As conditions in Bangladesh’s critical garment sector continue to be in flux amid a flurry of protests that have escalated over the past few weeks, labor campaigners say that the predominantly Western brands that have stoked the South Asian nation’s economic success are failing to support suppliers and, in so doing, reneging on their responsibility to protect workers.
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When the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC) surveyed 20 major fashion retailers about the steps they were taking to address the unrest, for instance, only 13—Adidas, Asda, C&A, Gap Inc., H&M Group, Zara owner Inditex, Marks & Spencer, Next, Primark, Puma, Calvin Klein parent PVH Corp., Tesco and Walmart —offered indications of how they would be upholding responsible purchasing practices , such as maintaining existing payment terms in the face of delays caused by disruptions beyond their suppliers’ control.
The low number of replies stands in stark contrast to the 100 percent engagement rate the nonprofit received from the 16 companies it asked about their commitments to their Turkish suppliers following a pair of devastating earthquakes last year. But they also hew closely to the results of Sourcing Journal’s outreach, even though some brands responded to one set of queries but not the other. Bestseller and Levi Strauss & Co., for example, wrote to Sourcing Journal but not to the BHRRC, and Gap, Marks & Spencer, Inditex and Next replied to the BHRRC but not to Sourcing Journal. Common non-responders included JCPenney, Mango, Target, Tom Tailor and Wrangler owner Kontoor Brands.
All of this, together with an overall reticence by even responsive companies to divulge more than generalties, paints a telling picture, said Mayisha Begum, labor program officer at the BHRRC, adding that she’s noticed that purchasing practices are “always a touchy subject” compared with other areas where responses are more forthcoming.
“When it comes to purchasing factors, we do face a certain extent of resistance or reluctance to answer specific questions, and I think this is because we are really addressing the crux of labor rights issues,” Begum said. “So whether it’s labor, whether it’s wage theft, whether it’s gender-based violence, all of this is coming from a place of poor purchasing practices that are incentivizing and encouraging the labor abuses that follow. We are essentially questioning a business model that depends on exploitation.”
The recent spate of garment worker demonstrations didn’t start this way, said Kalpona Akter, executive director of the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity, a workers’ rights group based in Dhaka. One of the initial triggers was thought to be the power struggle between members of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s recently ousted Awami League and the rival Bangladesh Nationalist Party over control of the post-industrial textile waste—or jhut—trade during Bangladesh’s fragile transition. These were among the “outsiders” that authorities and the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) have blamed for the turmoil that drove nearly 170 factories in the industrial areas of Ashulia, Gazipur and Savar to suspend production earlier this month. Save for two dozen facilities in Ashulia that remain closed, 16 of them under Section 13(1) of the 2006 Bangladesh Labor Act, colloquially known as “no work, no pay” due to illegal striking, all have since reopened.
Workers, too, for the most part, have returned to the production floor, said Miran Ali, vice president of the BGMEA and managing director of the Bitopi Group and Tarasima Apparels. The vast majority—close to 96 percent—of factories have also paid workers their August wages, with the remainder expected to follow suit shortly.
“I know I’ve been saying this every day, but it is going toward stability,” he said. “There are no protests on the street today. A few factories have internal issues, but nothing on the streets. We are looking at stabilizing the sector at the moment.”
Legitimate demands
But Akter said that factory owners shouldn’t dismiss workers’ concerns as the work of third parties alone. With Hasina’s autocratic government no longer in control, Bangladeshis are now freely airing long-held frustrations and grievances. Garment workers are the same way. Many of the country’s labor strictures, such as four months of paid maternity leave and termination of employment only with prescribed notice, are only good on paper, she said.
“They found that everyone was bringing their demands, so why not us?” she said. “These demands are coming because it absolutely shows that the law is not enforcing them.”
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Even demands that some have derided as ludicrous, such as the recruitment of more male employees, have a logic of their own. Though the percentage of female workers has been falling steadily from 80 percent in the 1980s to just over 53 percent today, men are more likely than women to be fired from their jobs or face criminal charges and blacklisting, which makes it more difficult for them to find employment, Akter said.
The call for a 10 percent annual wage increase, versus the current 5 percent, on the other hand, is less surprising. The root causes of the fierce minimum wage protests that closed out 2023 haven’t changed, either. Workers are still receiving “poverty pay” despite the sky-high inflation, Akter said. Increasing the wage from 8,000 ($67) to 12,500 Bangladeshi taka ($105) when workers say they need 23,000 taka ($192) to survive has been untenable, she added.
“I would say all the demands that workers are giving are definitely legitimate,” Akter said. “The way they’re asking—like stopping work in the factory and blocking the roads–might not be the ideal way, but at the same time, we have to remember that workers face union busting in this country. There are no unions to help workers deal with these issues. There is no table to discuss them in their factories.”
The interim government, helmed by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, revealed this week that it will be reviewing workers’ wages through the minimum wage board. Akter said while she’ll be counseling workers to give things some time, particularly since the caretaker government has an overwhelming list of things it needs to fix, there is a need for “real” reform that needs to take into account the way the sector’s lowest rungs have been treated for years.
In a joint letter on Tuesday, the American Apparel & Footwear Association (AAFA), a prominent U.S. trade group, and the Fair Labor Association (FLA), a multi-stakeholder organization that includes Adidas and Uniqlo parent Fast Retailing among its members, urged Yunus’s government to focus on improving worker rights for a “successful Bangladesh garment, footwear, and travel goods industry now and in the years to come.”
The government, they said, must immediately release anyone still facing arrest or criminal charges as a result of the minimum wage protests. It must also “move swiftly” this year to implement a transparent and regular annual minimum wage review mechanism that involves all garment industry stakeholders, including employers, authorities and workers and their representatives, as well as restart tripartite discussions on the Bangladesh Labor Act to “bring the law into line with international labor standards.”
“As you shepherd Bangladesh through this transition and into a new era, we look forward to working closely with you to ensure that both the protection of workers’ rights and growth of the industry are paramount,” wrote AAFA president and CEO Steve Lamar and FLA president and CEO Jeff Vockrodt. “The favorable trade partnerships and spirit of collaboration that underpin these markets [have] brought shared prosperity and economic growth. And we know that these partnerships can go much further—if we continue to build on our mutual respect for, and support of, worker rights.”
At the same time, brands need to “put their money where their mouth is” when it comes to supporting transitions to democracy within their supply chains, said, Natalie Swan, labor rights program manager at the BHRRC. Anecdotally, orders at factories have fallen by roughly 20 percent as a result of delays caused by the unrest and the recent monsoon floods , though it’s too early to say more definitively.
“These moments are times where it’s almost a litmus test for international brands to uphold good or poor purchasing practices,” she said. “And it would be really concerning if we saw brands react very quickly to any volatility that’s happening in Bangladesh at the moment by leaving rather than making a longer-term commitment to sourcing from that country, supporting jobs and workers at what is potentially a really transformational time.”
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