Apparel Online Bangladesh Magazine April Issue 2019 | Page 44
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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.