May 7, 2013
PGFTU leaders discussed the study, which found the majority of Palestinian workers are paid less than the minimum wage. Credit: Rami Khanfar
More than half of Palestinian workers—59 percent—earn less than the national minimum wage established in October 2012, and women workers are paid half as much as male wage earners, according to a new report. A large majority, 85 percent, of Palestinian workers do not have a written contract guaranteeing their conditions of employment.
“Palestinian Workers: A Comprehensive Report on Work Conditions, Priorities and Recommendations,” details the working conditions of Palestinians who labor in the West Bank, Gaza, Israel and Israeli settlements.. The report—based on surveys of workers in the West Bank, Gaza, Israel and the settlements—finds that fewer than half (47 percent) of working Palestinians have health insurance, while the majority (58 percent) say they risk physical hazards at work. The report is available in English and Arabic.
Many workers are required to work longer hours than those agreed upon and in excess of eight hours a day, with 17 percent of workers saying they are on the job seven days a week. Some 40 percent of workers say they work for more than eight hours a day and 10 percent say they work 12 hours a day.
According to one worker quoted anonymously in the report: “Employers do not abide by the terms of the contract with respect to working hours. For instance, workers in the construction sector work all day from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.”
The report also highlights issues faced by women workers, only 12 percent of whom say their wages are sufficient to cover their living expenses. Women also face workplace abuse, such as in the Jordan Valley, where working women say they suffer beatings, verbal abuse and humiliation by labor brokers who bring workers to Israel.
“Palestine Workers,” based on interviews with 1,000 workers (union and non-union members), representatives from the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU), employers’ associations and government, officials, was prepared by the Arab World for Research and Development (AWRAD) with input from the PGFTU and support by the Solidarity Center
May 6, 2013
Kenyan domestic workers celebrate the adoption of Convention 189, Decent Work for Domestic Workers.
Employers in Kenya now must abide by the verbal contracts they make with domestic workers, following a landmark ruling by the nation’s high court that also effectively places domestic workers under Kenya’s employment law. Saying that under the Employment Act, “a verbal contract is a contract that can confer rights and can be enforced,” the judge ruled that domestic workers are covered by the national minimum wage and other provisions of the employment law.
“This court notes that many employers fail to issue their employees with a contract of service and this acts to their detriment as non-issuance of this document leaves the court to interpret the relationship between the parties which could have been well outlined by the mutual agreement of the parties,” Justice Monica Wanjiru Mbaru wrote.
The ruling, which came in December 2012, was apparently unnoticed until it was first reported April 29 in Kenya’s Business Daily. Two days later, the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) warned, through advertisements, that it would enforce the law and that employers who do not obey it face serious consequences. The NSSF said employers are required to register domestic workers and other low-wage employees such as gardeners, and contribute monthly payments to the NSSF to cover workers’ health care and other services.
Meanwhile, Kenya’s newly elected president, Uhuru Kenyatta, on May 1 raised minimum wages by 14 percent.
“The elevated court will serve worker rights as long as the law is followed to the letter,” said Albert Njeru, secretary general of the Kenya Union of Domestic, Hotel, Educational Institutions, Hospitals and Allied Workers (KUDHEIHA). The union, a Solidarity Center partner, has been at the forefront of championing the rights of domestic workers at the national level and working locally to organize workers into the union and educate them about their rights. “The union is very excited with this ruling as it has finally drawn attention to the plight of domestic workers in the country.” He reiterated that “the union will carry on with its campaign to get full rights for domestic workers and ensure their visibility in the labor force.”
KUDHEIHA is pressing the government to pass the International Labor Organization’s Convention 189, Decent Work for Domestic Workers. The groundbreaking convention, passed in 2011, requires nations that ratify it to adhere to standards such as ensuring domestic workers are paid the nation’s minimum wage and have access to health coverage and other social security benefits, including paid leave. Convention 189 recognizes domestic work as any other work and ensures that domestic workers are treated as any other worker under labor legislation.
The Industrial Court ruling came after Robai Musinzi, a domestic worker, sued for wrongful dismissal by her employer, Safdar Mohamed Khan. Musinzi, who had worked for Khan for more than four years under a verbal agreement, won $2,057 after Khan summarily dismissed
May 3, 2013
More than 500 people have now been confirmed dead in last week’s building collapse in Bangladesh, the country’s worst industrial disaster on record. The dead are among the 2,868 victims pulled from the rubble of the eight-story building, which housed five garment factories where thousands of workers toiled on the upper floors. No one has been rescued alive for the past three days, and estimates of the number remaining in the rubble vary widely, from less than 200 to more than 1,000 people.
The mayor of Savar, where the Rana Plaza building is located, has been suspended on charges of failing to take proper action after several cracks developed and were reported by a structural engineer a day before the April 24 collapse. The mayor, Md Refatullah, also was charged for “irregularities” in approving the design.
A government inquiry concluded today that substandard construction materials and the vibration of heavy machinery in the five garment factories were prime triggers of the building’s collapse. The building owner, Sohel Rana, a prominent leader in the nation’s ruling party, was arrested over the weekend and his assets frozen. Despite the engineer’s warnings, Rana told factory operators the building was safe. Factory owners then demanded workers return the next day.
A 16-year-old garment worker whose right hand was amputated after she was pulled from the wreckage told the Solidarity Center that the factory owner said she would lose a month’s wages if she did not go to work. Solidarity Center Bangladesh Country Director Alonzo Suson and local staff are speaking with survivors, ensuring that they understand their rights and that their stories are not forgotten.
