Visiting a Garment Factory

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Alcohol is essentially illegal in Bangladesh. With the country being over 90% Muslim it is illegal to sell alcohol in stores or restaurants. There are just a few exceptions: there are a few "foreigners only" liquor stores as well as bars that pay high bribe fees to the government (they are frequently raided). Both have very limited selection of liquor, beer and wine. Finally, there are embassy clubs. Embassys are considered foreign land so each one has built a club/restaurant attached to their offices. Foreigners can go to these establishments and order alcohol free of consequences. When I am not dining with locals (they would not be permitted entry)I will dine at one of the embassy clubs so I can have wine with dinner. An added benefit is the low spice food they offer which is a great break for my stomach 😊

At the Nordic club I met a man, Peter from Denmark, who previously owned the largest sweater production factory in Bangladesh. He now owns a variety of garment factories around the country. Based on my discussions with him he seems to run the factories with high standards regarding how the employees are treated, paid, and their work environment. On average each factory can have 1000 employees. Peter said he was the first large scale garment factory to implement a retirement plan for his employees. When he offered to give me a tour of one his factories I jumped at the opportunity. I was on a site visit with Tarango when he visited his largest factory so I joined to tour a sweater factory that he contracts with. It's about 1.5 hours outside of Dhaka. They are new to production and he is helping them get established. Watching the sweater knitting machines, piecing machines, and large washing/drying machines was great fun. The bulk of the manual labor is for hand stitched details, blocking (with steam) the sweater into size, and quality control. I helped with reviewing the finishes on some products as well as selecting some new designs. It brought me back to my design school days!

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Comments

[Mari Frick]

Really interesting , Sarah!!