Bangladesh

Bangladesh workers still in battle

The government-appointed body responsible for setting the minimum wage in Bangladesh’s garment industry has agreed to raise it 56% on 1 December. That sounds good, particularly when the garment bosses proposed 25%. In fact, workers are outraged. The previous minimum of 8,300 Taka (£61) a month was a dire poverty wage, and one long eroded by inflation. The last increase was in 2018. As we reported last week, workers and unions have been staging militant strikes and protests for 23,000 Taka. Following the announcement of the new minimum wage protests have surged again. Four workers have been...

Bangladesh garment workers resist

As we went to press on 7 November, Bangladesh’s wage board was due to set a new figure for the minimum wage in the country’s garment industry. The week before saw a virtual uprising by the country’s garment workers, with hundreds of thousands on strike, militant mass demonstrations and a factory in industrial city Gazipur burned. Two deaths of workers have been reported, one of them of garment industry electrician Russel Hawlader, confirmed shot by the police. Bangladesh is the world’s second largest “ready made garments” exporter after China, and the sector accounts for 80% of its export...

Citizens spurned by the UK

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe (on right) and her husband join protest to demand freedom for Alaa Abd el-Fattah Jailed Egyptian democracy activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah, whose profile rose during COP27 because the summit was in Egypt and he is a UK citizen, is still alive. His family has finally been allowed to see him , and reports his hunger strike was broken by the regime, which forced him to take intravenous fluids. They revealed many harrowing new details of the most recent period of his decade behind bars. There are over 60,000 political prisoners in Egypt’s jails. The UK labour movement should...

Tea workers on strike

Tea workers, members of Bangladesh Cha Sramik Union (Bangladesh Tea Workers Union, BCSU), held a daily two-hour strike from 9 August to 12 August. On August 13, this escalated to a full day strike of 150,000 workers at more than 200 Bangladeshi tea plantations. Bangladesh is amongst the leading tea exporters in the world, with hundreds of plantations across the country. Most tea workers in the Muslim-majority country are low-caste Hindus, the descendants of labourers brought to the plantations by colonial-era British planters. The tea industry is dominated by women workers who, despite long...

Bangladesh tea-producing workers strike

On 13 August 150,000 tea-producing workers in Bangladesh began an indefinite strike against poverty wages. The Bangladesh Cha Sramik Union (BCSU, Bangladesh Tea Workers Union) is calling for an increase in the daily wage from 120 taka to 300. 120 taka is about £1; workers on some plantations get slightly less. The owners are offering 14 taka. Inflation is running at about 8% in Bangladesh. Even in this very low-wage country, very few earn as little as the tea workers; three quarters of them live in poverty according to the Bangladeshi government’s metric, against 21% overall. This in an...

1971: Bangladesh's "Liberation War"

The first part of this series, ‘The origins of Bangladesh and Pakistan’s 1968’ , was published in December 2021. “Kill three million and the rest will eat out of our hands.” So Pakistani dictator Yahya Khan is said to have told his top brass in March 1971, as they prepared war against the people of East Bengal. By the time Bangladesh – “Bengal Nation” – gained its independence in December, Pakistan’s army had murdered at least several hundred thousand civilians and many more had died from disease, malnutrition, etc. These were among the worst atrocities of the 20th century, seeking to suppress...

The origins of Bangladesh and Pakistan's 1968

East Pakistan, 1969 Part two, telling the story of the war itself, is here . Fifty years ago one of history’s biggest anti-colonial struggles triumphed. On 16 December 1971, the Pakistani armed forces that had waged a nine-month campaign of genocidal mass murder to subjugate Pakistan’s eastern half surrendered in the face of Indian military intervention. East Pakistan – East Bengal – became the independent state of Bangladesh. The Bengali people of East Pakistan were among the largest of the many nations to throw off colonial rule in the 20th century. In 1971 Bangladesh’s population, 66...

Bangladesh fire deaths: murder by capitalists

On 9 July a fire at the Shezan Juice food and drink factory outside the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka killed dozens of workers. Initial reports confirmed 52 deaths, but searches were ongoing. 49 died from the fire and three after jumping from third floor windows; dozens were injured in that way. Some of the murdered workers were children. The workers were trapped by an illegally locked door. Yet Abul Hashem, chairman and managing director of Sajeeb Group, which owned the factory, has refused to accept any responsibility and blamed “workers’ carelessness”. For years Bangladesh has seen repeated...

UN report condemns Myanmar military

A United Nations report into the ongoing ethnic cleansing being carried out by Myanmar’s military against its Rohingya Muslim minority has concluded that senior military figures should be investigated for genocide and crimes against humanity. The report calls for the case to be referred to the International Criminal Court. It also refers to “severe, systemic, and institutionalised oppression” meted out to Rohingya people “from birth to death” by the Myanmar state. Among the documented crimes are torture, rape, and enslavement. A further report is expected on 18 September. The latest attacks...

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