In search of a Win Win deal

[nasimul ahsan]

A simple sweater made in Bangladesh and carrying any brand name are on sale here at the price of €-19.50, or one cotton trouser at € 30.00.
For making the same sweater or trouser at the sourcing end in Bangladesh one worker is getting less than 19.5 cent for the sweater and 30.00 cent for the trouser.
Can you imagine the margin of profit? Or can you imagine who are getting what out of this neo industrial practice?
When the Brands and Retailers from EU or USA pressing for a lower cutting and making price the local (Bangladeshi) factory owners are doing the deals even 50% less the cost they were getting earlier. They fail to bargain the cost with the brands and retailers. But at the same time when the workers demand a minimum wage that they can survive the local factory owners immediately start shouting and rejecting their demand. What a pity that everyone of this industry trying to negotiate at the poorer and weaker end thus putting all the burden into the shoulder of the poor workers of which 85% are female and have a very low voice of their rights.

The Brands and Retailers making enormous profit out of Readymade Garment mostly produced in the least developed countries including Bangladesh where they consider labour as cheap resource. They are running for even cheaper source!! These Brands and Retailers are mostly from the developed countries where the values of workers rights are advanced. But when this big companies from developed countries source products from abroad they don’t value the workers rights that exists at their country at the very same time they mostly ignore the national labour law at the sourcing countries. For maximizing profit these multinationals putting a huge number of workers in different least developed countries including Bangladesh into slavery like working condition with lowest level of wage and highest level of industrial risks.

On the other hand, the local industry owners who are mostly playing a tailoring role in this business lacking expected capacity, knowledge and wisdom for running the industry efficiently. They seems like mostly not interested to develop their industrial capacity. The only capacity they are showing so far is exploiting the labour force working at their factories at a highest level. They also consider labour as “Cheap” and that is their only capacity to compete in the Global market. But only with “Cheap Labour” they cannot possibly survive in this globalized world trade perspective. They must enhance other necessary capacities in order to survive in this trade. They must learn and start negotiation with the Brands and the Retailers considering all the industrial costs including a decent wage for the workers working at their factories.

There is growing concern for Bangladesh Ready made Garment sector of a huge setback from the market end. Consumers in the EU or USA may start rejecting products from Bangladesh as they are produced in an “Abusive and Exploitative” (Cheap) manner without bothering the Labour rights and working condition. Human rights groups and Trade Unions her also start campaign against the companies who are violating workers rights at the sourcing countries.

A win win deal for all the involved parties in this sector will also mean a decent wage and safe working condition for the workers and a proportion of the profit share for them. Its not just that profits are going to the Brands and the Industry owners keeping the workers into an abusive and poor condition.