Bangladesh Labor: Seized Machine, Hungry Garments And Bloodied Strawberry

Hunger strike and seizure of machines by garments workers in and near Dhaka, the Bangladesh capital, during the last part of July 2014 were part of Bangladesh labor action that is moving unabated through experiences of gains and failures. In distant Greece, labor from Bangladesh witnessed a court verdict that further bloodied already bloody strawberries. The incidents once again confirmed the dominating reality: dominance of capital. The incidents, on the opposite, also showed an emerging reality: labor’s increasing action.

Of seized machine

Eid, Moslems’ holy festival after a month of fasting and practicing restrains on aspects of life, was approaching. That was July. All salaried employees and wage laborers usually get festival bonus. It’s the rule, practice and tradition. The bonus provides a small opportunity to mend torn down life of the hard-pressed labor and low-salaried employees.

But alas! Workers in a garments factory were not going to have it. Their salaries for the months of June were not paid. Uncertain was the festival bonus. The aggrieved workers had to resort to action: demonstration. And, then, they had to resort to strike. The owner and his management cadres fled away. A few accounts officials were gheraoed, kept seized, for five days that led to a “resolution”: payment of all unpaid salaries and festival bonus by July 21, 2014. It was a written commitment from the factory management. The seizure was withdrawn.

The owner-committed time limit for payment of salary and bonus passed. Eid approached nearer. Darkness of uncertainty was coming closer to the workers. They frantically tried to contact the owner. But, to no avail! He was beyond reach.

The desperate situation and violation of commitment led workers to seize a part of machineries of the factory. They successfully found a buyer also. The machines were sold away. A sum of money came in. It was more than Taka, the Bangladesh currency, 1.7 million. [$1=Tk. more than 78] The sale proceed was distributed among the workers by the workers. The money distributed was treated as salary for the month of June. A police official confirmed the sale of machineries by the workers. [bdnews24.com (Baanglaa version), July 27, 2014, “Workers sale factory machinery to realize unpaid salaries”; name of the factory: Trade Mark Fashion Limited; place of occurrence: Gazipur, a few kilometers from Dhaka; period of occurrence: Last week of July] It was a labor action without adventurism that gave no scope for highhanded interference. And, it was an exposure, and a lesson, and an experience.

Of hungry garments

About 1,500 workers of five garments factories in Dhaka resorted to protests and about three hundred of them went on a hunger strike to realize their unpaid salaries for the months of May and June and festival bonus. The hunger strike continued for days, and it was during the Eid festival while millions of citizens were celebrating the festival and the entire country was in a festive mood. Scores of the workers were sent to hospital as they collapsed from hunger strike. The workers returned to the factory, place of the hunger strike, and joined their striking colleagues after recovering from hospital. Progressive Doctors’ Forum, an association of physicians connected to the Communist Party of Bangladesh, extended medical care to the striking workers.

Commitments for the payment of salaries and bonus were made thrice on behalf of the owners. But all the commitments remained unfulfilled. As the festival neared the workers began protest that later led them to resort to hunger strike. Initially, there was none to unknot the problem of non-payment. Later, the garments manufacturers’ association sought another week for a partial payment.

It was reported that the factories, owned by Tuba Group, produced garments amounting to Tk. 260 million during the recently concluded World Cup Football.

It should be mentioned that in 2012, Tazreen Fashions, a factory owned by the same company, burned down that killed hundreds of workers. The owner, Delwar Hossain, is now in jail for negligence causing deaths.

The workers’ series of protests for non-payment of salaries was going on for a long time. One leader of the garments manufacturers said: “We’re really sorry. They could not celebrate Eid and they’re on a hunger strike.” One of the garments manufacturers “urged the government to take charge of paying [the workers’] salaries at any cost.” One of the striking workers asked: We are fined for delay in work. But, who shall be fined now for delay in payment of salaries? [bdnews24.com, July 29, 30 and 31, 2014]

Thus it appears: The manufacturers are “sympathetic” to the workers as the workers had no Eid celebration but the manufacturers’ association could “not” arrange money; the manufacturers now need government help; government should take charge for paying salary, not for making profit.

It’s a “story” of trickery, and of indifference, and of cruelty, and of capitalizing workers’ distress.

