The alliance of eight federations is fighting against the tide of the time. Denationalisation is the phrase-turned 'developmental motto' in the present economic matrix, and the unionists have been orienting themselves against it. Their resolve to fight this trend that hinges upon the concept of globalisation is intense. To be able to raise a voice against it is one thing, but to tackle the most pressing issue of national interest is a virtual war in the offing. And this ideological war the unionist would have to fight alone. With the booming IT related businesses in sight and the considerable success in the garment sector, not many are willing to examine what is happening in the industrial sectors dependent on indigenous raw materials. While industries that draw on the cotton, jute and sugarcane produced in our own soil are being laid off, the impact is twofold, one is the loss of jobs by the labourers and other, which has a wider implication, is the impoverishment of the farmers. Laying-off of industries have hit the producers of raw materials the hardest. While the industries are dying, both the producers of raw materials and the labourers working in mills are finding themselves in between a rock and a hard place. The former is being forced to grow something less profitable and the latter are losing their jobs due to lay-off that is more often a euphemism for complete shut down. The union of the federations wants to bring this into sharp focus, and is all set to combat the trend of denationa-lisation.

Shahidullah attests to the futility of privatisation and he also illustrates how the existing multi-organisational platform SCOP (sramik karmachary aoikyo parishad) is failing to deal with the real issues, "as the pro-government labour organisation is always there to wave any action that opposes the policies taken up by the government." To be able to escape the noose of '<>dalbaji', as Shahidullah dubs any pro-party action or inaction that flouts the interest of the workers, is a humongous task. The united eight, the forged alliance, is out to deconstruct the norm of the party-in-power-oriented unionism that considers workers as mere pawns in keeping things under the tight grip of the people at the helm.

The garment sector has an altogether different character. Yet the lives of the workers in this precinct remain as volatile as their brethren in others sectors. The workers are job seekers from the poor hovels, who become city-bound as resources in the rural areas are decimating quickly. But, once in the cities, they become another cog in the great wheel of an industry that so far has based itself on minimum wage and the 'quota' rewarded mostly by the USA.

The garment sector can be termed as an assemblage industry. All materials come from abroad, and the strings of activities like dying, cutting and sewing that lead to the manufactured items are part of the process of assembling. And a whole new workforce has developed along this line. The garment sector is the epitome of what is termed a labour intensive industry.

In 2005, after the withdrawal of the Multi Fibre Arrangement (MFA), the quota system will be no more, and a country like Bangladesh without its own fibre and fabric is bound for a nosedive. Shahidullah fears that many garment factories will meet with demise and a huge number of workers will be out of jobs. "It is a social calamity in the waiting," adds Shahidullah gravely.

It is lamentable how the government could not come up with any workable strategy to tackle the post MFA situation. "A taskforce has been formed with government '<>amlas' as its members, I don't know how it will tackle this 'emergency situation' within eight months. There are no representatives of the labourers in the taskforce," Shahidullah explains how workers are even shunned when it comes to coping with an imminent disaster that will effect them the most. "In Sri Lanka they have been preparing for this for the last two years, and have developed a huge fund for the labourers," Shahidullah adds.

It was during the eighties that Bangladesh jumped into the bandwagon of the garment manufacturer countries. "Though the hi-tech boom fuelled it, it was mainly to cope with the oil boycott by the Arab countries that the garment sector was deemed redundant in the West. The machinery of this labour intensive industry was exported to least developed countries where labour was cheap," says Shahidullah.

After more than 15 years it has become a means of gaining a huge remittance. Shahidullah thinks otherwise., "Only one third of the total income remains in Bangladesh, the rest is spent on fibres and clothes" he says. "It is the 'mojury' -- the wage -- that remains". He hastens to add, "The quota is given only for products made with the cheapest labour. Quota means the payment would be double for the products and this made the boom possible in Bangladesh". This is also the reason why a huge labour force remains in the throes of a well-orchestrated monopoly. According to experts, MFA itself violates the fundamental principal of GATT (General Agreement of Trade and Tarrif). It flouts Article 1 on non-discrimination and Article XI on abolition of Non-Tariff Barriers. "The discrimination was destined for developing countries," said Will Martin at a seminar in the World Bank. According to Martin, quota often hurts the other industries as "when one commodity faces quota, resources are likely to be shifted towards it". This is what happened in Bangladesh.

