Read this article in:
22 February, 2012
From the ITGLWF website
On the evening of 12 February 2012, the President and General Secretary of the Coats Bangladesh Ltd. Employees Union went to the Coats Head Office at Novo Tower, Tejgaon Industrial Area, Dhaka in order to try to meet and discuss with company management with a view to resolving an industrial dispute.
Instead of negotiating with the union leaders, company officials confiscated their mobile phones and forcibly detained them in their building overnight only releasing them when trade union colleagues alerted the local newspaper media of their disappearance.
Management at the thread factory called Coats Ltd. in Bangladesh had failed to reach agreement with trade union negotiators. Having exhausted the bargaining procedures, a vote of the workers resulted in 98.12% in favour of strike action. The management somehow obtained a court order declaring the strike illegal.
The workers at Coats Ltd. are paid poverty wages of only BD TK1,625 (US $18.90). The trade unions in Bangladesh consider BD TK7,000 to be the minimum that could be considered a living wage. During the negotiations, the local trade union negotiators reduced their demand from 100% to 30% pay rise. The union demands also included increases in housing and other allowances all of which were refused by the management negotiators. Despite trade union compromises the employer remained intransigent and refused to bargain in good faith.
The Coats Employees’ Union is part of the Bangladesh Garments Textile & Leather Workers Federation (BGTLWF), which is an affiliate of the International Textile, Garment, Leather Workers’ Federation (ITGLWF). The BGTLWF has called for solidarity from the wider trade union movement. The ITGLWF is preparing a complaint to the OECD Contact Point for the UK over the matter. Coats Plc. is based in the UK and is a leading global company that manufactures thread.
The ITGLWF has written to Mr Paul Forman, CEO of Coats Plc. demanding that they intervene.
Klaus Priegnitz, ITGLWF General Secretary, said to the Coats CEO, “Your employees have clearly been mistreated and exploited for some considerable time. Theunion hasacted responsibly and with restraint in pursuing their justifiable and moderate demands. We call on you to instruct your local management to engage in constructive dialogue with the local trade union with a view to resolving this dispute on terms which are acceptable to the workers.”
See the joint ICEM-IMF letter to Coats management here.