The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

Expressing solidarity with the country's garment workers INCIDIN Bangladesh, an Internet solidarity network, yesterday started web publication to stop the cancellation of Generalised System of Preference (GSP). The website is www.bgw-info.net/protest1/pro.html.

The decision in this regard is expected to be taken today in the USA.

It may be mentioned that AFL-CIO an US based workers organisation alliance has submited a petition to USTR with four main complaints, which included recent violation of domestic and internationally recognised workers' rights in export processing zones (EPZs), violation of the same in readymade garment industries, similar violations in shrimp and fish processing industries and harassment and violence by government security forces on the workers.

The US based organisation is seeking cancellation of GSP in USA, which has so far been favouring Bangladeshi garment export to the largest market

To make the USTR feel that the decision would be detrimental to the workers INCIDIN Bangladesh has started the web publication programme in which national and international people will be able to express solidarity with the Bangladeshi labours. Executive Director of INCIDIN Bangladesh Masud Ali told this to The New Nation at its office at Mohammadpur.

Masud said the initiative that the AFL-CLO has taken could take away the only source of income of the workers if the GSP was cancelled for the Bangladeshi garments.

They could have come to Bangladesh and expressed solidarity with the workers, he added.

"Along with the workers' right the GSP is also a vital issue of national interest as the garment sector has been the number one foreign exchange earner of the country," Masud said.