Emre Yeksan

THE STRUGGLE OF BANGLADESHI TEXTILE AND GARMENT WORKERS IS OUR STRUGGLE! Textile and garment workers in Bangladesh are rising up against starvation wages and inhumane working conditions! Protests involving nearly one million workers have brought production to a halt in 529 factories. Tens of thousands of workers have taken to the streets and continue their struggle despite brutal police attacks and repression. Bangladeshi workers are demanding that the monthly minimum wage be raised from BDT 12,500 (approximately US$100) to BDT 30,000 (approximately US$241), that their dismissed fellow workers be reinstated, and that anti-union repression come to an end. Bangladesh is one of the world’s largest garment manufacturing hubs, with annual garment exports worth US$38.7 billion. The garment industry accounts for 80.6% of the country’s total merchandise exports. Yet the workers whose labour generates billions of dollars in export revenues are left to live in poverty. Moreover, in Bangladesh, employers do not merely own the factories; they also wield power over politics and the government itself, just as they do in Türkiye. Of the 350 seats in parliament, 246 are held by the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), and 16 of its MPs are themselves members of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA). Some of these individuals even hold ministerial positions directly responsible for trade, industry, and textile policies. Whenever we demand higher wages, better working conditions, or recognition of our trade union rights in Türkiye, employers confront us with the same threat: “We’ll move to Bangladesh! We’ll move to Egypt! We’ll relocate production to another country!” Global brands and employers weaponise the poverty of workers in one country against workers in another. By constantly shifting orders to wherever they can find cheaper labour, they drive a global race to the bottom in wages, pitting workers against one another in a ruthless competition over who will work for less. Yet workers in Türkiye, Bangladesh, Egypt, Cambodia, and Vietnam all produce for the same global brands. We sew garments for the same companies, and we face the same low wages, long working hours, precarious employment, anti-union repression, and threats of dismissal. Bangladeshi and Egyptian workers are not our competitors. Our common adversaries are the same global brands, the same capital, and the same system of exploitation that generates profits from all our labour. Today, Bangladeshi workers are delivering the most powerful response to the threat that employers in Türkiye have been holding over our heads for years: WHEREVER YOU GO, THERE ARE WORKERS THERE TOO! And those workers also demand living wages, trade union rights, and decent, dignified working conditions! Instead of honouring the international agreements and commitments they have signed up to and ensuring living wages and trade union rights in every country where they source their products, global brands shift production to countries where workers can be employed more cheaply, imposing inhumane working conditions and a life of destitution on working people. As BİRTEK-SEN, we salute the just struggle of our class brothers and sisters in Bangladesh. We stand firmly behind their demands for higher wages and trade union rights, and we demand an immediate end to police violence and repression against workers. We call on trade unions in Bangladesh, first and foremost, and on militant, fighting unions in every country where textile and garment workers are trapped in this global chain of exploitation, to join forces, strengthen international working-class solidarity, and build a common struggle. IF CAPITAL KNOWS NO BORDERS, NEITHER WILL WORKERS’ SOLIDARITY! BANGLADESHI WORKERS ARE NOT ALONE! LONG LIVE INTERNATIONAL WORKING-CLASS SOLIDARITY! WE STAND TALL TOGETHER! BİRTEK-SEN #Bangladesh #BangladeshNews #GarmentWorkers #GarmentWorkersProtest #Dhaka #Gazipur