Over the past few days, the industrial belts of Bangladesh have seen thousands of ready-made garment (RMG) workers, struggling to make ends meet in an era of soaring living costs taking to the streets demanding a living wage commensurate with inflation. This movement is no longer confined to isolated factories; it has spread across major industrial hubs such as Savar, Gazipur, Ashulia, and Narayanganj. Sadly and predictably rather than addressing the legitimate grievances and livelihood concerns of the workers, the state apparatus and policymakers have chosen a path of brutal repression. Under the current BNP government, this persecution of workers has surpassed all previous levels. In November 1st, peaceful protesters demanding their rights were subjected to me batons, barrage after barrage of tear gas, and direct gunfire while as an easy way to quash dissent, employers and the administration have already declared the indefinite shutdown of over fifty garment factories. Overnight, hundreds of thousands of workers have been made unemployed. In the context of Bangladesh, the loss of a worker’s job does not merely signify the closure of an individual income source; it strips away the minimum survival lifeline of an entire family. Bangladesh has the lowest wages in the garment business in a battle to compete with other countries stuck in this “low-tech” industry while the profits are made by labels and retailers in the richer world. This “competing” is now at the cost of starving workers and their families.
The relative power of specific workers is shown by the continuation of negotiations in the face of a proposed strike by b y 250 “security” workers at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. These Pacific Coast ports of the USA may well be through-locations for Bangladeshi-finished garments as well as imports from China. The workers and their union, The International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 26, rightfully want their share of the profits made by these ports when despite the “anti-globalisation” turn of US politics, the ports are especially busy, ships having to wait their turn to dock.
Workers at Chinese mining companies’ transition mineral projects in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Zimbabwe and Zambia are taking action over alleged labour rights abuses. Thirty workers and community member registered a suit under the German supply chain law against electric vehicle battery maker CATL over alleged abuses and harms linked to two major copper-cobalt mines in DRC, both operated by Chinese mining group CMOC. The complaint describes workers facing excessive hours, inadequate pay, discrimination and unsafe conditions, while communities living near the mines reporting serious water and air pollution threatening their health and livelihoods. We recollect that a precedent was created when a German court accepted some degree of responsibility, to the extent of 6 million Euros to be paid by the German clothing company KiK to relatives of those who died or were injured in a Pakistani supplier factory fire. Elsewhere in Africa lithium workers in Zimbabwe have secured a 75 per cent wage increase after the Zimbabwe Diamond and Allied Minerals Workers’ Union used human rights due diligence tools to organise workers, and Zambian mine workers have also won recognition at three companies.