On July 18, images of violently repressed demonstrations in Bangladesh
burst onto the screens and front pages of the international press. For afew weeks, we will be interested in these students who are fighting for
a story of employment quotas in the civil service... and whose agitation
is such that it will end up causing the flight and resignation of the
Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, in power since 2009. But as soon as the
"democratic process" was relaunched by the appointment of an interim
government in the first half of August, the spotlights turned away to
scan other more profitable skies, leaving the popular unrest following
this political agitation in a convenient shadow.
Bangladeshi workers continue to pay a heavy price for the colonization
they have already suffered: previously exploited for the production of
fibers - especially vegetable fibers - they are now exploited for the
production of ready-to-wear clothing, which places them among the
convicts of the modern world in the international division of labor.
Overall, there is little concern about commenting on their political and
social situation... except when their conditions of exploitation come to
light in the wake of mass industrial murder (the collapse of the Rana
Plaza in 2013 killed more than 1,000 textile workers) and when major
European brands (H&M, Mango, Benetton, Disney, Walmart, Carrefour,
Auchan) have to find a way to wash their hands of the working conditions
they impose there by negotiating prices and imposing delivery times. We
wanted to understand what the social situation was in Bangladesh, what
was at stake during the mass student demonstrations of the "July
movement" and what is at stake now in the workers' demonstrations that
are still ongoing as we finish writing this article. A quick overview...
The current territory of Bangladesh corresponds to the eastern part of
Bengal (map 1). Muslim since the 12th century, Bengal was integrated
into the Mughal Empire in the 16th century (in 1526); it then came under
British domination, through the East India Company, in 1757. From the
end of the 18th century, the British crown created presidencies allowing
it to more directly establish its domination over the "Indies",
including the Bengal Presidency in 1773. Bangladesh would therefore be
part of the British Indian Empire until their partition after the Second
World War.
In 1947, two new independent states were created: Pakistan, with a
Muslim majority, and India, with a Hindu majority (map 2). Bengal was
sliced up in the process: its historical territory was divided in two,
its western part integrated into Indian territory, and its eastern part
integrated into Pakistan, a strange country then formed of two
territories 1,700 km apart. East Pakistan, the future Bangladesh, lost
Calcutta, the only deep-water port on its coasts, newly integrated into
Indian territory, which significantly limited its possibilities for
independent trade. Present-day Bangladesh (map 3) has existed as an
independent state since 1971, the year of the so-called "national
liberation" war, which involved the Awami Muslim League of East Pakistan
- which would become the Awami League (LA), the party of Prime Minister
Hasina who was ousted last August - at the head of Bengali militias
(militarily aided by India) against the Pakistani army and its political
relays in East Pakistan (called collaborators). The war lasted 9 months,
caused between 1 and 3 million deaths and created 8 to 10 million
refugees. Since independence, the country has alternated between more or
less authoritarian bourgeois democracy and military regimes. The Awami
League ruled the country from 1970 to 1975: in 1970, before the war, the
party had won the elections in East Pakistan, which led the Pakistani
army to declare a state of emergency and invade the country and led the
AL to lead the uprising for independence. It had a socialist program at
the beginning, but the smokescreen was torn as soon as it came to power,
when its leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman - father of Sheikh Hasina - began
to govern in an autocratic manner, banning other parties and most
newspapers. In 1975, he faced a rebellion involving communist generals:
it was crushed in blood. This ultimately led to his own assassination
and that of his entire family (except his two daughters, who were out of
the country at the time) by a group of generals.
Martial law was declared in 1976 by General Ziaur Rahman, who physically
destroyed the left wing of the Awami League, and again in 1982 by
General Ershad.
Since the 1990s, two main parties have been competing: the Bangladesh
Nationalist Party (BNP) with Khaleda Zia (General Ziaur Rahman's wife)
as Prime Minister; the Awami League (led by Hasina) which, when it
returned to power, did so in the form of a bourgeois party with little
left of the initial socialist veneer. The appearances of democracy often
crack, to the point that in 2001 and again in 2006, elections were held
under the aegis of interim governments. The AL has been in power since
2009, with 4 elections "won" by Hasina, the last of which was in January
2024. Over the past fifteen years, the Awami League has extended its
influence over the state administration, the judiciary and the army, by
appointing its members as civil servants.
