The news comes after the Guardian revealed last month that an “outspoken” worker at the same factory claimed she was beaten up on the orders of management and threatened with murder. The Fair Wear Foundation (FWF), a membership organisation paid by brands to improve working conditions, is investigating after a complaint was received about the workers’ plight at Dird’s factory. These workers are picked intentionally so there is no voice left in a factory to fight against retaliation and form a union.”ĭird insists that the workers who left resigned of their own volition. In many cases they were union leaders in their respective factories.
“The workers that got fired know the law and their rights. Kalpona Akter, executive director of the Bangladesh Centre for Worker Solidarity, who worked as a child labourer in textile factories, said: “The huge number of dismissals over wage protests shows how workers’ voices have been suppressed and how they are lacking freedom of expression. Meanwhile, some higher-grade factory workers who already earned more than 8,000 taka a month received only small increases, it is claimed. The new minimum wage for the sector is 8,000 taka (£71.34) a month, half what the 16,000 campaigners had been demanding and well short of living wage estimates. Photograph: Munir Uz Zaman/AFP/Getty Images They are among more than 7,500 employees at 27 factories in Bangladesh who have lost their jobs in recent weeks, according to union leaders, amid widespread protests and strike action over the imposition of a new minimum wage – which critics argue is too low – for the country’s garment industry.īangladeshi garment workers block a road during a demonstration to demand higher wages in Dhaka. Machinists at the factory say they have been sacked en masse after striking over wages in January. In one case, a female employee was beaten on the orders of the management and threatened with murder.Īfter being contacted by the Guardian, F= stopped selling the T-shirts and Worldreader pledged to cease accepting donations “until the situation is resolved”. The Guardian has established that the garments were made by Bangladeshi firm Dird Composite Textiles, where some workers earn as little as 42p an hour and complain of harassment. Television presenter Holly Willoughby recently reposted a 2017 picture of her and Spice Girl Emma Bunton wearing the T-shirts. The £28 garments are sold online by F=, which claims to be “all about inspiring and empowering girls”, with £10 from each T-shirt donated to Worldreader, a charity that supplies digital books to poverty-stricken children in Africa. Charity “girl power” T-shirts sold in the UK are made at a Bangladeshi factory where more than 100 impoverished workers claim to have been sacked after striking in protest at low wages, it can be revealed.
0 kommentar(er)
