Apr 16, 2012
The Solidarity Center is appalled at the murder of Aminul Islam, a longtime friend and colleague. Aminul, 39, was a plant-level union leader at an export processing zone (EPZ) in Bangladesh, an organizer for the Bangladesh Center for Workers’ Solidarity (BCWS), and president of the Bangladesh Garment and Industrial Workers Federation’s (BGIWF) local committee in the Savar and Ashulia areas of Dhaka. He left behind a wife and three children.
“I can accept his death from illness or an accident but not like this. I want justice,” said Hosne Ara Fahima, his wife.
In recent weeks, Aminul had been trying to improve the working conditions of some 8,000 garment workers employed by Shanta Group, a garment manufacturer based in the Dhaka EPZ. He was last seen Wednesday April 4, outside the BCWS office. Four days later, his wife recognized him in a newspaper photo of a body found by the side of the road more than 60 miles away. He had been violently tortured, according to police, and all of his toes were broken. Reports indicate that he was beaten before his death.
Aminul began his transformation to a trade union leader and organizer in 2005 when his co-workers elected him convener of the Workers Representation and Welfare Committee at Shasha Denims Ltd., a garment factory located inside the EPZ in Savar, Dhaka. Trusted by his co-workers, Aminul took his duties as a worker representative seriously. For his activities, he was terminated from his job. Aminul did not accept the severance offered to him and appealed his case to the Bangladesh Export Processing Zone Authority (BEPZA) with the aid of the Solidarity Center. BEPZA ordered his reinstatement, but the company refused to comply and proffered a Writ Petition in the High Court of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh. Since then the company has paid a partial monthly salary to Aminul as long as he does not return to work or the Writ Petition is disposed of.
After Aminuls’s association with the Solidarity Center, the BCWS hired him as a trainer and, at the same time, he joined BGIWF, a BCWS ally, as an organizer. The Solidarity Center has been working with the BCWS since the 1990s through BGIWF to educate garment workers about their rights under Bangladeshi law and international labor standards. In 2010, Aminul was arrested and beaten for his role as an activist.
“Aminul was a very hardworking and serious organizer,” said Babul Akter, BGIWF president. “He used to recruit an average of over 200 workers per month as associate members of BGIWF.”
“We had to tell Aminul to take a break sometimes because he didn’t know when to stop. He was always on the go, talking with and representing workers”, said Kalpona Akter, a colleague and executive director of BCWS. Rukshana Yasmin, a program officer with the Solidarity Center in Bangladesh, said, “Every time we had a meeting or training, I would tell Aminul to please bring 20 workers; he would bring 30 or more. Aminul is a problem solver. Many workers would go to the office wanting him to represent them in disputes with management. The office is always full of workers. With all the influence he has, Aminul was always humble and respectful.”
“Aminul Islam is a progressive Muslim,” said Akm Nasim, Solidarity Center senior legal counsel. “I had numerous discussions with him about union matters as well as religion where he was also well versed, and he is very opposed to fundamentalism.”
Aminul Islam’s eldest daughter, Akhi, said, “My father’s dream when he recently sold our house and bought some land was to build a madrassa (religious school) for girls and for me to be a teacher and administrator of the school. Our father has inspired us to take up the work of God.” She added that she and her twin brothers, Sakib and Rakib, miss their father very much.
Calls for justice for Aminul have been sent from numerous organizations to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, asking that an immediate and impartial investigation be carried out at the highest level and that the perpetrator of the murder be brought to trial and prosecuted. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka was one of the first to send a letter to the prime minister. Others include Human Right Watch, the International Trade Union Confederation, Worker Rights Consortium, International Labor Rights Forum, Clean Clothes Campaign, Bangladesh Garment Manufacturing Employers Association (BGMEA), and the U.S. Ambassador to Bangladesh, Dan Mozena.
In a statement, Mozena expressed profound sadness at the loss of this dedicated union activist. “Mr. Islam worked tirelessly to confront the challenges and risks facing workers in the garment industry in Bangladesh,” he said. “His death is a reminder of the need to support labor activists around the globe, as they struggle to improve the plight of their fellow workers and the economic situation of their families. We call on the government of Bangladesh to fully investigate Mr. Islam’s death and to hold the perpetrators accountable.”
More than 300 workers and trade union leaders formed a human chain at the Press Club in Dhaka on Friday April 13, to call for Justice. A delegation of four European Union mission diplomats participated and extended their solidarity.
On Sunday April 15, more than 1,000 workers held another rally at the Press Club and then marched to the office of the Home Ministry. A delegation met with Home Minister Shahara Khatun. After the presentation of the memorandum calling for an immediate, impartial, and professional investigation of the murder, Minister Shahara Katun said that she had already ordered the Inspector General of the Police to conduct a full inquiry and bring the culprits to justice.
“The government of Bangladesh‘s failure to implement and uphold freedom of association in the garment industry has led to the death of Aminul Islam,” observed Alonzo Suson, Solidarity Center country program director for Bangladesh. “He was a victim of violence perpetuated by those who oppose worker rights in the industry. But he would want labor unions in the garment industry to work together, develop a strategy, and organize to overcome the strong resistance to trade unions.”
