Labor Unrest in the Ready-Made Garment Industry of Bangladesh

Abstract

For the last two decades, Ready-Made Garment (RMG) Industry has been the life-blood of the economy of Bangladesh. This sector accounted for about 80% of the total export earnings of the country. In the recent years, it has been observed that the workers have came down in the street and making insurgence on their demand and tried to destruct public properties. As a result, companies are losing working-hours and production targets. It also hampers export earnings and the image of the country to the international markets. In this connection, this study tried to find out the factors behind the unrest in the ready-made garment industry of Bangladesh and identifies some measures to improve the situation. In this study, 244 workers were interviewed from the different garment factories located in Savar and Gazipur district of Bangladesh. Data were analyzed with factor analysis, regression model, and by using other suitable statistical tools. The results show that the main causes of labor unrest include lack of minimum facility and safety at work, sub-standard living conditions, deferred payment of wages and benefits, international conspiracy and coercive role of the law enforcing agency, too much dependency on buyers, pressures from the workers and local terrorists, use of workers by others and rumors, un-fulfillment of education demands of their children, distorted minded workers, political instability of the country, too much workload, lack of promotion opportunity, insufficient wages to survive etc. If the policy makers of Bangladesh consider these causes and make policies to overcome the problems the labor unrest in garment sector may be minimized.