Organizing garment workers in Bangladesh: kinship circles and the affective dimension of activism

ABSTRACT

Non-governmental organizations have become central to how workers are organized in Bangladesh’s readymade garment industry. This article explores how they integrate workers from the sector into the labour movement. Drawing on field research with three domestic, worker-focused NGOs, it asks the question: what strategies do these institutions use to engage and activate a non-organized workforce that consists predominantly of women? The strategies undertaken by these NGOs highlight the importance and integrative role of social relationships, kinship circles and the affective dimension of activism, all of which are critical for mobilizing workers not yet integrated into a broader labour movement. These strategies reveal the dynamic interaction between women workers’ collective organizing and the institutional form of the NGO.

RESUMÉ

Les organisations non-gouvernementales jouent un rôle crucial dans l’organisation des travailleurs de l’industrie du prêt à porter au Bangladesh. Dans cet article, nous explorons comment elles facilitent l’intégration des travailleurs de ce secteur dans le mouvement syndical. Nous basant sur des recherches sur le terrain auprès de trois ONG locales qui concentrent leurs efforts sur les travailleurs, nous nous posons la question suivante: Quelles sont les stratégies employées par ces institutions pour rassembler et mobiliser une force de travail non-organisée, et composée principalement de femmes? Les stratégies employées par ces ONG révèlent l’importance des relations sociales, des réseaux familiaux et de la dimension affective de l’activisme, et le rôle intégrateur qu’elles jouent dans la mobilisation des travailleurs qui n’ont pas encore intégré un mouvement syndical plus élargi.

KEYWORDS:

• Garment workers
• labour
• affect
• kinship
• NGO
• Bangladesh

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), ‘Export Performance’, BGMEA website, 2021; https://www.bgmea.com.bd/page/Export_Performance.

2 The ban on union activities continues to be in place for factories located in export processing zones.

3 The most prominent of these cases is that of Aminul Islam, a well-known activist in the sector who was abducted and murdered in 2012. See for example: https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/04/04/bangladesh-5-years-no-justice-aminul-islam.

4 Women’s membership and participation in all three tiers – basic, industrial unions and national unions in Bangladesh, as well as within decision making bodies within unions is disproportionately low. See for example BILS (2009).

5 The collapse of Rana Plaza in 2013 – the worst of Bangladesh’s RMG factory disasters that killed at least 1132 workers and injured thousands of others – for example, witnessed a rush to unionize garment factories. Dubbed the ‘Rana Plaza effect,’ it mobilized thousands of workers, enticed mass protests, and a created a rush amongst workers to become unionized. The sentiment among workers was that unions would ameliorate their working conditions and prevent another disaster. As one activist recounted, they solicited door to door at night to collect workers’ signatures and submitted their registration; the excitement and hope was there that collecting the required ratio of signatures would allow them to form a shop-floor union at their factory. This case was not an isolated one. However, nine years following the disaster, levels of unionization in RMG factories continue to be extremely low.

6 After an initial slump with the onset of the pandemic, the RMG industry is projected to bounce back. Such optimistic accounts are being widely reported in national media. See for example: ‘RMG exports rise to nearly USD 20b in fast half of FY22’, Prothom Alo English Desk (Dhaka), 15 January 2022, Prothomalo.com; https://en.prothomalo.com/business/local/rmg-exports-rise-to-nearly-usd-20b-in-first-half-of-fy22 and ‘Rising exports to big markets spur Bangladesh apparel industry’s optimism’, BD News24.com, 16 January 2022.

7 Poor working conditions in RMG factories in Bangladesh are widely documented. From unsafe infrastructure to factory fires, and now since the onset of the pandemic, poor ventilation, factories that house hundreds of workers at the same time need to undergo many infrastructure changes. Beyond these, there are widespread issues of sexual and other harassment, long working days and production deadlines.

8 The current minimum wage in the RMG sector is less than one-fourth of the calculated living wage. The minimum wage for the RMG sector is currently 8000 BDT per month ($127) while the living wage is calculated to be 48,000 BDT per month ($761). For more information on minimum vs living wage, see: https://actionaid.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/CASUALTIES-OF-FASHON-HOW-GARMENT-WORKERS-IN-BANGLADESH-AND-CAMBODIA-ARE-WEARING-THE-COST-OF-COVID-19-Dec2021.pdf. The struggle to increase the minimum wage to the calculated living wage is still ongoing. See for example: https://cleanclothes.org/news/2018/07/06/full-support-for-bangladeshi-garment-workers2019-demands-on-minimum-wage.

9 The 1995 World Conference on Women catapulted the growth of NGOs offering women’s empowerment programs in effort to achieve gender equality in the Global South. Since then, the number of developmental NGOs working with poor women in Bangladesh has grown tremendously.

10 Bourdieu (1986) defined social capital as ‘the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalised relationships of mutual acquaintance or recognition’. For him, social capital is the ability of individuals to secure resources for themselves through their membership in social networks or structures (248).

11 Direct action, whether they take the form of rallies, strikes, or workplace occupations, are thus rarely as spontaneous as they appear. More often, they are the product of detailed preparatory work which includes bringing activists together, visioning sessions, and clearly outlining the steps required for the action to bear fruit.

12 RMG workers of today have some degree of literacy, but most have not completed secondary schooling.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nausheen Quayyum

Nausheen Quayyum is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Politics at York University. Her dissertation explores labour organizing in the readymade garment industry in Bangladesh.