Time running out for garment workers

We have heard much talk in our industry in recent weeks about major clothing retailers cancelling huge orders, with devastating impacts on RMG factories which are being forced to make extremely tough decisions. These cancellations have, of course, come amid the Covid-19 pandemic which has spread fear and uncertainty across our sector, bringing large parts of the RMG industry to a standstill.

But what does this pandemic mean for individual garment workers? What does it mean for them financially and how long will they be able to survive having been laid off or without any job at all?

Consider, first of all, the typical life of a garment workers. Such workers have arrived in huge numbers from remote and poor villages, heading to major cities such as Dhaka, Gazipur, Cartogram, Narangong and Cumilla.

There are 4-5 – perhaps more – members of each family and they all come in search of a better life. They wish to escape poverty and a job in the garment industry is their most realistic means of doing this.

Out of that family, just one member will usually enter the garment industry. Once employed, they will receive an average wage of approximately BDT 12000 per month, including overtime and other benefits. Using this money, they need to survive as well as putting money aside to send back to their native villages.

How does this monthly spend break down? Housing rent us usually around BDT 4000 thousand taka per month for a single family. Another 1,000 goes on utilities such as electricity. Another 4,000 or so will likely go on grocery items and other food spending. Around 1,000 might go on mobile telephony, daily personal expenses and internet use. Finally, this leaves BDT 1000 to send back to their native villages.

Look closely at this list. There is no leeway, no frivolous spend. All are necessities. What this means is that, at the end of every month, garment workers and their families have nothing left spare. If there are any emergencies – for instance doctor’s bills or other unforeseen circumstances – families often need to borrow money, at extortionately high interest rates. This list, it should be noted, does not even include school fees.

This is the backdrop against which we need to consider Covid-19. This backdrop is one of families already living on the brink. There is no room for maneuver, and certainly no room for a crisis as devastating as Covid-19. This could be the straw that broke the camel’s back if we are not careful.

Covid-19 has hit the Bangladeshi garment industry like a tsunami. Garment workers – always the most vulnerable people within this industry – have been hit the hardest.

Hundreds of thousands have already been laid off. Being laid off, in practice, means workers receive less than half – about 48 per cent – of their basic take-home salary. Consider this in light of the above spending figures I have shared. Remember, also, that basic does not include over-time, so might only amount to 3900 taka or so in many cases. This does not even cover their rent, and that is before we come to groceries, bills and any other expenditure.

This sudden and hugely unexpected crisis will force a great many workers to take loans from local borrowers in order to make ends meet. But how long can they keep doing this for?

We know there have been some workers who have not yet received salaries for March – no money at all to survive. As we have already said, workers do not have spare money for such circumstances. They have to borrow but they can only borrow so much.

The situation we are in is that few workers will be laid off but many more are at risk of losing their jobs completely unless our industry can find a way out of this crisis.

Even for those that go to work, the present time is deeply worrying. Garment factories are cramped spaces, where the issue of social distancing is near impossible to enforce. Workers sit closely together while they are working. They sit closely together while they are eating.

This is a tactile industry. Everything is done on touch. And touching spreads this dreadful disease. For sure, factories can clean and disinfect and workers can take care in terms of regular hand-washing, but such measures will not stem the tide, they will not keep this killer disease at bay – not when you have thousands of people working in close proximity under one roof.

This, then, is the challenge our garment workers face. Dwindling wage packets which do not make ends meet. The risk of uncertainty that they might lose their jobs. The worry that they will not be able to return to their native villages as the country is under lockdown. The terror that they might catch this deadly disease in a country where healthcare is below international standards.

It is a bleak, uncertain time, and it is hard to see light at the end of the tunnel right now.

We all face an uncertain future, but garment workers – those who toil day in, day out making our clothing – face the most uncertain future of all.

And time is quickly running out.

Mostafiz Uddin is the Managing Director of Denim Expert Limited. He is also the Founder and CEO of Bangladesh Denim Expo and Bangladesh Apparel Exchange (BAE). He can be reached at [email protected]