.' For example, no employer shall 'dismiss, discharge, remove from employment, or threaten to dismiss, discharge, or remove from employment a worker, or injure or threaten to injure him in respect of his employment by reason that the worker is or proposes to become, or seeks to persuade any other person to become a member or officer of a trade union."
In the HRW interviews conducted in Dhaka from October 2013 onwards, many of the interviewees described the abusive practices.
Citing the interview, the HRW said one female worker said that when the workers in her factory presented their union registration form to the company owner, he threw it to the dustbin. He then threatened the workers, saying he would never allow the union to start. Two of her fellow organisers were later attacked by unknown perpetrators, one with cutting shears. Two weeks later, a group of men, including a local gangster and the owner's brother, visited her home and threatened her. She agreed to resign.
Many female workers said they received threats or insults of sexual nature. For example, workers complained that in one factory a supervisor said that any woman joining the union would be stripped of her clothes and thrown to the street. Elsewhere a manager said that a female union organiser was 'polluting' his factory and should go and work in a brothel.
Another union organiser in a different factory said he received a phone call telling him not to come to work again and threatening to kill him if he did so. When he went there the next day, he was surrounded by a group of men who beat him and injured him with blades.
Workers at one large factory told the HRW that they were trying to form their union without the managers finding it out. They feared retaliation and losing their jobs. Other union organisers spoke of being harassed without the use of threats and violence.
Some complained that they were given extra work so that they did not have time to meet colleagues. Others said the factory managers refused to meet them.
Labour activists also complained that some of the unions in factories are not genuinely independent, but are so-called 'yellow unions'. These have been established by the factory owners themselves to control workers and prevent them from establishing or joining the union of their choice.
Many of the workers described how labour relations and working conditions in their factories have become poor. As a result, there have been frequent strikes and protests some of which turn violent.
Yet factory owners interviewed by the HRW said they do not believe that allowing trade unions will improve the situation. One accused the union organisers in his factory of fighting among themselves for control of the union. Another was afraid that political parties might try to manipulate the unions.
Most of the workers interviewed by the rights watchdog were employed by factories that manufacture garments for export and are supposed to comply with international retailers' codes of conduct. Typically these codes include provisions that protect the rights of workers to form unions.
After the Rana Plaza disaster, coming on the heels of the fire at the Tazreen Fashions factory in November 2012 in which at least 118 workers died, both the US and the EU called upon the Bangladesh government and garments industry to improve labour rights. The US and the EU constitute Bangladesh's two largest overseas markets for garments.
In June 2013, the US announced the suspension of Bangladesh's trade benefits under the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP).
In order to regain the benefit, the US demanded that Bangladesh improve its monitoring and inspection of factories. It called for increasing 'fines and other sanctions, including loss of import and export licenses' for failing to comply with labour, fire, or building standards. In July 2013, European trade commissioner, Karel De Gucht, warned that Bangladesh might lose its duty-free and quota-free access to the EU if it did not improve its record on labour rights and workplace safety. The EU will conduct a review in the summer of 2014.
A legally-binding safety accord signed by 125 European retailers after Rana Plaza collapse also called for trade unions, where they exist, to play an important role in ensuring factory safety.
"It is now time for those in the Bangladesh garment industry to wake up and realise that they are endangering their business if they do not comply with what the US, the EU, and their own government are demanding," Adams said. "But unfortunately, some garment factory owners are continuing their narrow focus of renewed anti-union action based on seeing unions as a threat to their control."
The HRW also put forward a number of recommendations for all the stakeholders of the sector - the Bangladesh government, the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) and international apparel brands - to overcome the situation.
The recommendations include effective enforcement of the labour law and its amendment to comply with international standards, workers' rights to form unions and more factory inspections. These also include investigation into allegations against factory owners who are engaged in anti-union activity and support to setting up of independent trade unions in members' factories. The recommendations seek to discourage setting up of so-called 'yellow factories,' protect workers' rights and improve factory inspections and publish findings to make factories comply with brands' codes of conduct.