Entrepreneurs’ organizations lobby for formulating policies favorable to them, influence national budget allocation, banking, financial, fiscal, export policies. But they can’t influence one entrepreneur in paying salaries and bonus. Entrepreneurs make profit, take full of it. But they ask government to take responsibility whenever they face problem they create. It’s the public that bears government expenses. So, it stands: “I make profit, you, the public, bear the cost.”

Of strawberry

On the jade end of July a Greek court in the western port city of Patras acquitted local farmers responsible for shooting 28 Bangladeshi strawberry pickers. The magistrates, guardians of “justice”, allowed two of the farmers including the owner of the farm who had also been accused of human trafficking, to walk free. Two others, accused of aggravated assault and for possessing illegal firearms, were handed prison sentences; 14 years and seven months to one, and 8 years and seven months to the other. But both were also freed pending appeal.

The Bangladeshis were shot at in April 2013 at a Peloponnese farm as they demanded six months of unpaid salary. It was the workers’ “sin”. Media investigations showed the migrant workers work in subhuman conditions without access to proper hygiene or basic sanitation. However, the farmers engaged senior criminal lawyers to defend them in the drama named Justice in Court.

In disbelief, scores of migrants, many sobbing, protested the verdict outside the court house. The verdict has sparked outrage in entire Greece. Politicians, unionists and anti-racist groups have condemned the verdict as a “black mark for justice” in a case that brought the spotlight on the migrant workers’ appalling working and living condition in Greece.

Moisis Karabeyidis, the victim’s lawyer, said after the ruling was delivered: “I feel shame as a Greek. This decision is an outrage and a disgrace. The court showed an appalling attitude toward the victims.” Politicians standing for labor rights said the verdict set an unwelcome example for other employers to follow. “It sends the message that a foreign worker can die like a dog in the orchard,” said Vassiliki Katrivanou, an MP with the main opposition radical-left Syriza party. “It leaves room for new victims by closing eyes to the brutal, inhuman and racist character of the exploitation suffered by workers on the land,” she said, pointing out that the ruling had been made on the World Day against Trafficking in Persons.

Anti-racism organizations denounced the judgment as scandalous, and said it raised questions about the impartiality of the Greek justice system. The organizations planned to step up protest action against the verdict. In a statement Petros Constantinou, coordinator of the Movement against Racism and the Fascist Threat, said: “We call upon unions and human rights movements to react against this unprecedented racist scandal. The hundreds of millions of profit made in the strawberry industry cannot come about by shooting laborers in strawberry fields.”

It’s an irony! The irony is of time. Greece, the country that organized the greatest game event on the planet, Olympic, with a lot of money a few years ago went down to the stage of the Third World poverty and desperation, experienced regime change without an armed intervention, bankers’ dictation that the Third World experiences almost everyday. Sometimes, it appeared, Bangladesh, once despised as simply a humanitarian case, was in a better position compared to the state of the poor in Greece. A part of the sick European economy has to rely on migrant labor to make profit. Then, it shoots and maims migrant labor and fans far-right, Nazi forces. The economy is sick, but its power to influence judiciary and to assault labor is not weak.

Of the stories

What do the “stories” tell?

It tells tales of capital’s character, and it tells tales of collaboration that capital crafts, and it tells tales of justice that capital delivers, and it tells tales of state that capital commands.

The Bangladesh workers, still politically unorganized, are passing a particular phase. It will gradually evolve. A quote from Marx and Engels is worthy to refer here:

“To begin with, the workers fight individually; then the workers in a single factory make common cause; then the workers at one trade combine throughout a whole locality against the particular bourgeois who exploits them. Their attacks are leveled not only against bourgeois conditions of production, but also against the actual instruments of production …

“At this stage the workers form a disunited mass, scattered throughout the country, and severed into fragments by mutual competition.” (The Manifesto)

The Bangladesh labor will pass this phase, where NGO-driven labor mobilization, politicization of de-politicization, plays a role.

Miners Struggle In Spain While The Rich Spoil

While the working people are struggling in Spain the rich are squandering.

