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Bangladeshi Workers’ Courage Inspires New Era Strikers: Visitors Describe Terrible Abuses by US Su
Janu Akther, a 22-year-old factory worker from Bangladesh, was stunned to learn that baseball caps she sews for pennies an hour in one of her country’s notorious sweatshops sell for nearly $20 in the United States.
“That is more than I earn in a whole month,” the visiting worker told 200 striking members of CWA Local 14177 at a November rally outside the New Era Cap Co. in Derby, N.Y.
Speaking through a translator, Akther, along with a second garment worker and a workers’ rights activist from Bangladesh, inspired the crowd with their courage. In a country with scarce protections for speech or workers’ rights, the women are standing up against sweatshops that exploit desperately poor workers to supply cheap goods for U.S. companies, including New Era.
“Our workers were very receptive to what the women from Bangladesh said,” Local President Jane Howald reported. “It was very moving. There were a lot of hugs — the international language.”
The women visited the Derby plant in the middle of a three-week national speaking tour organized by the National Labor Committee. Janu Akther is employed by Actor Garments, which makes ball caps for many American universities. Nasrin Akther works for a company that makes Disney’s “Pooh” clothing.
The women described 14-hour days with a single 10-minute break, said they get only one to two days off per month and are paid 8 to 14 cents an hour. For that, they work in stifling factories with filthy air and water, breeding illness and disease. They suffer severe pain as well from sitting on stools with no backs for hours at a time.
They can be docked a full day’s wage for making a mistake, can’t use the bathroom without permission, and risk being fired — or physically assaulted — for trying to reason with a supervisor, let alone trying to organize fellow workers.
“On the production line, there are 30 machines with 30 operators and 10 helpers. The supervisors give us a target of 370 caps per hour, but we can barely complete 320, so we have to work as fast as we can,” Janu Akther said in a statement on the NLC website. “Because of this, we sometimes make mistakes and then the supervisors shout at us and call us bad names, or they slap us, or hit us with a stick or cap or jab us with scissors. Sometimes we cry, and then they threaten us not to cry.”
Janu Akther is paid a base wage of 965 taka a month and she doubles that amount because of forced overtime and lack of days off. Still, she lives in desperate poverty, sharing a tiny room with three co-workers. They sleep two to a bed and have no other furniture, not even a chair or table. “Many people have asked me how much I would have to earn so as not to live in misery,” she said. “I think that if we could earn 4,000 to 5,000 taka a month (about 34 cents an hour), we could live with some decency.”
By the time workers are 30 to 35, they lose their jobs to younger employees. “They leave with no severance, no savings. They leave with nothing. So they have to return to their villages to beg,” she said.
Adding to the indignities, workers are ordered to lie to American buyers when they visit the plants. “We have to say that we are receiving our wage on time, with correct overtime, and that we have one day off a week and we never work after 8 at night,” she said. “They also tell us to wear our best clothes and to put on make-up so we will look healthy.”
Akther’s ball cap company is not known to be a supplier for New Era, but at least one other Bangladeshi company with a similar track record is — Pro Sports, Ltd.
This year the Bangladesh Independent Garment Union Federation, a partner of the AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Center, interviewed some of the Pro Sports, Ltd. workers.
Employees said they work six to seven days a week, up to 12 hours a day for as little as 10 cents an hour. They described fire danger — loose wires, lighting problems and fabric on the floor — but said the plant has no emergency exit.
The risk of fire and other disasters in the garment factories is extreme. In November 2000 in Bangladesh, 51 garment workers died in a factory fire, including eight children ages 10 to 14. In August 2001, 23 people were crushed to death and 100 workers were critically injured at another plant when they tried to flee a building during a fire alarm that turned out to be false.
The Pro Sport workers further described mental and physical abuse. One woman said her boss slapped her when she was sick and felt unable to work and two other workers said they’d seen supervisors strike employees. “Often the supervisor hits the workers if they protest against any rude behavior,” one worker said. They said supervisors also yell and curse at workers.
The situation in China, another exporter of New Era caps, also is horrifying. Workers put in extremely long hours in China and have no rights of assembly or speech. They can be fired for speaking to anyone about factory conditions and can be imprisoned in a labor camp or psychiatric hospital for attempting to organize.
Workers in China are paid an average of 23 cents an hour, a poverty wage. The National Labor Committee, a human and labor rights organization, says China’s living wage standard is 87 cents an hour.
CWA President Morton Bahr called New Era’s business dealings overseas “shameful and inexcusable, even for a company that has shown such disregard and contempt for its American workers. New Era has proven to be an eager player in the race to the bottom, one more dishonorable company on a long list of brand-name apparel makers who are willing to exploit workers around the world for profit.”
In the United States, two workers’ rights groups have issued damning reports about the company’s behavior in Derby, one describing New Era as a “sweatshop employer” over issues of health, safety, job security and wage cuts. Meanwhile, the company has spent $80 million for an exclusive contract with Major League Baseball.
Workers in Derby have been on strike since July 16, fighting severe cuts in wages and health benefits. New Era faces numerous unfair labor practice charges for refusing to bargain in good faith and has also been cited by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration for violating safety rules.
As badly as New Era has treated its Derby workforce, Howald said members of Local 14177 realize the situation is even more grim for oppressed workers overseas who have no National Labor Relations Board or OSHA rules to protect them. “Although we’re on strike and could lose our jobs, these people could lose their lives,” she said.
