Problems of the Bangladesh Ready Made Garment sector Essay Example for Free

Problems of the Bangladesh Ready Made Garment field EssayIn recent time it is argued that the crisis in the Ready Made Garment (RMG) sector is not only limited to the absorbs and fees of the workers. Productions and exports of the factories have decreased and the price of the app arls is decreasing in the international market. The owners of this industry allege that, the supply of gas and electrical energy is not continuous, because of which they are to use generators to keep the production process of the factories uninterrupted, resulting in the increasing cost of productions. But it is urgent to reduce the cost of production to observe with the impertinent buyers demand and the competitive international price. Moreover, serious and untoward incidents in the form of chaos and confusions are frequent in this sector on the posterior of rumours and petty demands of the workers. It has be move into a way of frequently destroying factories by spreading news of misbehaviour of t he factory owners with the workers. Even if such allegations are true, it th at a lower place mugnot to a fault be denied that there occur frequent abnormal deaths of workers in the garments factories.Major shocking incidents like the collapse of Rana Plaza in Savar on April 24 2013 kill 1130 workers and crippling about an some other 1500 of 2438 rescued alive and with about 316 missing. Fire incidents in Tazreen Fashions in Ashulia on November 24 2012 killed at least 112 workers. It is also alleged that kidney diseases are widespread among the garments workers as they are discouraged to drink water during duty hours, since this may cause them to repeatedly go to the urinal causing a issue to work time.In fact the garments workers sweat their blood in producing garments in the factories and it is alleged that for months after months the owners do not come to the factories the factories are usually strike by the salaried officials who habitually misbehave with the hard working labourers of the factories. It is immoral to consume the fruits of the workers by sitting idle without their consent although it is usual in capitalist economy that its highest executives spend their time sitting on public committees, and have to have deputies to do their work (Lewis, W.Arthur, 1954, Economic Development with Unlimited Supplies of Labour). In the face of movements of the apparels workers for aerodynamic lift wages and other demands in 2006, the Export Development Bureau and Bangladesh Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) sources said that apparels prices in the international market are gradually falling. Available statistics utter that apparels prices increased gradually from the social class 1994-95 to 2000-01 with a slight fall in the year 1995-96 compared to the immediate past year after which price jumped.Then from the year 2001-02 prices fell continuously without break up to the last available year 2009-10 (July to November). This caused the apparels owners un imparting to accept Taka 5,000 from Tk. 1662 as minimum wage suggested in the unfermented lucre Structure 2010 for the garments workers, because this will, in their view, adversely affect the garments sector. The owners proposed Taka 2,513 as minimum wage for the second time in 2010. Afterwards political sympathies interventions made the BGMEA accept the New Wage Structure July 29 2010 with Taka 3,000 as minimum wage.If it is just, there is no question but if unjust, in that case Al Quran reads Woe unto the defrauders, those who when they coin the measure from mankind demand it full, but if they measure unto them or weigh for them, they cause them loss (Quran, 831-3). Recently, after the collapse of the Rana Plaza, the government has persistent to form a Wage Board to look after the minimum wages of the apparels workers with possible annual increases in that.The Garments Owners claim that, a certain tooshie has started hatching conspiracies to destroy t he RMG sector of the country. The external miscreants by intruding the RMG establishments in the guise of workers have started misdeeds. They are being instigated and used by certain interest quarters from outside. The concerned parties have identified six causes behind their attempts to destroy the RMG sector.These are (a) The foreign buyers recent inclination to Bangladesh, (b) The instigation of some external powers, (c) The financial aid of local influential quarters and the so called labour leaders, (d) The intrusion of the jutting outs miscreants in to the garments factories, (e) The differences of opinions of the political miscreants centering the occupation of the Jhut sector, and (f) The internal feud among the labour leaders.The genuine workers have no affiliations with these factors and the garments establishments are getting jobs these days. May be there are conspiracies to harm the RMG sector of Bangladesh. But when the disturbances in this sector erupt tens of thous ands of workers come down on the streets which are pictured in the national and international electronic and print media. It is illogical to conclude that all of them are miscreants. There may be some who fan the fire of discontents in the minds of the deprived workers.If the workers are satisfied with and had there been no serious discontents in their minds about what is going on in this sector, it would have been almost impossible to drag down on the streets tens of thousands of innocent content workers by a single or a series of mobile calls of the miscreants from out