Unions for coal mining workers are waging a general strike. In more than 40 coal mines in northern Spain, thousands of miners protesting austerity measures are on strike for weeks. “Austerity” will take away about 4,000 mining jobs. The miners are defending the jobs and protesting plans to cut subsidies, about two-third. Reducing of subsidies will deeply hurt the mining industry.

Charging and clashing with the striking miners for several hours the police tried to remove roadblocks of burning tyres, fired rubber bullets and tear gas and baton charged. A journalist suffered a rubber bullet injury. The strikers fought to drive back the riot police trying to break up protests.

Taking to the mountains and forests for cover the miners fired “sky rockets” and ball-bearings through pipe to push back the police. Slings, golf ball launchers and home-made device to fire potatoes were also used by the miners to defend themselves. A number of local offices of the ruling Popular Party were attacked.

In Asturias, roads and railways were blockaded in towns and cities including Bendición, Lieres and Campomanes. León experienced more powerful protests. Vehicles were diverted because of the blockade there. At Ciaño, railway line was blockaded. The strikers laid chains across the tracks. Later they lifted the blockade.

In the mines at Candín and Aller, seven miners staged a lock-in. Three of them remained entrenched underground in Aller.

The regional government has asked the conservative central government to reorder its plan for cutting down subsidies to the mining industry.

The strike is the expression of defending rights and existence in the face of capital’s onslaught on the working populace. The workers have not only stood for their jobs. They are actually defending the mining industry also.

While capital indulged in speculation with real estate and construction of housing complexes, shopping malls, etc. the workers are struggling for industry. Capital has not turned hostile to mining. It’s just trying to intensify process of appropriation: more output with less labor, and have a bigger reserve army of labor to keep labor pressed down.

Not only workers, common people in Spain are also bearing the burden that capital’s gamble in the Spanish real estate casino has “constructed”.

Citing a report by the Red Cross in Catalonia Europa Press informed: The crisis is affecting family dynamics in Spain. The burden on the elderly is heavy. Financial help from the older generation to the younger has become the only way for many to survive. One in three of the elderly has had to help younger family members. This reality is going on for the last two years. The old are helping with the money they receive from the retirement benefits. One in four elderly citizens has had to house one or more younger members who have come back to family homes. Increases in prices and expenditures have taken away 70% savings of the persons in the age group of over 65 years. Deteriorations of the welfare state, 70% of the respondents perceive, is the cause behind the crisis.

As a consequence of the crisis, the above source said, many elderly persons spend less on food, 20% of the respondents can’t afford fruit, meat and fish regularly, and about half of them can’t afford to visit a dentist or ophthalmologist. According to a concerned official, about half of them can’t afford maintaining an adequate temperature in their houses and 80% of the respondents can’t afford expenses related to leisure or spare time activities.

The elderly, the retired section of the society are not spared by capital. Tentacles of appropriation have been spread wide – among the old – although they have left factories, etc. years ago. Consumption of the old is being taxed. Retirement benefits, part of their wages, which was given for necessary labor time and for regeneration of capital, are now being taken back – being snatched away – by capital. Generations – the old, the retired persons, the young – are being appropriated. Capital has capitalized the crisis to intensify its appropriation activities.

The crisis is bringing up hard facts.

Following a proposal tabled by the opposition and passed in parliament a ban on advertising sexual services in newspapers and media websites has been lifted “because of the recession”. Legislation regulating publicity and advertising was due to be amended to formally prohibit advertisements by brothels, escort agencies or persons working as prostitutes. The plan has now been scrapped. A report in 2007 said: “Advertising for sexual services earned the press around €40 mn a year.”

Capital is not concerned with the question of others morality while earning by advertising prostitution, etc. It’s making that earning with the approval of its legislature. It has unhesitatingly unmasked the face of its legislature. Prostitution is not a moral question to capital. Rather, capital’s survival is the moral question to capital. Appropriation is not the question of capital’s morality. Capital taxes human body and soul. So the question of morality related to earning from advertisement of prostitution does not arise to capital. It’s the morality and moral standard of capital and of its ruling machines.

It would not have been possible for a backward society or a society depending on forest for its survival or a society with primitive production to profit from advertising prostitution. An advanced capitalist society that has constructed many centres of education, culture, arts, that loves to own famous art works depends on advertising of sexual services. The society has sophisticated tools for communicating and propagating its ideology to the ruled. These are also tools for imposing its ideology on the ruled.