“If those workers had a collective voice to stand up to factory managers, this tragedy might never have happened,” says Solidarity Center Asia Regional Program Director Tim Ryan.
Thousands protested in Dhaka, the capitol, on May 1, internationally recognized May Day, demanding justice for those killed and injured at Rana Plaza. But garment workers from a variety of factories have been out on the streets of Dhaka for days, “demanding more safety” at the workplace, Suson told the Rick Smith Show. “Without a union at the workplace, there is no workers’ voice in making sure that safety of working conditions happen.”
While global apparel brands have taken steps to demand factories observe the nation’s job safety and health laws, they have not pushed for strong unions at the workplace—and without freedom of association, say Ryan and Suson, individual workers cannot press for safe workplaces. Nor can they demand wages they can live on. Bangladesh garment workers are paid $37 a month, the lowest in the world, to toil in conditions Pope Francis this week described as “slave labor.”
As Ryan told Public Radio International, “The brands can also be helpful when it comes to communicating with their contractors, with their companies, and say ‘Look, freedom of association is the law of the land.’
“Many of these brands have codes of conduct, which, again, are often just words on a page, but often they (mandate), ‘implementation (of) all existing labor laws and freedom of association,’ he said. “This is where the brands can put their money where their mouth is.”
For more than two decades, the Solidarity Center has been supporting workers trying to gain their rights in Bangladesh.
Apr 26, 2013
More than 300 workers now have been confirmed dead from Wednesday’s building collapse in Bangladesh. Some 2,200 survivors have been pulled from the ruins of what is being called one of the worst manufacturing disasters in history. More than 3,000 garment workers were on the job when upper building floors pancaked on top of each other.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has ordered the arrest of the building’s owner, Mohammed Sohel Rana, a local leader of ruling Awami League’s youth front, who told factory operators the building was safe. Hasina also has ordered the arrest of five garment factory owners.
Cracks in the multistory building, located in Savar, just outside the capital, Dhaka, were reported in the local media after they appeared on Tuesday. Although workers in the retail shops on the building’s first floor were told to stay home on Wednesday, operators of five garment factories in the building’s top floors ordered employees to report to work. According to the Bangladesh Daily Star, video shot before the collapse shows cracks in the walls, with some attempts at repair. The video also shows columns missing chunks of concrete.
Bangladesh’s BDB News24 reports workers say factory owners forced them to work on Wednesday, including Aklima, a garment worker. “I did not want to go to the factory since a crack appeared yesterday (Wednesday),” she said. “But the factory’s officers forced us into the building in the morning.” Bangladesh Information Minister Hasanul Haq told the press that the collapse “was not an accident, it was a killing incident.”
The Solidarity Center has called on the Bangladesh government to enforce its labor and building codes, on multinational companies that source from the country to prioritize health and safety conditions in factories, and on both to respect the rights of workers and to recognize that the only way Bangladesh will have safe factories is if workers have a voice on the job. Human Rights Watch noted to the Associated Press that “none of the factories in the Rana Plaza were unionized, and that had they been, workers would have been in a better position to refuse to enter the building Wednesday.”
Media reports describe Dhaka and Savar as chaotic, with thousands of garment workers protesting the collapse and demanding arrest and punishment of those responsible for the tragedy, and families of missing workers pressing to get access to the ruins to find their loved ones.
The building collapse took place five months after a fire killed 112 garment workers at the Tazreen Fashions factory. Since then, there have been at lest 41 fire incidents at Bangladesh garment factories that have killed nine workers and injured more than 660 others, according to data compiled by the Solidarity Center.
Bangladesh’s apparel industry is the country’s largest source of export revenue—78 percent of the country’s $23 billion in export revenue in 2011. Yet garment workers are paid $37 a month, the lowest in the world, as factories seek to minimize costs to meet the price demands of the global apparel brands. Workers often are prevented from forming unions and these vulnerable and impoverished workers cannot fight alone for their rights.
A New York Times editorial today concisely summed up the solution to Bangladesh’s ongoing workplace tragedies, writing that the government must “enact meaningful changes for the country’s 3.5 million garment workers, many of whom are women.” The most essential change is to “enforce Bangladeshi labor laws and safety standards, which theoretically provide protection but are rarely honored. The laws allow workers to form unions and bargain with management on wages and working conditions, but the government has not defended those rights despite promises to do so to international agencies and the United States.”
Apr 26, 2013
“The factory caught fire about 6 p.m. After the fire, they did not allow us to go out,” says Nazma. “They locked the gate. The workers were screaming together.”
Tazreen Factory Fire Survivors Describe Death Trap from Solidarity Center on Vimeo.
Nazma is among the Tazreen Factory fire survivors in this video who describe the horrific workplace conditions that killed 112 garment workers in November. The unsafe and deadly working conditions at Tazreen are similar to those many Bangladesh garment workers face every day.
But for many, living through the fire is just the beginning of their ordeal. The meager compensation Tazreen fire survivors have received from the government and the global apparel brands is not enough to replace the wages many no longer can earn because they are too injured to work.
For Nazma and the other mostly female survivors who sustained extensive physical wounds, the inability to support their families and the cultural stigma attached to their injuries means, in Nazma’s words, “death was better than living this kind of life.”
Solidarity Center staff in Dhaka, Bangladesh, compiled this video.
English
Arabic
Bengali
Chinese (Simplified)
French
Georgian
Hausa
Indonesian
Kurdish (Kurmanji)
Kyrgyz
Portuguese
Russian
Serbian
Sesotho
Sinhala
Spanish
Swahili
Tamil
Ukrainian
Zulu
