TUC, AFL-CIO, Workers Uniting Back Bangladesh Garment Workers Fight

In a major act of international solidarity, both the 11.5 million members of AFL-CIO labour federation in the United States and the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in United Kingdom have released strong statements of solidarity in support of the Bangladeshi garment workers' demand for a new minimum wage of 35 cents an hour.

If the 3.5 million mostly women garment workers win their wage increase, it will allow them to climb out of misery and at least into poverty, says a release of the National Labour Committee (NLC).

'Wake-Up Wal-Mart', an organisation to press Wal-Mart, the largest garment chain in the world, has also launched a massive e-mail letter-writing campaign-pressing Wal-Mart to support the Bangladeshi workers demand for a 35-cent-an-hour minimum wage equivalent to Tk 5,000 a month.

The AFL-CIO Executive Council last week in a statement said: One of the world's great struggles for social justice is taking place in Bangladesh, where more than 3.5 million, mostly young women garment workers, are demanding a minimum wage of 35 cents an hour, which would allow them to climb out of misery and at least into poverty.

The current minimum wage, which has not been raised since 2006 despite annual inflation rates of 6.5 to 10 per cent, is just 11.5 cents an hour, which is the lowest industrial wage in the world.

"Bangladesh's garment workers are among the hardest working women in the world, and the most exploited. Despite working up to 12 hours a day, often seven days a week, the garment workers and their families are crowded into primitive one-room hovels, forced to live from hand to mouth, barely subsisting on rice and lentils. Dozens of families share one primitive hand water pump where they queue up to bathe, scrub their clothes and wash their dishes."

When it rains, the thatched roofs often leak, leaving the workers and their families no choice but to sit up all night covering themselves with pieces of plastic. The garment workers' children often go hungry and lack basic school supplies.

It does not have to be this way. The United States is the largest single market for Bangladeshi clothing exports, while the United Kingdom and the European Union together account for 57 per cent of Bangladesh's total garment exports. This gives the people of North America and Europe a strong voice to stand in solidarity with our sisters and brothers in Bangladesh who sew the clothing we wear. The largest multinational retailers and apparel companies in the world, including, Wal-Mart, Tesco and H&M, are major producers in Bangladesh. There is not one single retailer or apparel company in the world that could not easily afford to pay the very modest 35-cents-an-hour minimum wage the Bangladeshi workers are demanding.

Two weeks back, the minimum wage board announced an increase in the minimum wage to Tk 3000 a month, or 21 cents an hour, to be implemented on November 1, 2010. However, this falls well below workers' compromise demand of Tk 5000, down from their original proposal of Tk 6,200 a month. Still, this modest increase would be a small step forward.

The AFL-CIO stands in complete solidarity with the Bangladeshi garment workers' minimum wage demand of Tk 5000 a month, which amounts to 35 cents an hour, $16.60 a week and $71.94 a month.

"The AFL-CIO will ask our government to work together with the government of Bangladesh to guarantee that Bangladesh's workers have the right to freedom of association, to organise independent unions and to bargain collectively."

The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has joined trade unionists and campaigners around the world to demand better terms and conditions for 3.5 million Bangladeshi textile workers, who are striking and demonstrating for, among other things, a higher minimum wage of Tk 5,000, says the release.

The current minimum wage in Bangladesh is Tk 1,662 a month. This leaves textile workers, who are making clothes for sale in the UK, US and around the world, in dire poverty. The USA is the largest single market for Bangladeshi textiles, and the EU as a whole takes a massive 57 per cent of them.

Trade unionists from unions in Britain and the USA - Unite and USW - are supporting the Bangladeshi textile workers through Workers Uniting, and a delegation visited Bangladesh in July. This has now led to statements of support from the AFLCIO (the TUC's equivalent in the USA) and now the TUC as well. Unite vice-chair Steve Davison, who was part of the Workers Uniting delegation, has written about the dispute.