These are not strange behaviours of capital. Rather, it’s the way capital behaves. It profits from crisis. During periods of crisis, it widens its net for appropriation, it intensifies appropriation. Labor, old, retired, advertising from sex work, every bit and all corners of society are appropriated.

“Reforming” labor market in Spain is the same program with the same purpose. Impositions of harsh austerity measures including massive health care and education budget cut, drastically slash salaries of public employees, increasing of retirement age, higher indirect tax, “rationalizing” subsidies as well as “disciplining” the autonomous regions’ finances are the conditions for Spain’s bank-bailout. Liquidation of state-owned companies and “transfer” of public employees to the private sector are also in the agenda. The lender-dictators consider the already initiated labor reform as insufficient. Capital across the Spanish border that has come forward to aid capital in Spain demands this.

But the rich and the powerful don’t refrain from indulgence.

Following criticism against semi-private trips to luxury resorts and expensive dinners paid with public funds Carlos Dívar, president of Spain’s Supreme Court and Judicial Council, will step down. The Council no longer has confidence in him.

On occasions, Dívar spent several days in resorts although his work required only a few hours. Once, his work was for a day only, but he stayed in hotel for five days. The expenses were covered by public money.

But Dívar defended his acts: There was no “legal, moral or political” irregularity, those were not “luxury hotels, only […] four-star hotels”, “quite inexpensive”.

And, the Supreme Court decided not to open a lawsuit against Dívar to investigate his trips.

The honorable president of the Supreme Court and the honorable Supreme Court has confirmed the moral standard. The judiciary joins the legislature in upholding the standard. It’s a frank, point blank and honest show.

Mainstream press reports:

Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, a German princess and a close friend of Spain’s King Juan Carlos, has been accused of usurping public functions. She allegedly acted as “representative” and “advisor” to the king. Charges have been brought against her.

Answers to the questions on why the German princess had appeared as “representative” of the head of state and his “strategic advisor” and “ambassador” on occasions were not provided.

Susana Cano, the mother of a young model who accused a Middle Eastern prince of rape four years ago made the complaint. The case against the prince, a friend of King Carlos and Sayn-Wittgenstein, was closed by the court and the king himself sent a letter to congratulate the prince about the court’s decision. The prince received Sayn-Wittgenstein in the capital of his kingdom on at least two occasions in the capacity of “representative for His Majesty King Juan Carlos of Spain.”

Cano’s lawyer said Sayn-Wittgenstein seemed to have exercised in a role that is reserved to the authorities and public officers, including organizing the king’s agenda during official visits, traveling in Spanish military airplanes, negotiating in the name of the king, etc.

There are reports of trip by the head of state and the German princess to sheikhdoms, where the king assisted during the Formula 1 Grand Prix. Sayn-Wittgenstein was received by the authorities together with the king and assisted in dinners with the first ladies of other heads of state invited to the event, including the presidents of Rwanda, Gabon and Chechenya.

The close friendship between Sayn-Wittgenstein and King Carlos attracted media attention since the king’s widely criticized elephant-hunting trip to Botswana. Sayn-Wittgenstein participated in the hunting game.

It’s an appropriate friendship of royalty, a friendship between a king, a prince, a princess, a friendship in a capitalist kingdom with bourgeois democracy, a friendship spread from a modern capitaldom to medieval kingdom, where a princess from another land can usurp a king’s public functions.

So, there in the “story” are many characters, incidents, processes and places: capital, its crisis, intensification and widening of appropriation of labor, young, old, retirees, revenue for press, legislative authorization for earning from advertising of prostitution as a way out of “hard pressed” profit-situation, judiciary’s nod to spending of public money for private indulgence, four-star ordinary “hotel”, Formula 1 Grand Prix, king, usurpation of royal duties by a princess, regal friendship, kingdoms, sheikhdoms, and Rwanda, Gabon, Botswana and Chechnya. Almost a capitalist democratic fairy tale! Commoners’, workers’, miners’ struggle for survival, a tiny fraction of the money the rich spoil, are on the outskirt of these dominions of capital.

The story continues.

