Bangladeshi garment worker Rina Begum, supported by
Shahida Sarker from the Bangladeshi National Garments Worker
Federation (NGWF), visited eleven German cities and Vienna
in October 2005 to inform the public about the violations
of workers' rights at Basic Apparels and other factories
in their country.
Garment worker Rina Begum and
Shahida Sarker, of the NGWF, in Hamburg.
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The women drew big crowds to their public speaking events,
which highlighted the bad working conditions at Tchibo suppliers
in Bangladesh. Before the workers' tour began, three million
people watched a programme featuring an interview with Rina
on German television about the working conditions in Bangladesh.
The women were invited to Germany and Austria by member
organisations of the German CCC, which started a campaign
to pressure Tchibo a year ago. Rina Begum had worked at
German-owned Basic Apparels in Dhaka for six years until
she was dismissed in 2004. The factory supplies Tchibo,
a big retailer not only in Germany, but also in Austria,
Switzerland and other European countries. The factory also
supplied Aldi and Lidl.
Wages were comparatively better at Basic Apparels than
other factories Rina had worked in, but other conditions
were not so good. Workers were set targets that meant they
had to work until 10 p.m., but only paid three hours overtime.
When Rina had to work the night shift she had to sleep on
the floor when the shift finished at 3 a.m. Workers received
no medical leave.
Rina lost her job at the factory when, along with fellow
workers, she protested against the reduction of the factory's
yearly wage rise from 7% to 3%. As the owners did not visit
the factory often, the workers marched to the owners' residence
to ask why the wage rise rate had been reduced. However,
local police stopped the workers halfway. Workers were beaten,
and many severely injured. Sixty workers were arrested.
All were released except Rina and eight other workers,
who were sent to Dhaka where they spent nine days in jail.
Each worker had to pay 5,000 taka (€65) to get bail.
The case is still pending in the court.
After leaving custody the nine workers including Rina were
fired from their jobs together with 230 other workers (of
1,500 in total at the factory) who belonged to the union
NGWF. Rina is now jobless. She has tried hard to find work
since August 2004, but employers tell her that at 34 she
is too old.
Attempts to get German clients, including Tchibo, to take
up this case were met with no response. The NGWF formulated
the following demands for Basic Apparels and Tchibo:
Tchibo was invited three times to participate in events
with Rina in different cities, but only participated in
Hamburg. The Tchibo representative said the company would
take the allegations seriously and considered them to be
unacceptable if they were true. The company said it would
send a delegation to Bangladesh to analyse the situation,
but did not make any concrete com-mitments to rectify the
situation.
For more information see www.terre-des-femmes.de
and www.inkota.de
