RILHA #26 – Human Rights for Bangladesh Garment Workers

---

To summarize in one sentence, the Bangladesh garment workers have gotten their union rights after a collapse of an eight–story factory building that killed over 1,100 workers and was said to be the worst disaster in the history of the global garment industry; consequently, the garment workers also got higher wages and a better place to sew the clothes for the factory they work in. There are still people missing from the collapse since the rescuers are having a very difficult time identifying the workers from the ruble or are still finding survivors from the disaster. This was a big deal because the garment workers could not get their union rights before without asking permission first and now they do not need to because the Cabinet made that decision. Before the Cabinet’s decision, the garment workers’ had their human rights violated because of their conditions they had to work in were terrible for anyone’s job if they work in a factory, their wage was the lowest when it is compared with other minimum wages throughout the world, and they could not get more rights or do anything, other than their job, without asking for permission first so they have no freedom. After the Cabinet decision came, those workers finally had relief that their human rights are now protected whether they had permission or not. What I think should have been done was that the human rights needed to have been given out before the disaster so it would at least that would relieve the garment workers from doing inhumane things, and the factory owners do not need to worry about getting into trouble from the non–garment workers and the garment workers themselves because of their protest or other things to get their attention into getting the rights. As far as things have gone, I have agreed to accept them because they have sort of met how I wanted to do things because no one really knew the amount of time before the factory building was going to collapse but there should also be check–ups on the factories so workers have that relief when making clothing.

---