For Bangladesh's Struggling Garment Workers, Hunger Is A Bigger Worry Than Pandemic

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For more than a decade, Sampa Akter worked 12 hours a trip to a garment factory in Bangladesh's capital, sewing skinny jeans destined for stores around the world. Earning $95 a month, she's been able to aid her disabled brother, her sister and their parents.

That's, until late March - when her factory closed because of the coronavirus. Bangladesh has confirmed more than 57,000 cases and practically 800 COVID-19 deaths in a population of 160 million.

Bangladesh's garment industry may be the second-largest on the globe, behind China's. It makes up about about 84% of Bangladesh's export earnings and is so critical to the economy that sewing machine operators like Akter were declared essential workers, exempt from a lockdown. But many factory owners made a decision to shut down production anyway, amid declining global orders and fears of infection.

"My factory was shut for six weeks. I fell behind on rent. I couldn't pay my brother's medical bills," Akter, 30, told NPR by phone from Dhaka. "I'm very scared and vulnerable. It is not only me. All my coworkers are in the same position."

Akter was among at least 1 million garment staff fired or furloughed by early April - about a quarter of the industry's Bangladeshi workforce.

The majority of Bangladesh's garment factories, including Akter's, have since reopened, with support from an $8 billion government stimulus package. In late May, the International Monetary Fund approved $732 million in emergency aid. EUROPE in addition has pledged $126 million.

But 90 days after Bangladesh uncovered its first coronavirus cases, the virus is still affecting global demand. Big fashion brands remain canceling orders.

Because of this, Bangladeshi garment workers continue to struggle. Those who've gone back to work have often found the same cramped factory conditions that existed prior to the pandemic. Many face pay cuts - which personnel and union representatives warn will be ruinous, resulting in poverty and hunger.

Four out of five garment personnel are women, who oftentimes support several relatives and live from paycheck to paycheck - in a country without unemployment benefits. Bangladeshi law requires employers to pay severance, but many don't.

For those workers, a prolonged global recession may prove more deadly than the coronavirus, personnel and union representatives say.

Akter's factory reopened in early May, before the lockdown was lifted on, may 31. On the first day back, her manager gathered all of the sewing machine operators together.

"He told us we'll be paid 60% of our salaries for the days we missed," Akter says. "But he also said global orders have basically stopped, and he doesn't understand how long he'll be able to keep paying us at all."

Like Akter, most furloughed garment personnel have already been promised some compensation for the days of work they missed while their factories were shut. Unions helped negotiate it. But in Bangladesh, where in fact the average per capita income is $1,750, any pay cut at all could result in starvation.

Memories of the Rana Plaza tragedy

The last time Bangladeshi garment employees felt such desperation was following the Rana Plaza factory complex near Dhaka caught fire and collapsed on April 24, 2013, killing a lot more than 1,100 people. It had been the deadliest disaster in the garment industry's history.

"When Rana Plaza collapsed, factories were closed for many days. A lot of orders were canceled then, too, and personnel were despondent," Nazma Akter, a former child laborer and now president of the Sommilito Garments Sramik Federation, among the largest union federations in Bangladesh, tells NPR by phone from her office in Dhaka. "But in the past, they got full payment."

Akter - who's no regards to Sampa Akter - says seven years back, big fashion brands stepped up. They paid full wages to sewing machine operators who couldn't return to work for many days. In addition they paid compensation to survivors who'd been injured, and victims' families. And they backed a historic overhaul of fire safety precautions at factories.

But she says that's not happening now. Global brands are enthusiastic about their own financial pain, she says, and so are canceling orders in Bangladesh, where they typically don't have to pay until they take the finished goods. The president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association said orders have dropped by half, and aren't likely to bounce back for another year.

"The style industry essentially operates on debt, and all of the risk is disproportionately pushed right down to manufacturers and borne by the makers of our clothes, who are mostly young women," says Ayesha Barenblat, founder and CEO of Remake, a San Francisco-based nonprofit whose goal is to make the fashion industry more humane and environmentally sustainable.

"I'll die of hunger before I die of this virus"

With an online petition and campaign with the hashtag #PayUp, activists want to pressure those brands to cover whatever they ordered from Bangladeshi factories before the pandemic broke out. Because the petition premiered March 30, organizers say 16 brands have agreed to purchase back orders.

Barenblat names several global brands she alleges have not fully paid their Bangladeshi contractors during the pandemic, including Gap, JCPenney, Kohl's, Primark and Mothercare.

NPR contacted those brands. Gap and Kohl's didn't respond. JCPenney, which includes filed for bankruptcy, said it hopes to create some vendor payments.

In a statement emailed to NPR, Primark CEO Paul Marchant says his company is paying yet another $450 million for orders which were in production through mid-April, and has create a "wages fund" to ensure workers in Bangladesh receives a commission. A spokesperson for Mothercare, Ailsa Prestige, wrote in an email to NPR that the business is "working very closely" with its "manufacturing partners," but didn't respond when asked for specifics.

"Everyone is hurting," says Barenblat. "I've a lot of empathy for that. But these brands have far more money than garment workers, and some of these are even eligible for [Western] government bailout funds."

Through its diplomatic missions abroad, the Bangladeshi government can be pushing Western retailers to revive orders that contain been canceled or suspended. In a phone call with her Swedish counterpart, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina reportedly got a promise that Swedish companies would stop canceling orders, and similar pledges came from Dutch diplomats.

H&M, Adidas and Nike are among brands that contain agreed to purchase back orders totaling some $7.5 billion. As factories reopen, they're fulfilling those orders.

However the future remains uncertain.

Akter, the garment worker, says that when her factory reopened, her supervisor passed out masks. There's a fresh hand-washing station installed at the entrance.

But her sewing machine is still stationed simply a few inches from the main one next to it. There's no social distancing, and that's minimal of her worries, she says.

She just hopes her factory stays open.

"I have to work," Akter says. "I'll die of hunger before I die of this virus."
Source: https://www.npr.org

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