side and at the same time the disguised miscreants inside the factories could do little harm to this sector. Our habit is to expect too oft from law and law enforcing agencies. We forget that they have some natural limits to their capacities.They can at best suppress the problems for the time being but not permanently cure the actual problems prevailing in the factories. It is the owners of the factories who can p lay the pivotal role in bringing about peace in the factories by allowing the workers their cod share to their produce in the form of satisfactory wages and allowances by cutting down the excess greed for profiteering and the workers active participations in decisions making. It is not tolerable by good nose out to earn excessive profits by coercing the workers by the owners or by the purchasers of apparels by foreign rich buyers.Good sense prefers to advise the business community to ascertain a mid-course between the highest and the lowest margin of profits for success of this industry like any other industry. The garments owners will have to understand that the minimum wage of a garments worker is Taka 3,000. Actually new wage rate is basically Taka 2,000, of the remaining Taka 1,000, Taka 800 is house rent allowance and Taka 200 is medical allowance, which like other allowances are not usually included in the basic wage/pay in any other services. The minimum basic pay excludin g other allowances for a government employee is Taka 6,545). It is difficult for the workers to survive with this meagre amount of money under the prevailing high prices of mundane necessities. As a result suppressed despair and discontent is naturally there in the minds of the workers which burst out from time to time, as we see, in the factories causing unrest and disturbances. To control this is beyond the capacity of the law enforcing agencies and the government cannot and should not always shoulder such selfish interests and responsibilities of the private factory owners at ublic be even though the factory owners pay taxes. They are to solve their own problems by consoling the workers by allowing them satisfactory wages, security and congenial working environments. Governments can at best assist them in these regards. It is also alleged that, some fire international quarters are hatching conspiracies to divert the attention of the buyers from the Bangladesh apparels industr y.These interested quarters want widespread unrest should spread and prevail in this industry so that the buyers rush to them for buying apparels and become beneficiaries. Under different color the rival competing countries are deeply feeding fuel behind different movements of the garments workers to engage in destructive activities such as breaking of and torching spree to garments factories. It is also alleged that the factories which are being broken now, their wages and allowances are satisfactory, id est. he compliance factories are being mainly targeted for attack. Garments owners and exporters also allege that, in the call in of just wages for the workers some private organizations are instigating the workers to create trouble in the factories. The officials of these Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) spread discontent among the workers under different pleas and they send the news of such unrest to even different international media. Such news makes the foreign buyers wo rried in this peak period (Mach-August) and the buyers may turn their face from Bangladesh.If under such circumstances workers unrest spread wide, the garments sector will not survive. So in the prevailing circumstances, owners and exporters of apparels have been thrown into panic. The BGMEA leaders claim that, the wage payments of the workers in factories have not been stopped even in the period of international recession. They say presently it is the occupiers of Jhut trading, along with other problems, which create unrest in the garments industries not the actual workers.Leader of the Combined Garment Workers Federation (CGWF) maintains that, the problems can be solved through mutual understanding and not by shutdown down the factories. The CGWF leader indicates that there are some pending problems of the actual workers also in the garments factories. These problems are to be solved by the factory owners either individually at the factory level or collectively at the sector leve l as a whole, so that the national and international self seekers cannot utilize the innocent workers to serve their heinous designs.On the other hand, some of the privileged labour leaders of the garments industries frequently or occasionally visit versatile foreign countries under the patronage of some interested national and international quarters. They have amassed huge amount of money and property and ride costly cars. They are also accused of blackmailing both the factory owners and the workers of this sector and causing disturbances that erupt from time to time in this successful sector of the Bangladesh economy.However, we want an end to the recently become shaky condition of the Bangladesh RMG sector and it to stand erect with factory owners own consciousness and sense of responsibility and active surveillance and assistance of the government to this vital sector directly employing 4. 0 million workers, 20 million people indirectly depending on it and earning about US$19 billion foreign exchange per annum amounting to about 78% of total foreign exchange earnings of the economy, so that it does not has to accept the fate of the once prosperous jute industry of the country.