Garment manufacturing in Bangladesh
This post is to provide some context on the clothing manufacturing sector in Bangladesh.
Read the story on my final university project exploring hand-crafted data visualisations here.
Read my story here on Rana Plaza.
Bangladesh exported over $US28B worth of clothing in 2016. The second largest clothing manufacturer in the world, it’s estimated it’s workforce is over 4 million people, and the majority of these workers are women.
Fauzia Erfan Ahmed describes how women were recruited into the garment industry in her paper “The Rise of the Bangladesh Garment Industry: Globalization, Women Workers, and Voice” (Ahmed, 2004). She outlines that the women recruited into garment factories by industrialists were not part of the rural underclass, but the rural middle class (Ahmed 2004, p.38). The industrialists, often hailed as “village heroes”, created a type acceptable work for women, persuading “…reluctant male guardians that the honour and propriety of the women would be protected in the factory, which also allowed for spatial segregation between the sexes.” (Ahmed 2004, p.38) Ahmed argues that these jobs have been detrimental to women’s rights in Bangladesh as they offer neither collective nor individual benefits. Women remain “vulnerable for economic and social reasons” (Ahmed 2004, p.41). They have no job security, are not allowed to collectively organise, and many are not paid a living wage.
Meenakshi Ramesh Kurpad writes about balancing the desire for competitive advantage in the Bangladesh garment industry and it’s impact on driving down wages. Kurpad calls on the industry to address issues of safety in the paper “Made in Bangladesh: challenges to the ready-made garment industry”. Kurpad says Bangladeshi workers “receive 6c in wages per hour compared to 20c in India and Pakistan, 30c in China, 40c in Sri Lanka and 78c in Thailand” (Kurpad 2014, p.82)
Bangladeshi workers “…receive 6c in wages per hour compared to 20c in India and Pakistan, 30c in China, 40c in Sri Lanka and 78c in Thailand”.
Wages in 2010 were at malnutrition levels. This was also coupled with high inflation. On top of this conditions were (and are still) appalling. Kurpad lists out several factory fires and building collapses that have happened before and after Rana Plaza, as well as factory workers being fired on by police when they protested in 2010 killing at least three people. They are forbidden to organise, receive no social security and work 8–12 hours a day, sometimes 7 days a week. (Kurpad 2014, p.86). Kurpad calls on collective bargaining be initiated, so that workers lives can immediately be improved, while also keeping Bangladesh competitive in the global garment manufacturing marketplace.
A thread in all of this is garment manufacturing, craft and machines. How the Bangalore hand weavers created some of the finest fabric in the world, and had a rich and successful textile industry when the East India Company arrived, how colonial power destroyed that industry, and how now it is being rebuilt again to serve the greed of industrialists and a western desire for cheap fashion.
Next: Lovelace and Babbage
References
Kurpad, M.R. 2014, ‘Made in Bangladesh: challenges to the ready-made garment industry’, Journal of International Trade Law, vol. 13, no. 1.
Ahmed, F.E. 2004, ‘The Rise of the Bangladesh Garment Industry: Globalization, Women Workers, and Voice’, NWSA JOurnal, vol. 16, no. 2 (Summer).
