Workers, Activists Rally for Release of Bangladesh Labor Rights Leaders
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Jeff Vogt, associate director of AFL-CIO International Department, reports on today’s rally at the Embassy of Bangladesh in Washington, D.C.
Some 30 trade union and labor activists from the AFL-CIO, AFT, International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF), United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) and others rallied in front of the Embassy of Bangladesh today to protest the continued imprisonment on unsubstantiated charges of the leaders of the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity (BCWS).
The arrests of Kalpona Akter and Babul Ahkter follow recent worker protests over minimum wages in the ready-made garment industry. The police rounded up the BCWS leaders even though they were were not involved in destroying property during one such protest rally. The move appears to be part of an overall strategy to intimidate and chill legitimate workers’ rights activity in the industry.
The government recently has taken away the labor rights organization’s registration. BCWS and other workers’ rights groups in Bagladesh report that another BCWS leader was detained and tortured. While the leader was detained, BCWS says authorities unsuccessfully attempted to force a confession that would implicate the group’s leadership of illegal activity.
At 20 cents per hour, garment workers’ wages are by far the lowest of any major apparel producing country. Often, workers are not even paid. They also face hazardous working conditions, and several lost their lives recently in major factory fires.
Rally organizers promised to return to the embassy until BCWS leaders are released.
Executive Council Focuses on Jobs, Election, Workers’ Rights
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In the midst of the worst jobs crisis since the Depression, the AFL-CIO Executive Council laid out a road map for how the Obama administration and Congress can fundamentally revamp the nation’s economy so that it puts workers first. President Barack Obama, who addressed the Council on Aug. 4, seemed to get it when he said that making things in America is at the heart of the economic recovery. The Council also laid out plans for the critical fall elections.
In a series of statements, Council members reaffirmed the need for immediate adoption of the AFL-CIO’s five point plan to create new jobs and warned that reducing the deficit must come after we create more revenue-producing jobs. You can check out all the new Executive Council statements here.
America’s Real Patriot Act: The Employee Free Choice Act
When America’s founders crafted the Constitution, they knew more was needed to ensure the survival of democracy. So they created the Bill of Rights. They made sure that at the top of the list, the First Amendment included such rights as the freedom of assembly. That is, the freedom of all of us to gather together in groups of our choosing. Like, say, unions.
Some opponents of workers’ freedom to form unions seem to have forgotten that forming groups outside government—and corporate—purview is critical to a free nation. In Big Brother-speak, these corporate hacks are attacking the proposed Employee Free Choice Act—which would enable more employees and workers to have the freedom to form unions—as unconstitutional.
Here’s what’s really outrageous:
- Managers following employees and workers to the bathroom and around the workplace to harass them for seeking to form a union.
- Workers so intimidated by employers, they become scared of voting in a ballot for a union so they vote against the union or don’t vote at all, fearing that if they do, they’ll lose their job.
