Apparel Online Bangladesh Magazine April Issue 2019 | Page 44

SUSTAINABLE BD HAVE YOUR SAY BREAKING NEWS Tell us your news by emailing at [email protected] To read the latest sustainability news, go to https://apparelresources.com/business-news/sustainability/  Workers of factory making ‘Girl power' charity T-shirts exploited In yet another case of alleged exploitation of workers engaged in Bangladesh readymade garment industry, a recent report by The Guardian claimed that more than 100 workers involved in making ‘Girl power’ charity T-shirts sold in the United Kingdom, have been sacked following participation in the recent workers’ protest against alleged discrepancies in workers’ wage. Machinists at the factory say they have been sacked en masse after striking over wages in January. They are among more than 7,500 employees at 27 factories in Bangladesh who have lost their jobs in recent weeks, according to union leaders, mentioned the report. The report further added that The Guardian has established that the garments were made by Bangladeshi firm Dird Composite Textiles, where some workers earn very little and complain of harassment. In one of the cases, a female employee was beaten on the orders of the management and threatened with murder. The £ 28 garments are sold online by F=, which claims to be ‘all about inspiring and empowering girls,” with £ 10 from each T-shirt donated to Worldreader, a charity that supplies digital books to poverty-stricken children in Africa, maintained the report. The report also said that after being contacted by The Guardian, F= stopped selling the T-shirts and Worldreader pledged to cease accepting donations ‘until the situation is resolved’. It may be mentioned here that as per an earlier investigation by The Guardian, women workers of a Gazipur-based garment manufacturing unit, which was manufacturing T-shirts for the pop band aimed at raising money for a campaign by British charity Comic Relief championing gender justice, were found to be earning as little as 35 pence (45 cents) an hour. They were also subjected to long working hours of up to 16 hours a day besides insults and harassment. The workers making T-shirts reportedly told The Guardian then that they were forced to work overtime, made to work despite poor health and verbally abused with insults. Poor wages compel garment workers to skip meals, says Oxfam report As per a study conducted by Oxfam, Australia, most of the readymade garment workers in Bangladesh cannot afford three full meals per day and regularly skip meals due to poor wages. “9 out of the 10 workers interviewed in Bangladesh cannot afford enough food for themselves and their families, forcing them to regularly skip meals and eat inadequately, or go into debt,” the research report titled ‘Made in Poverty: The True Price of Fashion’ conducted jointly by Oxfam, Australia, Bangladesh Institute for Labour Studies and Institute for Workers and Trade Unions in Vietnam, maintained. with chilli in order to feel fuller throughout the day. The study also reportedly revealed that workers faced unjust and intolerable struggles due to poor wages while the Australian fashion industry was getting bigger. The research reportedly interviewed more than 470 workers across Bangladesh and Vietnam (the interviewees were part of Australian clothing supply chains at the time of interview), employed in garment factories that supplied at least one iconic Australian clothing brand. 44 Apparel Online Bangladesh | APRIL 2019 | www.apparelresources.com Further as per the research report, in Bangladesh, 91 per cent of the garment workers reportedly alleged that their income was not enough to feed them and their family for the entire month and they survived only on pulses, rice and potatoes – sometimes eating a sickly mix of old, fermented rice “Since 2015, returns to the shareholders of the five major clothing companies in Australia have increased by 81 per cent per year on an average… Brands like Kmart and CottonOn have increased their annual revenue intake by more than US $ 1 billion each since 2014. These companies have the power and the resources to help change this unfair system,” the report said.