The New York Times reported this morning on the torture and murder of a labor activist in Bangladesh, whose "crime" was encouraging workers to organize for better pay in a country where the wage for most apparel workers is 18 cents an hour.
Bangladesh is no backwater in the context of the global apparel industry: it is now the fourth largest exporter of apparel to the United States and the second biggest producer globally, with more than 3.5 million apparel workers. It is a major center for production for Wal-Mart (which buys 10% of all the apparel Bangladesh produces), Target, H&M, Gap, Nike, Ralph Lauren, JC Penney and numerous other US retailers and brands.
Why are these companies producing in Bangladesh? Because it is the cheapest place in the world to make clothing. Those rock-bottom prices are, of course, made possible by wages of 18 cents an hour, by an appalling lack of attention to worker safety (which is why nearly 500 workers have been killed in factory fires in the last several years), and by the brutal repression of any attempt by workers to unionize.
The absurdly low wages and harsh working conditions inevitably give rise to worker unrest and the only way for the factory owners and the government to keep a lid on growing demands for better wages is to slap down anyone who emerges as a leader of protest. To date, threats, detention by the security forces, beatings, and trumped of criminal charges have been the preferred tactics. Now, they are killing people.
Aminul Islam, an organizer with the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity, was kidnapped, tortured and murdered on Thursday, his body dumped on a roadside. Aminul was one of the most prominent labor rights advocates in the country. A former apparel worker himself, he was fired for trying to start a union at his factory. He then became a full-time organizer, a cause he worked at courageously and tirelessly until his death last week. He had already been detained and tortured two years ago. The security forces said they would stop the torture if he would give false testimony against his fellow organizers. He told them to go to hell. Eventually he managed to escape.
Aminul knew the risks very well, but he refused to stop fighting for a decent wage for apparel workers in Bangladesh.
So the authorities apparently decided to silence him once and for all. Before they killed him, his captors smashed both of his ankles, broke all of his toes, drilled holes in his kneecap. Their message to other labor rights advocates in Bangladesh could not be clearer.
For years, international labor rights groups have called on Wal-Mart, and the other big apparel retailers and brands, to use the enormous political clout they have in Bangladesh to pressure the government and the factory owners to cease their repression of labor rights advocates. Groups have also called on these companies to increase the prices they pay their suppliers by a few pennies per garment, to make it possible for workers to be paid a decent wage. The companies have responded to these calls for minimally decent corporate behavior with endless rhetorical evasions and no meaningful action.
Labor rights groups and unions around the world are working this week to bring as much public attention as possible to this horrible crime. The only way the apparel brands and retailers in the US, and the elite in Bangladesh, will ever change course is if mass public shame and embarrassment forces them to do so.
Please share this information with friends and colleagues. And visit the website of the International Labor Rights Forum for updates and opportunities to take action.
See also this story from ABC News.