Workers struggle to earn in Bangladesh
IN BANGLADESH, at least 70,000 people are estimated to have been laid off after $3.5 billion (£2.7bn)-worth of clothing orders were cancelled or suspended and exports plummeted by 84 per cent in April, the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) said.
Most of the country’s 4,000 clothing factories, which employ about four million people – mostly women, reopened in April after a month – long break to stem the spread of Covid-19. Bangladesh has seen at least 364,900 confirmed cases and 5,250 deaths.
While factory bosses say the sector has seen a recent uptick - with 90 per cent of cancelled orders reinstated – and is hiring again, activists said demand for jobs outstripped supply and pointed to a lack of alternatives and assistance for fired garment workers.
“For every 10 workers who lost their jobs, only one is being hired,” Kalpona Akter, founder of the Bangladesh Centre for Worker Solidarity, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.
“This is putting the lives of thousands of workers and their families at risk, because they haven’t earned for the last three to four months,” Akter said.
With no social security to tide them over, many of the workers have had to leave Dhaka to return to their villages and are now relying on food handouts from local charities, she said.
Sajida Foundation, which has partnered with British clothing app Mallzee to raise money by selling off unwanted stock, said it had distributed about $250,000 among 10,500 garment workers.
Advocates welcomed the initiative but say charity alone will not suffice and have urged the government to work with factory owners and brands to introduce welfare benefits for the sector.
A European Unionfunded scheme to provide cash to laidoff garment workers is being discussed, according to a labour ministry official who was not authorised to speak to the media.
Nazma Akter, head of the Sommilito Garments Sramik Federation – a union that represents nearly 100,000 garment workers – said she had come across cases where laid-off workers had been rehired by their former factories but on worse terms.
“It’s been difficult for workers because new orders have been hard to come by,” she said. “Even workers who have jobs now are worried of losing them because of the pandemic’s second wave in Europe.”