Commentators around the world regularly point out that the country's GDP
has increased significantly in recent decades... conveniently forgetting
a paradox: the number of poor people (living on less than $1.90 per day)
continues to increase (1). Between 2016 and 2020, it increased from 24%
to 35%. It seems that growth is not benefiting everyone...
This increase in GDP has come at the expense of cheap labour, in the
ready-made garment sector (employed in the northwest of Dhaka, in the
provinces of Gazipur, Ashalia and Savar), ship dismantling (concentrated
in Chittagong) or intensive shrimp farming, as well as in the export of
labour to the Middle East (mainly women sent to serve as domestics, many
of whom end up returning because of the exploitation and abuse suffered
there, without a penny in their pockets).
While during the period of British and Pakistani colonization, the
exploitation of the Bangladeshi labor force was centered around the
production of cotton, wool, hemp, jute and indigo, it is quite recently,
after its independence and under the regime of General Zia, that the
country's economy has been focused on the export of ready-to-wear
clothing: in 1978, there were only 9 exporting factories, forty years
later there are 6,876 production units. In 2020, ready-to-wear clothing
represents 87% of the country's exports and 17% of GDP, officially
employs 3 to 4 million workers - and 10 million more according to
estimates concerning the informal sector - who pay for 10 or 12-hour
days of daily work, 6 days a week officially and often 7 days a week
when it comes to completing orders (2).
In the fall of 2023, massive demonstrations in this sector fought to
obtain an increase in the basic salary to cope with inflation (7% in
2022 and 10% in 2023) and to increase it from 8,000 takas (EUR60) to
23,000 takas (EUR172). In February 2024, it was revised to 10,000 takas
(EUR75)... To give a scale of what these sums represent: in 2023, the
monthly rent for a one-room house was 5,000 to 6,000 takas. Obviously,
all independent, precarious, "freelance" workers are not affected by
these salary increases.
The workforce in the sector is 90% women, emigrated from the countryside
with the hope of sending money back home and in fact unable to do so due
to living conditions in the city (rents too expensive for spaces too
small). With the concentration of work in the cities and the influx of
300,000 people each year in the city of Dhaka alone, they are
transformed into vast shanty towns, in which 20% of workers report not
having access to a bed or toilets.
As for the conditions of -death at work, according to a review by Lutte
Ouvrière, "Since 1990, at least 31 fatal accidents have occurred in the
country's textile factories, mostly fires, killing more than 1,700
people; and this is still a low estimate, the State does not publish
statistics on the subject".
The origin of the uprising comes from the decision, taken by Hasina's
government on June 5, 2024, to reinstate the quota system in public
employment (abolished in 2018, following student revolts) reserving 30%
of public service positions for members of the family of heroes of the
1971 war of independence - a way of favoring its supporters.
Knowing that the quotas for reserved positions do not only concern this
category: 10% of positions are reserved for women, 10% for districts
based on population, 5% for ethnic minorities, 1% for people with
disabilities. This therefore leaves 44% of positions filled "on merit".
The protest movement began in Dhaka universities on June 6, despite the
fact that this situation actually concerns very few people: in 2022,
1,710 positions were open in the Bangladesh Civil Service for... 350,000
candidates for the entrance exam (3).
After a break of a few weeks in June for the holidays, the movement
resumed in early July under the banner "Students Against
Discrimination". The government in power, convinced that the unrest was
organized by the opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party,
carried out mass arrests of movement figures, students and BNP leaders
as well as demonstrators (11,000 arrests in total). However, while it is
true that all the student unions were involved, the movement as such
said that it was not affiliated and in particular distanced itself from
the BNP, whose views it did not share a priori on the question of
quotas: the students' demands were the repeal of the existing quota
system for government jobs, the creation of "fair" quotas for minorities
and the disabled, the revision of the law establishing a maximum of 5%
of reserved jobs, while the BNP's discourse was clearly reactionary and
was mainly interested in criticizing the share of positions reserved for
ethnic minorities, women and the disabled. From July 11, the movement
encountered police repression and from July 15, acts of retaliation by
student members of the Chhatra League of Bangladesh (student wing of the
Awami League). In the end, 600 people died as a result of clashes
between demonstrators or altercations between demonstrators and the
police or army between July 15 and August 5. Faced with the intensity of
the repression, other sectors joined the struggle from mid-July,
including the doctors' union and certain sectors of the textile
industry. On August 3, the student movement announced a "one-point
demand" namely the resignation of Hasina and her government, while
calling for a global movement of total "non-cooperation" (with the Awami
League in power) (3) from Saturday August 4. This movement involves no
longer paying taxes, bills; keeping public institutions and places of
study closed; the boycott of government events; the cessation of work in
factories and ports; the shutdown of public transport; the closure of
restaurants, hotels, luxury boutiques; the maintenance of hospitals,
pharmacies, ambulance services (etc.) and the opening of shops from 11am
to 1pm. This call will be heard by large sections of the working class:
on Saturday 4 August, demonstrations and blockades are massive (and the
repression, the most violent of this period: 97 people die that day). A
march on Dhaka is called for 5 August to demand the resignation of the
Prime Minister... who flees by helicopter to India, and will resign in
the following days. The date of 5 August is remembered as July 36...
