The Textile Industry - Bangladesh

• Key Facts:

  • Costs in Banladesh are ~60& of those in India
  • Bangladesh wages - $40/month ($200+ in India & China)
  • Plays a key role in Bangladesh’s economy
  • 78% of Bangladesh’s GDP
  • 45% of all industrial employment
• Key Facts - Concerns:

  • Sweatshops
  • Shift to informal, part-time/temporary jobs and home workshops
  • Use of child labour
• Impacts of the Textile Industry - Social:

  • Low Paid Jobs - $40/month
  • No set working hours, 100+ hours weekly and forced to do overtime. $65/month with overtime
  • Cramped living conditions - very small room with bed - shared bathroom + kitchen
  • Unions campaign for better conditions + minimum wage - $45/month
  • People start working as young as 11
  • Unsafe working conditions - 1000 workers killed 2013 - Rana Plaza Collapsed
  • 80% of the workers in the textile industry are female
• Impacts of the Textile Industry - Economic:

  • People don’t have money to spend in the local economy
  • To attract FDI TNCs don’t have to pay much tax - no money to improve infrastructure
• Impacts of the Textile Industry - Environmental:

  • Streets are surrounded by rubbish and sewage.
  • Pollution in the rivers around the capital has reached very high levels. 
  • Farmers claim the indiscriminate release of wastewater from nearby clothing factories has turned the area's agricultural fields to tar, and causes long-term skin disease.
  • Bangladeshi garment factories and mills consume 1,500 billion liters of water annually, exacerbating falling ground water levels.
  • Generates 1.2 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emission per year
• Benefits of the Textile Industry - Social:

  • Employment - 45% all industrial employment is from textile industry - 6 million people employed.
  • ¼ people make a living from the textile industry.
  • Growing pool of skilled workers
  • Formation of workers unions may push other industries into industrial action similar to the textile industry.
• Benefits of the Textile Industry - Economic:

  • Increased GDP - 78% comes from the textile industry in Bangladesh
  • The industrial action of the textile workers unions put pressure on the Bangladeshi government to put a minimum wage in place.
  • Total textile export ~ $13 billion
• Compliance Standards:

  • Safe working environment
  • Access to water and toilets (free)
  • Workers over 14 years old
  • Max 2 hours a day overtime
  • Sick and maternity pay.
• Compliance Standards - Partnership for Cleaner Textiles (PaCT):

  • Funded by the governments of Australia, Canada, and the Netherlands
  • Provided more than 200 factories like Textown with on-site assessments over the past five years. 
  • Its advice on easy, low-cost solutions and larger capital investments has reduced water use by 21 billion liters per year in Bangladesh. 
  • These factories also cut energy consumption by 2.5 million megawatts hour.
  • Reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 460,000 tons annually
  • Equivalent to removing 100,000 cars from the road.
• Compliance Standards - Concerns:

  • Factories get warning when inspection will be
  • Toilets and water are working
  • Children hide in toilets
  • Managers tell workers what to say
  • Stand behind the cameras during interviews to insure that they are saying the correct things.