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The Ethical Trading Initiative sent a delegation to Bangladesh last
month to try to establish the ‘underlying causes’ of recent violent
protests by garment workers there.
The protests about wages and working hours have resulted in the deaths of at least two workers, hundreds of injuries, the burning of more than 200 factories and scores of arrests.
Retailer members of ETI, including Asda, Gap, Marks & Spencer, Next, Tesco and Inditex account for a significant proportion of Bangladesh’s garment exports.
The delegation comprised ETI chair Alan Roberts, Neil Kearney, general secretary of the International Textile Garment and Leather Workers Federation, and representatives from Gap and Inditex. They met representatives of manufacturers’ associations, local unions, NGOs and the government, and visited affected factories.
The ETI said initial findings from the visit indicated that a sudden rush of garment orders into Bangladesh, partly due to technical readjustments in international trade agreements in May, had prompted the unrest. This had caused ‘tremendous pressure on factories to take on orders beyond their capacities’, the ETI said.
Roberts said that ‘intense delivery pressures’ on managers and supervisors had ‘apparently resulted in abusive behaviour towards workers’ and ‘grossly excessive hours’.
The team will now recommend steps ETI members can take ‘to help promote stability and improve working conditions’ in the Bangladeshi textile and garment industry.
The protests about wages and working hours have resulted in the deaths of at least two workers, hundreds of injuries, the burning of more than 200 factories and scores of arrests.
Retailer members of ETI, including Asda, Gap, Marks & Spencer, Next, Tesco and Inditex account for a significant proportion of Bangladesh’s garment exports.
The delegation comprised ETI chair Alan Roberts, Neil Kearney, general secretary of the International Textile Garment and Leather Workers Federation, and representatives from Gap and Inditex. They met representatives of manufacturers’ associations, local unions, NGOs and the government, and visited affected factories.
The ETI said initial findings from the visit indicated that a sudden rush of garment orders into Bangladesh, partly due to technical readjustments in international trade agreements in May, had prompted the unrest. This had caused ‘tremendous pressure on factories to take on orders beyond their capacities’, the ETI said.
Roberts said that ‘intense delivery pressures’ on managers and supervisors had ‘apparently resulted in abusive behaviour towards workers’ and ‘grossly excessive hours’.
The team will now recommend steps ETI members can take ‘to help promote stability and improve working conditions’ in the Bangladeshi textile and garment industry.
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