The day after the Prime Minister fled, the army invited the leaders of
the non-discredited parties (PNB and Jamaat-e-Islami) to form a
provisional government. Muhammad Yunus was appointed as the chief
advisor to this interim government, leading a team of 17 people
(bureaucrats, retired military officers, lawyers, academics, 2 student
leaders, etc.). This outcome, which constitutes a sort of "cleaning up"
of representative democracy, can only seem disappointing after the
agitation of the summer that some call the "July Revolution," but how
can we be surprised? The demands at the beginning of the student
movement were those of people wishing to be integrated into the middle
class, while those that emerged later, namely to "remove" the leaders,
can only lead to their replacement by others, supposedly more virtuous,
and do not carry any emancipatory prospects. It seems important to us to
say a few words about Yunus... and his Grameen Bank, a famous credit
organization resulting from a "social" partnership with Danone, whose
ambition is nothing less than to "solve poverty" by giving access to
credit to the poor so that they themselves create the conditions for
their exploitation (5), and, in passing, make a profit with a social
veneer. In short.
He did not come to the head of the government by chance, he is a
ready-made intermediary between Western firms and Bangladeshi employers
to be able to continue "business as usual": managing the exploitation of
workers in the best interests of the capitalists. It is towards the
ready-to-wear clothing bosses, those who were already running the
country before the uprising (6) and who will undoubtedly continue to run
it, that Yunus turned first to "rebuild" the economy (7)... As for the
future elections, the students have declared that they will create a new
party. But in any case, the two traditional parties will confront each
other, hoping to capitalize on the discredit of the AL. The PNB of
course, which channels the protest of the various mobilizations of
recent years and has already taken advantage of the unrest to organize
two meetings since Hasina's departure and the Jamaat-e-Islami which has
never yet had the opportunity to discredit itself in power.
If the anger of the students has calmed down (they went so far as to
demonstrate to demand the banning of all political activity by students,
professors and unions on the campus of the University of Dhaka - which
was obtained on September 20 (8)), the workers' combativeness has not
subsided. As if the workers are not resting on the laurels of this
provisional government to defend them and intend to win their case by
themselves. Since mid-August, a strike movement crossing the different
sectors has been shaking the coconut tree of capitalist exploitation.
Highlights:
August 13: 380 Synovia Pharma PLC workers staged a sit-in to demand...
31 months of back pay.
August 14: Unemployed garment workers blocked roads in Tongi, demanding
work and equal employment for men and women (9).
August 15: Anoxara Dress Makers Ltd. workers occupied the road in front
of their factory to demand payment of back pay. At the same time,
workers from Opso Saline Ltd. in Barishal stopped work and occupied
their factory to demand a wage increase and the right to organize.
August 16: 3,000 cotton workers from Naheed Cotton Mills Ltd. in Tangail
occupied the Dhaka-Tangail highway to demand a wage increase.
August 18: Women IT workers occupied the street in front of Yunus'
residence to demand that their jobs be civil servants. They are part of
a program that facilitates access to these professions for women in
rural areas. Also on August 18, hundreds of railway security workers
invaded their administration building: they locked the rest of their
colleagues inside, and made a "one-point" demand: that their jobs be
civil servants.
Fast forward to September (due to lack of space): the situation has not
calmed down. Strikes, factory occupations, road blockades are almost
daily occurrences...
September 10: Workers in the textile industry, as well as dismissed
workers and the unemployed, organized the blockade of major highways,
demanding equal hiring for men and women (9). The movement has spread to
the pharmaceutical and food production sectors.
