Dhaka blaze adds to garment sector toll
By Syed Tashfin Chowdhury
DHAKA - The deaths of at least 29 people, with up to 200 more injured, in a
garment factory blaze in Dhaka late on Tuesday has rattled an uneasy
government-sponsored truce agreed hours earlier between garment workers and
employers after at least four people died in riots over a new pay structure for
the country's biggest export business.
Many workers jumped to their deaths trying to escape the blaze, which broke out
in a storage area near the top of the 11-storey building near Dhaka, from which
the Ha-Meem group supplies leading US outfitters such as Gap and Abercrombie.
Abdul Kader, who managed to escape the fire, told Asia Times Online he saw 50
to 60 people jump off the 10th floor to escape the blaze "as the emergency
exits were closed". Factory workers Mohammad Atiq and Al Shamim made similar
claims.
The factory's production manager, Humayun Kabir, rejected claims that
emergency exits were locked. "Maybe the workers could not find their way to the
emergency exits as they have claimed that the tenth and 11th floors were
already dark with smoke," he said.
The blaze broke out days after violent protests in Dhaka, Chittagong and
elsewhere in Bangladesh over implementation of a new wage structure in the
ready-made garments (RMG) industry. The government responded to these by
establishing a committee, comprising government representatives, garments
factory owners and workers, and headed by Aminul Islam, the Chief Inspector of
Factories (CIF).
The government responded in similar manner to Tuesday's blaze. Home Affairs
Minister Sahara Khatun said a five-member committee has been formed by the home
ministry to investigate the incident and submit a report within a week. A
separate committee formed by the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters
Association (BGMEA) is to carry out its own investigation.
So far, the cause of the fire appears to be unrelated to the workers' unrest.
It is initially being reported to have been started by an electric short
circuit, Brig-Gen Abu Nayeem Mohammad Shahidullah, director general of the Fire
Service and Civil Defence, told Asia Times Online. He added that a detailed
investigation would be able to tell more about how it happened.
The blaze adds to an already grim death toll involving the garment industry;
414 garment workers lost their lives in at least 213 factory fires between 2006
and 2009, according to the government's Fire Service and Civil Defence
Department.
The ready-made garment sector is the top foreign currency earner for
Bangladesh, earning US$12.7 billion, or about 14% of the country's total gross
domestic product, in the fiscal year 2008-09, according to the Export Promotion
Bureau of Bangladesh.
Although most RMG workers, most of whom are not unionized, returned to work on
Tuesday, labor leaders said they feared the decision to establish a committee
may result in yet another broken promise and fuel future riots in Dhaka and
Chittagong.
"The move was taken to review the minimum wage. However, the workers face many
problems which they cannot speak out about," Syed Sultan Uddin Ahmed, assistant
executive director of the Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies (BILS), told
Asia Times Online. The resulting unrest "causes immense loss to the country
eventually".
He said that establishing a fully functional workers union in all factories
could be a way forward. "The associations in place currently are mostly working
for the factory owners and those who are actually trying to help the workers'
cause are being persecuted," he said.
An instance of such persecution was found by Asia Times Online while trying to
contact Moshrefa Mishu, president of the Garments Workers Unity Forum, on her
cell phone. Mishu's younger sister informed that her home in Dhaka was raided
by around 10 to 12 policemen around midnight on December 14.
"They arrested Mishu - but they did not have any arrest warrant or any
explanation for arresting her," said Jebunnesa Jebu, Mishu's sister.
Razekuzzaman Ratan, general secretary of Samajtantrik Sramik Front (Socialist
Labor Front) told Asia Times Online that the recent unrest was a "cumulative
effect".
"The new minimum wage structure has created some controversies," with different
grades of workers being awarded different percentage increases, closing salary
gaps.
As for the government's proposed committee, "past experience has taught us that
such government decisions are only taken to pacify workers for the time being.
The workers may again agitate if the decision is not properly executed," said
Ratan.
In late July this year, violent unrest broke out against the new wage
structure. A report published at the time by Britain's Guardian newspaper said
the garments industry accounted for about 40% of the total industrial workforce
in Bangladesh.
"Major high street retailers including Wal-Mart, Tesco, H&M, Zara,
Carrefour, Gap, Metro, JCPenney, Marks & Spencer, Kohl's and Levi Strauss
all import clothes in bulk from Bangladesh, which has some of the lowest labour
costs in the world," said the article.
The protests broke out on December 11 and 12, leaving more than 150 wounded as
well as the four killed, and employers calculating lost earnings. South Korea's
YoungOne Corp was among those worse affected, claiming it lost about US$14.2
million due to the protests.
The riots came after a demonstration on the evening of December 11 at the
Chittagong Export Processing Zone (CEPZ) by YoungOne workers reacting against
the newly implemented minimum wage structure. YoungOne general manager M F
Rabbi called the protests "a coordinated attack" that included vandalization of
equipment and attacks on company officials.
After YoungOne closed its gates at the CEPZ on December 12, other workers took
to the streets and 160 factories closed down in the zone. About 150,000 workers
are employed in the CEPZ.
Prothom Alo, the leading Bangla daily, reported that the police used around 550
rounds of rubber bullets and 95 tear gas shells in an attempt to control the
protests. The daily also claimed that 20 garment factories, 25 vehicles, two
banks and several shops on the roads across from the CEPZ were vandalized.
Syed Tashfin Chowdhury is a senior staff writer at New Age in Dhaka.
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