As cheap labour is the only source of income in this sector, workers have never been given the status that they deserved. In the last 18 or so years no proper union have been allowed to operate to raise awareness about workers' rights. Today in 3,300 factories situated mainly in Dhaka, Chittagong, Narayanganj, Savar, Tongi and Gazipur, a total of 1,320,000 women and 280,000 men are subjected to the will of the owners. In absence of the law regarding the national minimum wage, workers stand to lose. There is this provision for fixing the minimum wage in every sector, which is to be revised in every three years, but in reality it has never been implemented, says a report by the National Garment Workers Federation who also furnished the present figures of factories and workers. It also highlights that "in 1994, the minimum wage for the unskilled labourers was fixed at Tk. 930 per month, and for the skilled at Tk. 2,300, but this was not implemented in all sectors".

Meanwhile, several fire incidents took hundreds of lives in last fifteen years or so. Fire exits had been put up in recent years, but not a single incident was subject to proper investigation. Events of sexual abuse and all sorts of mistreatment are rampant, and they often go unregistered. The Narayanganj incident in November 3, at the BSCIC City that exploded into a virtual battle between the authorities and the workers is proof of how exploitation and maltreatment can backfire.

General workers, on their part, have gradually learnt not to expect anything from trade unions. In many cases, especially in the government-owned industries, the dominant feeling about trade union is that of 'fear' more than anything else. "In many places trade unions become the second oppressor, considering that the first position is owned by the owner/management. General workers there fear the union leaders more than the Managing Director, because if the MD does any injustice to them they can go to the union, but if the union turns against him no one can save him," Ali says.

Political-party-based trade unionism that has been directly and indirectly encouraged by both military and so-called democratic governments has done the greatest harm to trade unionism, believes Idris Ali, President of Bangladesh Garments Workers Trade Union. A section of people who preach this political-party-based trade unionism argue that if a union leadership has direct relationship with the government they are better able to work for the cause of the workers. "No" comes the quick reply from Idris. "Could the BNP-backed trade union stop the closure of Adamjee Jute mill and save about 30 thousand workers' job along with a few lakhs who were indirectly dependent on the biggest jute mill of the region?" Ali elaborates.

This practice of handpicking union leaders instead of letting them be elected by popular votes also serves the real interest of the owners very well. "The owner or management can then choose someone who they can easily influence and exploit to their advantage," Ahsan says.

There is a very popular misconception about trade unions among general people, who are accustomed to seeing it as an obstacle to smooth functioning of an institution. "When we talk to general workers about the importance of trade union and try to organise them they often hesitate to respond. They would often refer to it as a jhamela (trouble) where they don't want to get into. They, of course, cannot be blamed as what they have seen in the name of trade union is really nothing but jhamela," Idris says. General workers need to be made conscious about it, suggests Idris, but hastens to add that it is an extremely difficult task. " As far as garments workers are concerned, about 80% of them are illiterate and aged between 16 to 25. The reason may be either illiteracy or immaturity it is often hard to make them aware of their rights and deprivation, and the fact that the only solution to this is trade union," he says. Another problem with organising garments workers is, Idris adds, they tend to change their workplace frequently. "The convention has been to mobilise workers taking the factory as the primary base, but, we perhaps need to start approaching in terms of area," proposes Idris.

The present bad state of the trade unions is not exactly unexpected. It was, in a sense, inevitable. We live in a society whose every fabric is polluted with corruption, higher moral values are giving way to materialism, politicisation is all pervasive. "How do you expect to see trade unions clean when everything else is in bad shape?" Manzurul poses his final question. It is a difficult question, no doubt.