Spain has to implement a restructuring plan for its banks as a condition of financial aid of €100bn from the EU with an interest rate between 3-4%. The plan has to be presented by the end of July to the Eurogroup and to the eurozone finance ministers. A troika of the EC, the IMF and the ECB will control the implementation work. German- and Brussels-dictations, not the Spanish state will decide the speed of the reform. Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Commission, likes centralized supervision of the banks.

Luis de Guindos, the Spanish finance minister, considers the terms “very favorable” as Ireland pays an interest rate at over 5% on its loan from the EU and the IMF. “This is a loan […] very favorable – much more favorable than the market ones”, said de Guindos. The minister happy with “favorable” terms would have turned sad if the source of interest was kept in mind. It is appropriation of labor.

And, honorable also as it has not been officially termed bailout. The Spanish prime minister is happy with the honor.

Although Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, at a recent conference of her Christian Democrats confirmed: The plan to help the Spanish banks “of course includes conditions”. Spain must continue with “its tough reforms.”

The Spanish banks, in essence, the state, has to accept more rigorous supervision by Brussels bosses.

Prime minister Rajoy’s rightist Popular Party having absolute majority in the parliament and Rubalcaba’s Socialist Party, the main opposition party, are in agreement on major issues. The central bank chief had to leave early. Actually the two ruling parties tactfully have not allowed the central bank chief to explain in the parliament the causes of nationalizing the major Spanish bank.

Political storm is gathering in Spain as indulgence and usurpation by the rich and the powerful form one part of the story. The other part, the people, the miners, the working class, their suffering and discontent with awarded austerity are other actors and factors. Recent opinion poll indicates the trend of dissatisfaction.

Euro’s political respite in Greece may turn temporary as Spanish problem is still threatening bigger interests. Whatever the outcome the Spanish people’s suffering is increasing as is their discontent. There are signs of increasing political crisis in Spain.

Flaming France

Probably, today’s France will put a lesson before the section of scholars despising political protests in poor countries that narrow down or snatch away democratic space and distort political process, and will show a portion of politicians that the French politicians are not accusing external actors of hatching plots to torpedo the French economy,

