Labor Campaigners Urge Brand Intervention in Bangladeshi Arrests
For more than a month, Bangladeshi union leader Babul Hossain has been sitting behind bars in Gazipur, where he awaits sentencing for the crime of vandalism and assault during a protest over the minimum wage in October.
The charges against Hossain, who is general secretary at Bangladesh Garment Workers Solidarity, are trumped up, his supporters say. His family and other union members have testified that he wasn’t even in Gazipur at the time of the demonstration, let alone setting fire to a car and lobbing a brick at its driver.
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Hossain is a key figure in the fight for a higher minimum wage, which even at the readjusted 12,500 Bangladeshi taka ($114) won’t stand up against breakneck inflation, said Taslima Akhter, president of the union. Akhter believes his arrest, which occurred two weeks after the reported incident, was politically motivated, designed to “intimidate and distract us from focusing on the movement.” On Thursday, a judge at Gazipur District Session Court declined to grant Hossain bail.
“Today, I have come to court with my grandchildren, Babul’s two sons, in hopes of securing my son’s bail. My innocent son has been arrested by the police,” said Ataur Rahman, Hossain’s father. “He has committed no crime. He is in jail while fighting for an increase in workers’ wages. Though the workers’ wages [have increased], my son remains in jail.” Hossain’s attorney, Jyotirmoy Barua, said he will appeal for bail in the high court.
Other labor leaders who are facing trial include Mohammad Jewel Miya, an organizer with the Bangladesh Independent Garment Workers Union Federation, and Mizanur Rahman, who campaigns with the Akota Garments Workers Federation. Miya has been denied bail four times to date, and Rahman has been accused of attempted murder even though he says he wasn’t involved in the protests at all.
The Worker Rights Consortium estimates that at least 115 garment workers have been arrested and imprisoned, where they face “challenging conditions in overcrowded jails” alongside political dissidents who also faced mass arrests leading up to Bangladesh’s January election. More risk jail time: some 43 First Information Reports listing thousands of unnamed workers have been filed in police stations by the suppliers to the world’s biggest brands, including H&M Group, Gap Inc., The North Face owner VF Corp. and Calvin Klein parent PVH Corp., the organization said.
Nate Herman, senior vice president of policy at the American Apparel & Footwear Association (AAFA), a trade group to which many prominent companies belong, said that it and its members have urged the Bangladeshi government to release anyone who has been unlawfully detained and to “set a tone that facilitates only peaceful discourse as wage and related issues are addressed and resolved.”
“We are particularly distressed by the violence that has accompanied these negotiations and protests,” he added. “We condemn this violence—which has resulted in deaths, injuries and the arrests of many innocent workers—in the strongest terms.”
Intervention works, IndustriAll Global Union noted this week. When workers at Dekko Designs, a supplier of brands such as Asos, Bestseller and H&M, filed a complaint with the ACT living-wage initiative’s interim dispute resolution mechanism over dismissals for exercising their right to freedom of association, the factory reinstated three workers with full payment of back wages and gave two of them severance benefits.
The process, which involved multiple rounds of negotiations with IndustriALL, its affiliated Bangladesh Garment and Industrial Workers’ Federation (BGIWF), Dekko Designs and the brands sourcing from it, wasn’t easy, taking two years to resolve. In late November, however, Dekko Designs signed a Memorandum of Understanding agreeing to redress the situation.
“This is a significant victory for the union and the workers at Dekko Design,” said Apoorva Kaiwar, IndustriALL South Asia regional secretary. “IndustriALL salutes the struggle of BGIWF; the resolution of the complaint will go a long way in strengthening the faith of unions in the interim dispute resolution mechanism.”
Other recent success stories stemming from the use of the ACT mechanism include the withdrawal of criminal charges against Sung Kwang Apparels employees who took part in union activities, the allocation of full severance benefits to union organizers who were dismissed from Ananta Casual, and a cessation of harassment of union leaders in Mondol Intimate.
Last week, Hossain’s two sons, 8-year-old Ibrahim and 11-year-old Madhu, took part in a procession demanding the release of hundreds of workers, including their father. But their supporters can no longer protest; from Dec. 18 and up to election day, all public demonstrations have been outlawed. There’s reason to be concerned for the workers’ safety, too. At least six members of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, the country’s largest opposition party, have died in prison in the past two weeks, according to their relatives and leaders of the party, blaming “inhuman levels of torture” at the hands of police.
“Times are tough,” Ahkter said. “Babul Hossain…Mizan, Jewel and other labor leaders, along with hundreds of workers, are jailed for advocating higher garment worker wages. Surviving this hardship, identifying true friends, and persisting in our fight is crucial. We will continue to fight amid hundreds of storms.”
Earlier this week, a group of U.S. representatives led by Democrats Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Jim McGovern of Massachusetts and Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, called the AAFA to leverage its influence and “stand together with workers by immediately demanding better wages and rights for Bangladeshi working families.” They asked brands to demand that authorities stop their wage protest-related arrests and immediately release innocent detained individuals, and to make clear to their suppliers that dismissing, blacklisting or otherwise harassing workers and union leaders is unacceptable and will influence their sourcing decisions.
“We believe that our actions abroad should always reflect our values at home,” the lawmakers said. “The historic challenges faced by garment workers in Bangladesh are part of a shared global struggle for good-paying jobs, safe working conditions and the right to organize. When we support workers’ rights in one part of the world, we bolster the fight for those rights everywhere.”