Wage battles erupt in the Bangladeshi garment sector – and unions can’t contain them
The past two weeks have seen mass walkouts and wildcat strikes by thousands of garment workers. After five years the industry’s minimum wage structure has been adjusted but workers have rejected the proposed new wage levels.
The protests began after the first announcement by the government Wage Board of the new wage levels in September. By December there was a large movement of factory walk outs and road blockades as workers rejected the deal. These struggles reignited in the past two weeks before a general drift back to work in recent days.
Grenfell Tower – the smoke & the mirrors
There is an ever-growing stream of media commentary on the Grenfell fire, increasing daily as the public enquiry unfolds. There are some elements in the media with the goal of obscuring or excusing the plain facts as part of a pre-emptive defence manoeuvre to protect those most implicated in what caused the fire and the 72 deaths. That they feel the need to use such distortions to defend the Grenfell landlords and those who ordered and oversaw the Grenfell refurbishment that fitted the lethal cladding only increases the suggestion of a general doubt on all sides about their innocence.
The Monopoly board of the city: Grenfell Tower - where was the HCA, government housing regulator??
The Homes & Community Agency(HCA) is the UK state regulatory body for social housing; its job is to monitor the performance, finances and provision of services of landlords. Missing from the media coverage of the Grenfell Tower fire disaster so far is any discussion of what relation the HCA has to this horror story of corporate murder. Given the years of complaints from Grenfell tenants(1) about their landlord the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation(KCTMO)(2), we can reasonably ask why the HCA never stepped in to investigate the terrible tenant-landlord relationship and the many fire safety complaints tenants had flagged up repeatedly before the fire broke out.
Behind the camouflage; a new strike wave in the Bangladeshi garment sector
The binds that tie: unions, ‘solidarity’, civil society and foreign policy in Bangladesh
Highs and lows of a wage rise - the new garment minimum wage
The Bangladeshi minimum wage board has, after long negotiations, announced a 76% increase in garment workers’ pay, applicable to all seven pay grades. This has quickly been hailed as a great victory by some observers. We’ll go into the details to show that it’s not the result the workers continue to demand and that any gains may not be long-lasting.
Who can ride the garment tiger?
The legacy of the dead - the Savar collapse, part 2
The house of cards: the Savar building collapse
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