A strange scene plays out at Bhannar Bazar, Gazipur on February 16. Probably unprecedented in Bangladesh, the junior management of a garment factory, armed with rods and sticks, pulls at a union activist in full view of a foreign brand representative as well as the head of “Bangladesh Accord.”
“They would have probably beaten me up,” Kamrul Hassan of Akota Garment Workers Federation (AGFW) says of his visit to BEO Apparels, a textile supplier of German company Lidl. The fight ends with at least 10 injured from both sides – unionised workers and factory management. The factory shut down its operations that day.
Ulrich Bornemann, the German owner, announced he would be closing that factory and a second factory, Knitex Dresses, leaving 1,300 people jobless. According to Bornemann, his companies are unable to get new orders because of a “smear campaign.”
A conflict between BEO Apparels union and the factory management has been brewing since September 2014, when the union raised safety concerns about a water boiler and demanded a higher Eid bonus. A few days later, 48 union members were sacked.
“The managers told us immediately this would not be possible. But they would still take a look at their accounts,” says Ariful Islam, the factory’s union president.
The factory announced bonuses a few days later. There were no changes. That day, 12 workers went to confront the managers. According to Bornemann, they instigated the remaining workers to stop working and locked up two management staff members. This, he says, was why the union workers were fired.
The workers say the factory staff had lied to the senior management, and Bornemann admits to never hearing the workers. “I guess it’s one’s word against the other.”
AGWF general secretary Kamrul Hassan, though, is sure the lay-off was retaliatory. “We protested about the layoffs with Bangladesh Accord.”
An almost 200-strong international coalition, the Accord is responsible for inspecting factories safety standards and improving them. It is also responsible for ensuring that workers’ rights are protected. Non compliance with the Accord results in sweeping sanctions.
The Accord had found a number of construction errors at BEO Apparels and also asked for a fireproof wall between the boiler room and working space.
Despite repeated attempts by the Accord, Bornemann kept refusing to reinstate the sacked workers.
In the following days, the two union workers still working at the factory were harassed by factory staff. They were verbally abused and not given any work. One of the two says she was accosted by a local thug and told to “leave the area.”
While Bornemann stuck to his guns, his clients were tipped off by international trade unions and new orders began dropping. Bornemann started thinking of closing down one of his two factories in spring.
In December, he finally caved and agreed to reinstate the workers with full pay for the elapsed time but the junior management would not have it. They threatened to quit saying they would have to leave in “fear of their lives.” Bornemann reneged in end of January.
And so the events of February 16th transpired. After a meeting among four parties – junior management, Accord, Lidl’s importer and the union – a fight broke out injuring at least 10.
The next day the factory announced it was “temporarily closed.” A week later, Bornemann announced permanent closure. The Accord immediately declared him "non-compliant," while his clients severed their business relations.
On March 1, 200 workers came to the Accord’s Dhaka office to protest. “We all live on these jobs – what will happen to us now?” asked an elderly woman. They are convinced the Accord and the union conspired to shut down their factory. “We don’t need these troublemakers and we don’t need a union,” they shout.
They would rather work just as the owner wished than be jobless.