Neither the incumbents nor the industrialists need to consider the positive effect of trade unionism on the lives of workers and labourers. They need only to consider their own commercial benefits and look into the positive role that trade unions have played to decide whether unionism is beneficial for industry. Based on the findings and experience of the industrialised nations around the world, the industrialists as well as the government should actively promote trade unionism to enhance competitiveness, quality and human resource development that would contribute to commercial gains for the industries as well as the country

YEARS of pent-up discontent and desperation spilled on to the streets in and around Dhaka and Chittagong in the third week of May 2006, when thousands of garment workers staged mass protests paralysing not just the garment factories but also bringing the economy to a near halt. Their minimum wages had not been reviewed for 13 years. Workers’ rights and privileges were largely ignored and neglected. An overwhelming proportion of several thousand garment factories employing over two million people did not abide by core labour standards — weekly holidays, eight-hour workday, timely and proper payment of wages and overtime, maternity leaves and benefits and freedom of association among others. The readymade garment sector, which earns about three-fourths of the country’s foreign exchange with about 80 per cent women employees, hardly heeded calls to improve its industrial relations where the management and labour worked in a mutually beneficial situation.
   It had all come to a head in that one week as workers ran amok. Factories and consignments were damaged, looted and burnt. And when the factory owners realised they had to sit with the labourers and hold a dialogue to put a stop to the mayhem, there were no credible representatives from the garment sector who held sway. The factory owners’ associations thus had to strike a deal with labour representatives not directly involved with the garment industry and sign a tripartite deal. One of the ten provisions of that tripartite agreement stipulated the formation of a minimum wage commission to review garment worker wages. The workers’ representative there was the head of a non-governmental organisation working on labour rights in the garment sector.
   More recently, the New Partnership for Development Act, introduced to the lower house of the US Congress, stipulated core labour standards and provision of collective bargaining to be eligible for duty-free quota-free market access to the US market. Although there are a host of other provisions and stipulations, much of the discussion has centred on the provision of collective bargaining for labourers. This new bill, if enacted in the United States, would provide the much sought preferential market access to that lucrative market where Bangladesh faces an unreasonably high percentage of tariffs and stiff competition from other apparel manufacturers who enjoy duty free access to the US market under other unilateral arrangements for the African and Caribbean countries. But to be eligible for inclusion as one of the least developed countries provided with free market access, Bangladesh has to ensure collective bargaining, core labour standards, multiparty democracy and implementation of intellectual property rights among other things.
   The garment factory owners’ associations, namely the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association and the Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association, have gone to great lengths to point out that the stipulation of abiding by core labour standards would not be restricted to the garment sector alone but across all the industries in Bangladesh. They have questioned whether that would be a viable course of action for the development of industries and conducive to economic growth. But at the same time, almost in every discussion, the industrialists stressed the importance of all parties, including the government, owners, workers, citizens, activists and trade unions, to work together and launch a concerted move to make sure that Bangladesh is indeed included in the bill with favourable terms. It would basically mean that the industrialists would like to see a joint movement asking for relaxation of a number of restrictions and provisions that the new bill sets out for least developed countries and a few more for Bangladesh and Cambodia in an apparent bid to protect African countries from stiff competition.
   Although the tripartite agreement between the government, factory owners and the workers, the labour law of Bangladesh as well as the provisions of the International Labour Organisation calls for collective bargaining of some form, workers are routinely prevented from unionising by threats, suspensions, transfers or termination of their employment in numerous private sector industries in Bangladesh. The aversion towards trade unions and collective bargaining agents is also quite justifiable in Bangladesh’s context where most labour leaders are corrupt and indulge in irregularities, which are often blamed as one of the reasons why the state-owned enterprises remain inefficient. Most enterprises with influential labour leaders are often overstaffed and riddled with corruption where both the labour leaders and the management are involved. The labour leaders, to ensure their impunity, are more often than not affiliated to one or the other political party.
   But collective bargaining agents or trade unions are not necessarily bad for an industry. In case of Bangladesh, for instance, a number of mishaps might have been avoided through constructive dialogues between factory management and labour representatives, had there been any, before the matter got out of hand. In a number of cases where garment workers were forced to take to the streets because the management could not settle the matter beforehand through dialogues even if it wanted to. Installation of trade unions would not only provide owners and management with an effective avenue of negotiations but also prove to be a constructive tool for healthy development of an industry in a competitive market.
   Trade unions are quite vibrant across the United States and the European Union – countries that are far more advanced industrially and have attained a far higher level of development than Bangladesh. While the aversion towards trade unions in Bangladesh’s context is not entirely unreasonable, this aversion, in light of the experience of developed and industrialised countries, should prove to be quite baseless. In fact, there is strong economic rationale for promoting trade unions and collective bargaining than against it. Scholastic research shows trade unions actually increase firms’ competitiveness. In ‘What do Unions do to Productivity? A Meta-Analysis’, an article published in the Industrial Relations journal in 2003 by Hristos Doucouliagos of Deakin University and Patrice Laroche of the University of Nancy 2, it was found that trade unions had a positive impact on productivity across industries in the United States. Earlier research also shows that unions stem turnover of employees and thus contribute to gradual skill development through training, since a higher retention rate of employees encourages firms to arrange more trainings for their employees, which then leads to skill enhancement and increased efficiency and productivity.
   Although it is often held that trade unions hinder investment or contribute negatively to the solvency of a firm, research of the Germany-based Institute for Study of Labour shows that neither is true. Trade unions have negligible or insignificant impact on solvency or investment, it found. Labour unions also have a positive impact on a firms’ quality of production or service delivery and reduces discrimination at the workplace, according to other studies. Currently, however, under the state of emergency, one’s right to association – a fundamental human right – is suspended. Yet the military-controlled interim government turns a blind eye to activities of certain associations such as those of businessmen and industrialists, including the FBCCI, BGMEA and BKMEA, lawyers’ associations or the teachers’ associations. These associations, trade unions of sorts, have held their own elections and continue to sit with the incumbents to raise their concerns regarding certain issues. However, trade unionism of the labourers and workers remains suspended under excuse of the emergency powers.
   Needless to say, this is duplicity on the part of the incumbents and seems to demonstrate their bias in favour of the elites and against the poorer sections. However, neither the incumbents nor the industrialists need to consider the positive effects of trade unionism on the lives of workers and labourers. They need only to consider their own commercial benefits and look into the positive role that trade unions have played to decide whether unionism is beneficial for industry. Based on the findings and experience of the industrialised nations around the world, the industrialists as well as the government should actively promote trade unionism to enhance competitiveness, quality and human resource development that would contribute to commercial gains for the industries as well as the country.