While addressing the May Day gathering of the IndustriALL Bangladesh Council, Sanches stressed the need for unity, especially in the aftermath of the Ashulia struggle. The event organised to commemorate May Day by the IndustriALL Bangladesh Council was a vibrant and lively event with more than 3,000 workers sloganeering for their rights.
Speakers Valter Sanches, Jenny Holdcroft, IndustriALL Assistant General Secretary, and leaders of the IndustriALL Bangladesh Council spoke of the need for unity and support for workers struggle to achieve union rights and a living wage. The event was followed by a march on the streets of Dhaka calling for a living wage for workers and freedom to form unions.
During his mission to Bangladesh, Sanches visited a unionized factory, where the remediation process of Accord is close to completion.
Congratulating both union and management on the good industrial relations in the factory, he said:
It is heartening to see functional industrial relations, but more needs to be done for improvement in the working conditions, especially wages.
Sanches also met with the garment manufacturers’ associatiion BGMEA, the Minister for Labour and Employment, as well as the ILO country director. During these meetings, he stressed the importance of unions being free to organize and better industrial relations to the future of the garment industry .