FRANCE, now flaming with popular discontent, shows the limits of matured bourgeois democracy in an advanced capitalist country encountering financial and economic crises. Workers and students, millions in number, across the country are virtually repudiating neo-liberal measures.
   Crippling general strikes for days, and demonstrations by about 3.5 million people that took a violent and radical face, have made France the centre of attention. The pension reform is being opposed as protests are polarising the political-scape with frequent press reports of ‘politicians’ extravagance including exclusive Cuban cigars and liberal use of private jets at the state’s expense.’ The width of the protests was producing news almost every few hours.
   According to some estimates, the raising of the retirement age would bring one million job losses. Decreasing wages, increasing poverty, soaring unemployment, deplorable working condition, anguish against the class ‘favoured by society’, and rejection of rightist politics prepared the perspective of this protest.
   Imports of electricity—5,990 megawatts were imported in one hour on Wednesday, which was equivalent to the output of six nuclear reactors—by the French authorities in the face of dwindling fuel supply show the wide impact of the protest. Striking 12 refinery workers and tanker drivers drying oil supplies, shut down thousands of schools, walked out students blocking school and university entrances and suburban youths clashing with the police in cities added force to the fight workers from public and private sectors are waging.
   A survey, published in Le Monde, found a quarter of French youth ‘want a radical transformation of society through revolutionary change.’ Students marched alongside labour union activists and leftist militants in a highly charged situation when the middle class is feeling insecure and losing confidence in the present regime. Use of the term ‘children of revolution’ by an international news organisation speaks of the active role the students are taking in the present protest.
   Blockaded entrances to airports by protesters, hundreds of cancelled flights, stayed away trains and commuter services, stranded ships, about 70, in ports striking for 17 days, were part of the series of protests in this month that tell a showdown between labour defending their rights and social benefits and President Sarkozy at the head of an increasingly divided ruling class. The class is facing pressure both from the present world financial crisis, and from its competitors within Europe. Its attempt to put its burden on the common people in the name of austerity is part of its incapacity to get rid of its own problem that has been created by its economy. The problems in economy are intruding the arena of politics. Ironically, it itself is mobilising broader sections of the society against its economic programme!
   At least 244 demonstrations all over France show the breadth of the protest. It was reported that some police personnel joined the protests in Paris which are spreading from below. The strike by the Eiffel Tower staff shows, symbolically, France is in turmoil, which has found about 1,500 people detained and 62 police officers injured.
   The turmoil began in late May. The summer break widened the movement, in frequency and number, with millions participating in October in an economy still shaky since the Great Financial Crisis. ‘Renewable’ strikes in railways, education, ports and refineries, each day workers in mass assembly decide continuing the action, are intensifying class struggle. ‘What the parliament does, the street can undo,’ read a patch on one protester’s arm, which is in reference to actions in the legislature and onto streets.
   From press reports it appear that disgusted conservative supporters are also turning supporters of the socialists while a shaken Sarkozy government used police to break the blockades of the oil refineries and oil depots. The protesters re-imposed blockade within hours the police broke the first blockade that reflects their attitude. The fuel crisis has intensified as workers in nuclear power plants have slowed down power generation.
   The incidents will influence the next presidential election in 2012, and future political equations. One poll in October found Sarkozy’s approval rating down to 30 per cent, the lowest for three years. Even mainstream press carries comments and interviews that strongly indicate moving mood towards further radicalisation with slogans: tax the rich, expropriate the banks, job for all, no more austerity. Financial Times found ‘A flavour of 1968 radicalism.’ The union leaders are feeling the pressure of the mass movement. One of the major unions is now openly calling for a general strike. But a number of factors in this turmoil are still unidentified.
   The current movement is the most militant and powerful struggle since the 2006 uprising. Protesters occupied the Marseille Chamber of Commerce. They were, however, later pushed out.
   Europe is now witnessing resurgence of labour actions in the continent. The French protest is the most intensive and wide among those. Changes are going on in the balance of forces between the working class and capital in a deeper way making France an important country for further development of class struggle in Europe.
   France has gone through intensive debates over the decades: nuclear power, medical ethics, fast food chain and halal meat, housing problem, immigrants, and burqa. Even its football team generated debate and anger reflecting a divided politics. Le Pen, the far-right National Front leader, stunned France by reaching the final round of the presidential election. The 2005 riot in the poor, predominantly immigrant communities showed deprivation, divide, and a sterile culture. ‘It is individualism, selfishness, every man for himself, with the only value of human success being how much you get at the end of the month,’ said Jérôme Cahuzac, a Socialist MP. These factors, in society, psychology, and politics, are also influencing the present movement.
   The 1995 general strike stopped the ‘Juppé Plan’, programme of welfare cutbacks. But none is sure of the success of the present protest in stopping the pension age legislation. Authorities, it seems, are still confident of its strength to successfully push through their neo-liberal agenda: dismantle social security system. The working people now have no alternative other than rise up in protest. But lack of political platform, matured political steps, coordination, and failure in further widening of their fold may send them back home after days of violent protest, which is still lurching in the precinct of spontaneity.
   There is no basis to imagine that the present protest will bring down the French capital. But it shows limits of the capital and its politics: it is incapable of resolving the contradictions in the realm of distribution, neither in economy nor in politics, and its political process is failing to accommodate needs of the people, which has pushed the protesters onto the streets, into actions of torching vehicles, smashing shops, and rampaging.
   The present French furore reminds today’s mid-age persons of Paris in 1968, the largest and longest general strike in European history that rocked France. There were the student insurrection in May, De Gaulle’s flight to Germany, workers occupation of plants, slogans for a ‘people’s government’, ministers burning secret documents, workers taking control of cities, roads and public transport, and issuing food coupons. That movement stumbled over. The present movement has not still reached to that level.
   Probably, today’s France will put a lesson before the section of scholars despising political protests in poor countries that narrow down or snatch away democratic space and distort political process, and will show a portion of politicians that the French politicians are not accusing external actors of hatching plots to torpedo the French economy.
   Success or abortive effort of the present French protest will not be the last act of the French people opposing neo-liberalism. The movement, if subdued by force and tricks, and compelled to retreat, will learn lessons and equip itself for future rising for a fair share in economy and politics.

This editorial published at The NEWAGE, Daily newspaper, one of the leading English dailies in Bangladesh