The New Nation - Internet Edition

Recently a foreign service man was arrested as he was reportedly found involved in fomenting trouble in garment factories in Bangladesh.

Law enforcing agencies also have arrested two persons who, they believe, were responsible for the death of one worker and injury of another by beating. They are trying to nab several others who were involved in the heinous incident, but are now absconding. Police sources also expressed the view that they know who are behind the instigation in the garment sector.

The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) has repeatedly asserted that they see foreign hands behind the recurrence of such trouble in the sector. The killing of a worker and severe injury to another at the Vertex Fashion Ltd in Mirpur on Wednesday centred on a very small thing. Some security guards of the factory thought that the two workers were involved in the commission of theft in the factory.

Such an allegation should in no way have led to the beating of the two workers leading to death of one and severe injury of another.

The unrest that the incident created led to work stoppage in many factories in the area. Further deterioration of the situation was averted by timely intervention of the law enforcing agencies and quick steps taken by leaders of the BGMEA to pay compensation to the families of the deceased and the injured by the factory owners.

The unrest once again brought to the fore the demand of garment workers to raise their minimum wages. The garment sector, it may be noted, now employs about three million workers and is the highest foreign exchange earner, in other words, the mainstay of the economy. Two things emerge clearly from this state of things. Nobody would deny the fact that workers in many garment factories are not well-paid. However, the factories are at present at least providing employment to a large segment of the workforce. The second thing is that trouble is found to start from factories which appear to be relatively better in terms of payment of wages to workers.

It's nothing wrong for workers to demand higher wages, because they should be able to buy their bread from what they earn. BGMEA has recently urged the government to introduce food rationing for garment workers so that they can sustain themselves with the wages that they get. Under the present inflationary pressure that has reduced the purchasing power of the poor and low income groups of people it is easy for instigators to incite workers against their employers. But this would only further aggravate the situation because production loss would increase cost of production and force the factories to lose competitiveness in export markets. This would lead to closure of factories.

The government should undertake a motivation campaign so that they have better understanding and improved relationships with workers and employees of garment factories. The workers must be made aware of the conspiracy to destroy the garment sector and throw out of job thousands of women workers. The jute industry has been made to go out of business. Only some jute mills are struggling to survive.

The workers should get an impression that they are indispensable partners of the factories they work for. In such a case instigators from outside would not be able to use a section of workers to create trouble in the garment factories.