Apr 13, 2012
Swaziland’s union federation called off marches set for April 12 in the face of police intimidation and the reported arrests of prominent labor activists.
Swazi courts declared the intended march illegal, even though union and student activists traditionally march on the historically significant date of April 12 to commemorate the 1973 ban on political parties in Africa’s last absolute monarchy. The 2011 protests also were quashed, by heavy violence and mass arrests.
In the past year, unions have taken strides to increase their leadership capacity. On May Day 2011, Swaziland’s two union federations announced that they had merged to form the Trade Union Congress of Swaziland (TUCOSWA). The new federation held its founding congress on March 12, 2012, but Swazi officials reversed course and canceled its registration only months after approving it. International trade union bodies claim that the decision to de-register TUCOSWA calls into question the government’s legal commitment to protect and enforce freedom of association under International Labor Organization Convention 87.
“Our federation was recently banned from operating because the government claimed that the merging of two unions did not conform to the law,” Vincent Dlamini, national organizing secretary for TUCOSWA, told France 24 in an interview. “However, we all know that the real reason for banning us is because we passed a resolution calling for Swaziland to be ruled under a democratic, multiparty system.”
In 2006, the Solidarity Center published a report on worker rights in Swaziland. The report found Swaziland besieged by crises—a political environment in which trade union rights were severely restricted, a deadly assault from HIV/AIDS, and the impending collapse of its economy, which was based on the garment and textile sector. In the ensuing years, conditions have not improved. The 2008 Suppression of Terrorism Act further restricts political and union activity and gives the government broad power to repress civil society activism under the guise of state security. Swaziland is in a severe budget crisis, and nearly 70 percent of Swazis live on less than a dollar per day. It now has the world’s highest HIV infection rate—estimated at 25 percent of the adult population.
TUCOSWA is calling for greater economic accountability and a boycott of next year’s elections.
Apr 10, 2012
As ongoing violations of international labor standards and human rights become further entrenched in Honduras, unions representing increasingly vulnerable workers in three export-related sectors—manufacturing, agriculture, and port operations—are fighting for their rights and livelihoods.
Representatives of two Honduran union federations, both Solidarity Center partners, traveled to Washington, D.C., recently to raise awareness among and gain support from U.S. lawmakers for justice and an end to the general climate of impunity in Honduras, where labor laws are violated regularly.
At a panel discussion hosted by the Solidarity Center and the AFL-CIO, Evangelina Argueta Chinchilla, representative of the General Workers Federation (CGT) and coordinator for the apparel and textile federation FESITRATEMASH, and Francisco López Mejía, deputy secretary general of the Independent Federation of Workers of Honduras (FITH), described the dismal human rights record in Honduras since the 2009 coup d’etat and the government’s failure to enforce its labor laws.
Crime, violence, and corruption are on the rise, and the rule of law is increasingly compromised, according to López Mejía. Unions—which actively protested the coup—are suffering repression, including police brutality and threats. Average people live in fear of violent gangs and the police. And workers barely make enough to pay for food and transportation.
“Our great problem, for years, is that our government has violated rights,” he said. In addition, the government issues decrees, done after consultation with businesses, which diminish benefits of workers, who are subjected to inhumane working conditions and denied their right to organize and bargain collectively.
“For many years, they have passed laws that undermine unions and reduce standards of living,” Argueta Chinchilla said. “We are hopeful that the Honduran government will rectify its action by complying with international labor law.”
Other panelists were Dana Frank, professor of history at the University of California Santa Cruz; Stephan Wishart, Solidarity Center country program director for Central America; and Celeste Drake, policy specialist for trade and international economics at the AFL-CIO.
Frank elaborated on the repression of human rights activists in Honduras since the coup, and the role of activists in the United States in defending democracy. She applauded the AFL-CIO for being one of the first U.S. organizations to call the ouster of President Manuel Zelaya a coup. The organization passed a resolution against it at its 2009 convention.
The AFL-CIO recently filed a petition with the U.S. Department of Labor against the Honduran government for failing to enforce labor laws under the Dominican Republic–Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA), said Drake.
Wishart, who spoke about the Solidarity Center’s ongoing effort to support Honduran trade unions in their organizing work, said the labor movement “is a pillar of democracy. And that’s why they are suffering.” Unions took to the streets to demand democracy after the coup, and that activism made workers targets of violence. Workers continue to publicly protest government attempts to further disempower working people and unions—e.g., by privatizing education—and they continue to be targets of police repression.
Apr 5, 2012
In Ica, 200 miles south of Lima, Peru, tens of thousands of workers harvest and process asparagus, artichokes, and other fresh produce we associate with the arrival of spring. As we head into Easter and Passover, please take the time to think about the men and women in regions like Ica who make the greens on our plates possible.
Did you know:
In a nutritionally challenged area, where the caloric intake just meets minimum standards, most of the workers do not even have a chance to try the products they grow. Much of Peru’s agricultural bounty is exported.
