Labor Unions in the Garment Factories in Bangladesh

Research Paper

Labor unions in the garment factories in Bangladesh

Abdullah Al Habib

(071 398 030)

English 105. Section 7

Faculty : MkS

August 17, 2010

Abstract

The working condition of the workers is not satisfactory in Bangladesh and they suffer from low wage rate and poor safety measures. The labor unions which have been established due this unsatisfactory condition could not improve it either. The research is based on analyzing the current working condition of the labors and also why the labor unions are failing to propose a suitable solution. Both primary research and secondary research was done for the paper. Workers were surveyed through a questionnaire and interviews were taken. From the analysis it is found that the owners are not concern about the work environment and the labor unions are failing due to lack of skill of the union leaders and corruption. The literacy rate of the workers also has an affect, since it is low. The industry as well as the country might suffer if this persist.

Chapter 1: Introduction

Bangladesh had entered the RMG industry in the late1970s. It was a prospering sector to invest in and government considering the long team economic benefit of the country as well as the opportunity this sector could create for the country, the government waived many laws including labor laws in favour of the garment factories in order to give the industry a chance to flourish. The entry in the RMG industry was made right after the Liberation War, when the economic development in the country was very slow and it was going through a bad economic phase. According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (1991), the growth rate of Bangladesh was over 4.75 per cent from 1975-80, which however slowed down considerably to an average of only around 3.8 percent in the 1980s. Both the poor economic condition and the waived labor laws were responsible for creating an unsatisfactory working condition for the workers. The workers were...