Bangladeshi factory owner, out of jail, accused of more worker abuse

[TBF]

Garment workers earning poverty wages go on hunger strike for non-payment, then face retaliation and factory closure

August 21, 2014 4:18PM ET Updated August 22, 2014 8:13AM ET
by E. Tammy Kim

Nearly two years after a preventable fire killed 112 garment workers in Bangladesh, the owner of the Tazreen Fashion factory is out of jail, still in business and accused of cheating and retaliating against 1,600 employees at a separate five-factory complex.

Delwar Hossain spent fewer than six months in pre-trial detention before his release on bail on August 5. He and his wife, Mahmuda Akter, had surrendered to Dhaka authorities in February, having been charged with culpable homicide 13 months after the deadly fire at Tazreen. But until now, the courts have repeatedly denied Hossain’s request to be let out on bail. (Akter must report to the station every week.)
taz
Tuba and Tazreen factory owners Delwar Hossain and his wife, Mahmuda Akter, turn themselves in to a Dhaka court in February 2014. AP

While Hossain was in custody, his wife and close associates continued to operate Tuba Fashions and four other garment factories in a large building in Dhaka’s Badda neighborhood. Garment workers' rights advocates contend that in May he instructed Tuba managers to withhold pay from some 1,600 employees and pressure them to sign a petition supporting his release. At the time, the factory was producing soccer jerseys emblazoned with the FIFA World Cup logo, say labor organizers in close contact with the workers.

By July 9 employees were still owed two months’ compensation, it was alleged. They began to protest in front of the factory, on the streets and outside the offices of the powerful Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), only to be hosed down, teargased and shot at with rubber bullets by the police. One woman reported a miscarriage to Saydia Gulrukh, a labor advocate with the Asia Floor Wage group, which supports a regional, baseline living wage ...

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/8/21/bangladeshi-factoryowneroutofjailaccusedofmoreworkerabuse.html

[yallerdawg]

1. This is an example of what our multinational corporations really want.

In their pursuit of profit, the corporation seeks lower costs associated with emerging markets where our long-fought battles for wages, worker's rights, safety, environmental protections are essentially still in the formative state. Our capitalists argue we should not reward these gains to workers who don't have them and haven't fought for them, haven't earned them as our workers did.

Same theory holds on how unfair it would be to impede the emerging markets fossil-fuel industrialization America and Western Europe have already exploited at the expense of the world.

In both cases, life itself is secondary to profit, both for workers and apparently for the entire planet.