Shah Alam Nur :
Around 318 readymade garment (RMG) factories have been closed following compliance issue in the aftermath of Rana Plaza collapse, leaving hundreds of workers including women out of job, industry insiders said.
They said, more than 80,000 workers have become jobless following closure of the non-complaint garment factories in Dhaka, Narayanganj, Gazipur and Chittagong.
On a visit to different garment factories located within the city, this reporter found that almost all of the unemployed workers are still on the lookout for new jobs.
There has been concern over the rise in the number of jobless workers, which does not augur well for the country’s once-humming apparel industry that has been acclaimed the world over.
If the present trend continued, many insiders apprehend, more factories would close down and the crowd of jobless would further swell by end of the current year.
“A large number of RMG workers are in fear and despair over losing their jobs as many of factories are going out of production in recent times,” Siddiqur Rahaman, President of Bangladesh Garment Manufactures and Exporters Association (BGMEA), the apex platform of country’s apparel-makers, told The New Nation on Tuesday.
Most of the factories now out of production are small-and medium-scale ones. They faced with challenges coming out of compliance issue, wage hike and new work-order crises.
The compliance conditions were prescribed by the western consumers for prevention of recurrence of tragedies like Rana Plaza collapse and Tazreen Fashions factory fire.
According to BGMEA, after the disastrous Rana Plaza collapse, Accord on Fire and Building Safety, a forum of 150 European retailers and brands, and Alliance for Bangladesh Workers’ Safety, a platform of 26 US-based companies, started visiting the country’s RMG factories for spot checks of working conditions as their consumers wouldn’t use apparels made with sweated labour.
Falling short on the compliance conditions and for increase in production cost, more than 200 RMG units’ owners have so far shut down their businesses. Shafiqul Alam, one of the garment workers now out of job, said “I was a sewing operator at Omi Apparel Ltd at Malibagh. But in recent times, I lost my job for closure of the factory,” he said.
Anwar-Ul-Alam Chowdhury Parvez, managing director of Evince Group, said in recent times they don’t seek fresh recruitment due to drop in new work orders by 50 per cent year-on-year basis.
Every year their fresh recruitment growth was 15 per cent, but now new recruitment has been totally halted, he said.
Echoing such rues, President of Bangladesh National Garment Workers-Employees League Sirajul Islam Rony said 80,000-82,000 workers have lost their jobs and are now passing hard days, as they have not found new sources of income yet.
