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Time for the garment sector to come of age

Syed Fattahul Alim
In a situation of mutual distrust and suspicion, dialogue is the best tool to bridge the gap between two sides at daggers drawn. In fact, a functioning workers’ union can do the job best, and also help an industry grow better and prosper.***
THE October 31 worker-police clash in Tongi, which led to three deaths and injuries to about a hundred others, including police, has not surprised many, because workers' violence, whatever the reason, has become a regular occurrence in the garment sector during the last few years. It is very strange, though, that garment workers, BO percent of whom are women, are capable of such violence. However, the October 31 flare- up reportedly saw fewer women than in the earlier ones.
The latest violence harks back to widespread frenzy of garment workers' violence witnessed in late June this year when on-duty Ansars fired into a rally of workers from a sweater factory. In that incident, too, workers were demonstrating for pay hike. But the provocation triggered a nightmare of workers' fury that led to widespread vandalism and destruction. Small wonder that the incident helped to make the theory of external interference and sabotage sound plausible.
Even earlier, in 2006, we had a similar
experience of flare -ups that ended in bloody encounters between garment workers and the police, supported by paramilitary forces. As expected, in every case, tire factory man agement and workers have mutually conflicting versions of the same Incident, including the suggestion of sabotage. So, what then is the truth? To determine the real cause of the violence, probe committees are formed, but our experience in this respect, too, is far from gratifying.
The latest incident at Nippon Garments Industry Ltd. had the home ministry, as is customary, give an order to form a five-member probe body represented by the government, the owners and workers.
That apart, the whys and wherefores of the incident are not quite incomprehensible, as one can see the same old pattern of happenings that ultimately precipitate into a bloody battle between workers and law-enforcement. The present case, too, is no exception, and the factory management concerned again sees outside hands, alleged to be out to destroy the country's garment sector.
Talking of foreign hands, one wonders
how they are able to incite the workers so easily to destroy the factories that provide them with their sustenance. There are also allegations of people from nearby localities being drawn into tHe worker-police confrontations. Why should they like to be a party to such clashes? What is their Interest? Have they all become pawns in the hands of the alleged foreign agents?
In earlier outbreaks of violence in Savar and Ashulia, agitated workers went to such lengths as to set fire to the factories they worked for. Many well-meaning people were then wont to buy the conspiracy theory of saboteurs involved In the act. Still, such explanations of each and every incident of garment workers' protests, that often turn violent, arc rather simplistic. Interestingly, earlier, the unrest died down as soon as factory owners were ready to admit facts and agree to a minimum pay scale for die workers.
Presently, the factory workers who talked to die press gave identical explanations about the cause of the unrest. It was over the non-payment of arrear dues and sudden closure of the garment factory ahead of the Eid-ui-Azha. It is not hard to understand why workers were so anxious about their pays, Eid bonuses, and most importantly, dieir jobs. That was reason enough for them to demonstrate.
Yet, on duty police, factory management, leaders of the apex trade body for the garment sector, the Bangladesh Garment
Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) and members of parliament (MPs) who have a slake in the garment business, spoke as one in their statements: there were no workers involved in the protest march, no worker died, and outsiders caused the violence. What will the man on the street make out of these two mutually conflicting versions of the same incident? Since both versions cannot be simultaneously true, truth becomes the first casualty in such a situation.
On the contrary, the entire picture would 4 be different had there been any mechanism to mediate between the workers and the owners. A workers' union, uncorrupted by vested interests or party politics, is a time-tested mechanism to solve such problems that arise between management and industry workers. The union works as a safety valve and resolves such crises. In a situation of mutual distrust and suspicion, dialogue is the best tool to bridge the gap between two sides at daggers drawn. In fact, a functioning workers’ union can do the job best, and also help an industry grow better and prosper.
If the management and industry workers cannot see eye to eye with each other, then for how long will the industry sustain itself and thrive? And the foreign hands? Well, what provides a better breeding ground of conspiracy and infiltration than a mass of deprived, disillusioned, and angry workers who have to struggle for their very survival?
Fattahul Alan a a senior joumaSsi