A SEVEN DAY working week, sometimes as long as 16 hours a day. That’s the lot of many clothing workers in Bangladesh. Mistreatment and beatings are common. So is sexual harassment. Even rape and murder are not unknown.
Since last summer, the National Garment Workers Federation has organised many large demonstrations against these primitive conditions. Job security is non-existent and hundreds of union activists have been sacked.
The NGWF are fighting to make Friday a free day, for overtime rates to be paid and for an end to the harassment of women workers. The union has built links with anarchist and radical unions in other countries, including the Swedish SAC and the anarcho-syndicalist International Workers Association.