Seventy percent of the workers are women, the majority of reproductive age. These working mothers are regularly exposed to pesticides, fertilizers, and other toxic chemicals.
In the last year, a group of 10 young women were sprayed with pesticides while working. To avoid having to report this occurrence to authorities, the employer had the women treated at a private facility.
The majority of farms do not provide protective equipment, such as boots and gloves. To protect themselves, workers must jerry-rig their own sun visors from T-shirts. Typically, they wear flip-flops in the fields.
Employers consider bathroom breaks for field workers a privilege, not a right. As a result, workers often use makeshift latrines located close to areas where produce is planted and harvested.
Some female workers, encouraged to work continuously without bathroom breaks, are required to wear diapers so as not to cut into “productive work hours.”
It is not uncommon for workers to toil for eight straight hours with no lunch or rest break. When field workers do have time for lunch, they often sit under the same hot sun that makes the coast so good for growing.
Peruvian labor law allows for workers in the agricultural sector to work more than eight hours a day with no overtime, as long as the cumulative work week does not exceed 40 hours.
When agricultural workers form a union, employers have almost absolute control to fire the leaders, sending a message to the other workers that unions are not allowed in their workplace.
On paper, the right to form and join unions is protected, but short-term contracts and an antiquated, 20-year-old law make it very easy for employers to keep their workplaces union free and their workers voiceless.
The work week for most agricultural workers is six days, and most get no paid vacation.
During holidays, such as Thursday and Friday of Easter week, Peruvian employers are required to pay double for those who continue to work. Employers in Ica and other agricultural areas largely refuse to respect this obligation.
When asked what their hopes and dreams are, a group of 10 workers from the plantation Euro SA who were fired for forming a union gave the following responses:
- “A salary that covers my needs.”
- “That the employer pays us what we are due for the years we have worked with the company.”
- “To retire with what I am owed.”
- “Fair treatment at work.”
When asked their fears, they replied:
- “When my supervisor screams at me.”
- “That I won’t get to retire.”
Apr 2, 2012
Irakli Petriashvili has trade unionism in his blood. “It’s like a genetic trait,” said Petriashvili, 42, president of the Georgian Trade Union Confederation (GTUC). “Since I was a child, I have had it in my heart to help those who were victims of oppression and unfair treatment.”
Petriashvili began his union activism shortly after he joined the Tbilisi-based energy distribution company Telasi right out of college, his electrical engineering degree in hand. He soon found working conditions less than ideal.
“The administration delayed workers’ wages but led a fashionable life,” he said wryly. “The director was in charge of the unions.”
Without a clear idea of worker rights, Petriashvili led a strike for 64 dispatchers. “It was not organized, and we did not know whether it was legal,” he said. “We just knew that Tbilisi would be dark if we did not work.”
He was detained as punishment for initiating the strike but faced down the company director as 20 strikers watched. After that, he said, his co-workers started to bring their issues to him, and he became a worker rights activist. “I was diagnosed with the ‘disease’ of trade unionism—a good poison.”
In 1999, Petriashvili attended a course for young trade unionists, organized jointly by the Solidarity Center, the AFL-CIO, and the International Labor Organization. In 2000, he was elected to head the union at Telasi. Under his leadership, the union became a more vocal advocate for its members’ interests, extraordinary in a country where unions were largely vehicles of the state. During his continuing fight for worker rights at the company, he led a groundbreaking hunger strike that led to a collective agreement securing many of the unions’ demands.
Petriashvili continued to rise through the ranks of union leadership. In 2005, he was elected president of the GTUC and began the democratization of the union movement. “We were taking the trade union movement to a whole new level,” he said. “We believed unions must be built from the bottom up, not the top down. We put an end to the practice of appointing union leaders. Now members democratically elect their leaders.”
Today the independent trade union movement in Georgia is under attack. President Mikheil Saakashvili’s administration has launched an array of anti-union legal maneuvers that are choking off fledgling union organizations. The 2006 Labor Code, crafted and implemented by the Georgian government without union input, violates international worker rights standards. For example, it enables employers to hire and fire without reason, promoting discrimination in the workplace and putting the burden of proof on workers who challenge an employer’s action.
The government also denied two of the country’s largest unions the right to collect dues through payroll deductions (a method called a dues check-off system), flouting the terms of valid collective bargaining agreements and bringing the unions to near-bankruptcy. As a result of the government’s attacks, GTUC affiliates now comprise 219,000 dues-paying members—a loss of 100,000 over a five-year period.
The GTUC is fighting back, and Petriashvili says that there have been small victories: an unprecedented wave of strikes in multiple sectors, which proves the GTUC unions are now independent from employer control, and a handful of reinstated workers. But as long as 22 percent of Georgia’s population lives below the poverty line and the unemployment rate tops 16 percent, “there can be no major victories.”
Petriashvili values ongoing cooperation with the Solidarity Center and other international labor organizations. In a country where the only faces seen on government-controlled television belong to those who applaud the government’s actions, he wants the voices of “ordinary Georgians” to be heard. “Workers all over the world must join in solidarity. Otherwise the notion of democracy will fade away in the eyes of Georgians.”
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