A full report on Bangladesh sweatshops and the workers’ tour in the United States is available on the National Labor Committee’s website at www.nlcnet.org.
“That is more than I earn in a whole month,” the visiting worker told 200 striking members of CWA Local 14177 at a November rally outside the New Era Cap Co. in Derby, N.Y.
Speaking through a translator, Akther, along with a second garment worker and a workers’ rights activist from Bangladesh, inspired the crowd with their courage. In a country with scarce protections for speech or workers’ rights, the women are standing up against sweatshops that exploit desperately poor workers to supply cheap goods for U.S. companies, including New Era.
“Our workers were very receptive to what the women from Bangladesh said,” Local President Jane Howald reported. “It was very moving. There were a lot of hugs — the international language.”
The women visited the Derby plant in the middle of a three-week national speaking tour organized by the National Labor Committee. Janu Akther is employed by Actor Garments, which makes ball caps for many American universities. Nasrin Akther works for a company that makes Disney’s “Pooh” clothing.
The women described 14-hour days with a single 10-minute break, said they get only one to two days off per month and are paid 8 to 14 cents an hour. For that, they work in stifling factories with filthy air and water, breeding illness and disease. They suffer severe pain as well from sitting on stools with no backs for hours at a time.
They can be docked a full day’s wage for making a mistake, can’t use the bathroom without permission, and risk being fired — or physically assaulted — for trying to reason with a supervisor, let alone trying to organize fellow workers.
“On the production line, there are 30 machines with 30 operators and 10 helpers. The supervisors give us a target of 370 caps per hour, but we can barely complete 320, so we have to work as fast as we can,” Janu Akther said in a statement on the NLC website. “Because of this, we sometimes make mistakes and then the supervisors shout at us and call us bad names, or they slap us, or hit us with a stick or cap or jab us with scissors. Sometimes we cry, and then they threaten us not to cry.”
Janu Akther is paid a base wage of 965 taka a month and she doubles that amount because of forced overtime and lack of days off. Still, she lives in desperate poverty, sharing a tiny room with three co-workers. They sleep two to a bed and have no other furniture, not even a chair or table. “Many people have asked me how much I would have to earn so as not to live in misery,” she said. “I think that if we could earn 4,000 to 5,000 taka a month (about 34 cents an hour), we could live with some decency.”
By the time workers are 30 to 35, they lose their jobs to younger employees. “They leave with no severance, no savings. They leave with nothing. So they have to return to their villages to beg,” she said.
Adding to the indignities, workers are ordered to lie to American buyers when they visit the plants. “We have to say that we are receiving our wage on time, with correct overtime, and that we have one day off a week and we never work after 8 at night,” she said. “They also tell us to wear our best clothes and to put on make-up so we will look healthy.”
Akther’s ball cap company is not known to be a supplier for New Era, but at least one other Bangladeshi company with a similar track record is — Pro Sports, Ltd.
This year the Bangladesh Independent Garment Union Federation, a partner of the AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Center, interviewed some of the Pro Sports, Ltd. workers.
Employees said they work six to seven days a week, up to 12 hours a day for as little as 10 cents an hour. They described fire danger — loose wires, lighting problems and fabric on the floor — but said the plant has no emergency exit.
The risk of fire and other disasters in the garment factories is extreme. In November 2000 in Bangladesh, 51 garment workers died in a factory fire, including eight children ages 10 to 14. In August 2001, 23 people were crushed to death and 100 workers were critically injured at another plant when they tried to flee a building during a fire alarm that turned out to be false.
The Pro Sport workers further described mental and physical abuse. One woman said her boss slapped her when she was sick and felt unable to work and two other workers said they’d seen supervisors strike employees. “Often the supervisor hits the workers if they protest against any rude behavior,” one worker said. They said supervisors also yell and curse at workers.
The situation in China, another exporter of New Era caps, also is horrifying. Workers put in extremely long hours in China and have no rights of assembly or speech. They can be fired for speaking to anyone about factory conditions and can be imprisoned in a labor camp or psychiatric hospital for attempting to organize.
Workers in China are paid an average of 23 cents an hour, a poverty wage. The National Labor Committee, a human and labor rights organization, says China’s living wage standard is 87 cents an hour.
CWA President Morton Bahr called New Era’s business dealings overseas “shameful and inexcusable, even for a company that has shown such disregard and contempt for its American workers. New Era has proven to be an eager player in the race to the bottom, one more dishonorable company on a long list of brand-name apparel makers who are willing to exploit workers around the world for profit.”
In the United States, two workers’ rights groups have issued damning reports about the company’s behavior in Derby, one describing New Era as a “sweatshop employer” over issues of health, safety, job security and wage cuts. Meanwhile, the company has spent $80 million for an exclusive contract with Major League Baseball.
Workers in Derby have been on strike since July 16, fighting severe cuts in wages and health benefits. New Era faces numerous unfair labor practice charges for refusing to bargain in good faith and has also been cited by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration for violating safety rules.
As badly as New Era has treated its Derby workforce, Howald said members of Local 14177 realize the situation is even more grim for oppressed workers overseas who have no National Labor Relations Board or OSHA rules to protect them. “Although we’re on strike and could lose our jobs, these people could lose their lives,” she said.
A full report on Bangladesh sweatshops and the workers’ tour in the United States is available on the National Labor Committee’s website at www.nlcnet.org.