September 11: The garment employers' union declared that 129 ready-made
garment factories would be closed the following day, after workers took
to the streets to demand better working conditions. September 17: Nurses
across the country demonstrated to demand that all senior positions in
the Nursing and Midwifery Council be filled by nursing and midwifery
workers, not bureaucrats (in response to the interim government's
decision to retain a bureaucrat as registrar). Also on September 17, 31
ready-made garment factories in the Gazipur district were closed due to
protests by thousands of workers (15 of them under the employers' "no
work, no pay" scheme, which is unfavourable to workers. In 4 of these,
workers managed to enter while refusing to work, which is arguably more
favourable for demanding wages). Workers at Veritas Pharmaceuticals Ltd.
presented a "nine-point" demand, including a wage increase.
Most of the strikes, road blockades or factory blockades seem to be
spontaneous and not emanating from the union leadership. It seems that
the majority of the sabotage actions or factory occupations are
initiated by the unemployed or workers fired from their factories.
This is a new situation compared to previous major strike movements,
including the massive strike movement in the textile sector in the fall
of 2023 for wage increases, which saw the closure of 600 ready-to-wear
factories, the burning of some of them, road blockades, but whose
organization was very clearly assumed by the PNB... ahead of the January
2024 elections (at the same time it campaigned for the establishment of
an interim government for the holding of the elections).
The lack of identifiable leaders and the withdrawal of trade unions has
led the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association
(BGMEA) - the employers' union - and its media outlets to allege that
the unrest in ready-made garment factories is not the work of workers in
the sector, to sort out the "real" protesters (workers) from the "fake"
ones taking advantage of the unrest, and to question the real direction
of the movement. Where one might expect them, some trade union
organizations are distinguishing themselves by the role of co-management
of the crisis and are also participating in spreading the idea that the
workers are not at the origin of the strikes, but that they are due to
elements outside the working class, urging the workers to go through
them to begin a "multilateral dialogue" and the police "to repress this
anarchy" (10) ... The BGMEA has for the moment refused any form of
concession in the face of the anger of the street.
So, it may not be anarchy, but let's keep an eye on what is in any case
more than a tremor of the working class and hope that the Bangladeshis
will push their advantage even further in the coming weeks.
Jolan
Sources: Dndf, Lutte Ouvrière website, Dhaka Tribune, CISO, Le Monde...
Trade union organizations
The specificity of Bangladesh is that most of the unions are affiliated:
each national political party has its own trade union confederation
which it uses in its political maneuvers. Even if they feed on the
terrible working conditions, the massiveness of the strikes must
therefore be put into perspective according to the political deadlines.
They are often organized by the party in opposition in order to
destabilize political life. Both the PNB and the LA have used the strike
as a political tool during their alternation since the 90s.
In 1977, the Zia government introduced a system of compulsory
registration of unions, still in force, imposing a participation
threshold of 30% of employees to be able to form a union in a factory.
It is therefore difficult for them to exist in large factories, and even
more so independently of a political party. However, there are several
(in ready-to-wear: Bangladesh Garment Workers Unity Council, BGWUC;
Council for Garment Workers Struggles, CGWS, ...)
In contrast to these workers' organizations, the BGMEA, the
ready-to-wear employers' union, is very organized and in fact holds
political power.
NOTES
(1) The GDP/capita is around EUR1,500/year.
(2) The figures concerning the textile industry, its weight in the
economy, as well as the description of working conditions come from the
report: The garment industry in Bangladesh (...), produced by the
International Center for Workers' Solidarity (CISO), written by Judith Kohl.
(3) Figures should also be compared with the number of students: 4
million students enrolled in higher education in 2020, out of 170
million people living in the country.
(4) As a voluntary echo to the movement of the same name that had
opposed the Bengalis to the Pakistani power in 1970, before the war of
independence.
(5) See the excellent review of his book on the Inprecor website by
typing "Yunus and the Grameen Bank"
(6) Until the dissolution of the assembly in August 2024, 30% of
ready-to-wear bosses were deputies... 10% of deputies were bosses in
clothing.
(7) On the Dhaka tribune website, search for "prof yunus urges garment
industry to aid in"
(8) Still on Dhaka tribune, search for "DU bans all forms of political
activities"
(9) And no! This is not a feminist struggle... men are leading this
demand for "equality" because in several industries, employers are more
likely to take on women, 70% of whom are illiterate in Bangladesh,
ignorant of their rights (because they emigrated from the countryside)
and considered more docile. (10) On Dndf: see the article of September
6, 2024 on Bangladesh
http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4260
_________________________________________
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