Coronavirus Shutdown: BGMEA's cruel joke | The Business Standard
Skip to main content
  • Home
  • Economy
    • Aviation
    • Bazaar
    • Budget
    • Industry
    • NBR
    • RMG
    • Corporates
  • Stocks
  • Analysis
  • World+Biz
  • Sports
  • Features
    • Book Review
    • Brands
    • Earth
    • Explorer
    • Fact Check
    • Family
    • Food
    • Game Reviews
    • Good Practices
    • Habitat
    • Humour
    • In Focus
    • Luxury
    • Mode
    • Panorama
    • Pursuit
    • Wealth
    • Wellbeing
    • Wheels
  • Epaper
  • More
    • Subscribe
    • Videos
    • Thoughts
    • Splash
    • Bangladesh
    • Supplement
    • Infograph
    • Archive
    • COVID-19
    • Games
    • Long Read
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Podcast
    • Quiz
    • Tech
    • Trial By Trivia
    • Magazine
  • বাংলা
The Business Standard

Sunday
January 29, 2023

Sign In
Subscribe
  • Home
  • Economy
    • Aviation
    • Bazaar
    • Budget
    • Industry
    • NBR
    • RMG
    • Corporates
  • Stocks
  • Analysis
  • World+Biz
  • Sports
  • Features
    • Book Review
    • Brands
    • Earth
    • Explorer
    • Fact Check
    • Family
    • Food
    • Game Reviews
    • Good Practices
    • Habitat
    • Humour
    • In Focus
    • Luxury
    • Mode
    • Panorama
    • Pursuit
    • Wealth
    • Wellbeing
    • Wheels
  • Epaper
  • More
    • Subscribe
    • Videos
    • Thoughts
    • Splash
    • Bangladesh
    • Supplement
    • Infograph
    • Archive
    • COVID-19
    • Games
    • Long Read
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Podcast
    • Quiz
    • Tech
    • Trial By Trivia
    • Magazine
  • বাংলা
SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2023
BGMEA's cruel joke

Analysis

Inam Ahmed
05 April, 2020, 03:05 pm
Last modified: 05 April, 2020, 03:52 pm

Related News

  • BGMEA calls on PVH to buy more high-end apparels from Bangladesh
  • BGMEA demands withdrawal of tax on fuel import
  • Primark wants to increase sourcing diversified apparels from Bangladesh
  • BGMEA calls on Primark for partnership in product diversification, sustainability
  • BGMEA urges buyers to allow sourcing fabrics, accessories from multiple suppliers

BGMEA's cruel joke

The explanation they gave Saturday night about their powerlessness to lock down factories is not in the best interest of the citizens and the workers themselves

Inam Ahmed
05 April, 2020, 03:05 pm
Last modified: 05 April, 2020, 03:52 pm
A large number of people, heading for Dhaka to resume their duties. Photo: Salahuddin Ahmed
A large number of people, heading for Dhaka to resume their duties. Photo: Salahuddin Ahmed

April is the cruelest month and it was proven so once again when thousands of garment workers trudged back to Dhaka city they had left when the government announced a countrywide lockdown until April 4.

As they went home in hordes, sardine-packed in trucks, launches and trains, we don't know whether thousands have been contaminated with coronavirus or not in the process. And now when they come back in the same manner, those who have been contaminated pose a great health risk to those in Dhaka.

The role that the BGMEA played in their migration and return migration was a tale of indecisiveness. The explanation they gave Saturday night about their powerlessness to lock down factories is not in the best interest of the citizens and the workers themselves.

This migration and return migration also reveal a lot about our garment industry, the 84 percent bringer of our export earnings.

The workers went home because they had no such savings to carry them through the lockdown. They went home because the ten feet by ten feet room in which four to six of them live – or should we say condemned to death – is no place to shelter-in-place through a lockdown. It can at best serve them to collapse their tired bodies to a plank-made platform at the end of back-wracking work and go to sleep.

Photo: Salahuddin Ahmed
Photo: Salahuddin Ahmed

It also reveals that risking their lives and of others was the better option than missing their work and probably losing their jobs. It also shows how divorced they are from the banking system as their absence could mean they would not get their salary because they mostly get it in cash.

And what does one make of BGMEA's two announcements on Saturday night – the first one urging factory owners to keep their factories shut until April 11, and the second one explaining that it actually has no power to close any factory?

They show that it could not take a timely decision about the safety of its workers and also of the citizens who are now at a greater risk of contracting the virus.

BGMEA had sat through all these days waiting for the workers to return while everybody, including the government, had in mind to extend the lockdown. The government, very correctly and wisely, announced the extension of lockdown much before the April 4 deadline came. BGMEA, like everybody else of this country, knew of the government's decision and yet sat there without considering the issue in time while apparently remaining unaware of the consequences of the return of the workers to the city.

Photo: Salahuddin Ahmed
Photo: Salahuddin Ahmed

Rather, they came up with a late night announcement that factory owners should keep their shutters down until April 11. By this time whatever damage that was supposed to happen had been done.

The workers have filed into the city. And now if their factories remain closed until April 11, what will they do? Will they again trot back to their homes in whatever way they can? If they don't, then how will they survive?

And the second statement of BGMEA is even more egregious. The statement that makes us learn it cannot force factories to close down; the power lies with the department of inspection for factories and establishments.

If it could ask factories to close until April 4, then why can it not further extend the appeal?

It is the apex body of the garment industry, the most important economic sector in the country. It looks after the interest of the industry collectively.

It can also ask the owners to extend the closure of factories.

But the damage is already done and it has acted against the government's shutdown order.

Top News

BGMEA / worker / lockdown / Coronavirus

Comments

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderation decisions are subjective. Published comments are readers’ own views and The Business Standard does not endorse any of the readers’ comments.

Top Stories

  • Photo: UNB
    Only AL made country self-sufficient in food: PM
  • Reconditioned vehicles running out of stock as traders fail to open LCs
    Reconditioned vehicles running out of stock as traders fail to open LCs
  • Photo: TBS
    Corruption remains the biggest barrier to business: CPD

MOST VIEWED

  • Illustration: TBS
    Biz leaders want crisis management, energy security for survival
  • A proper price formula can help investors to plan big
    A proper price formula can help investors to plan big
  • SK Bashir Uddin: TBS sketch
    Investments risky without consistent policy, reliable data
  • Shams Mahmud. TBS Sketch
    Lack of coordination, policy biggest problems
  • TBS Talk: What Lies Ahead
    TBS Talk: What Lies Ahead
  • Md Shahidullah. Illustration: TBS
    The crisis might trigger factory sellout

Related News

  • BGMEA calls on PVH to buy more high-end apparels from Bangladesh
  • BGMEA demands withdrawal of tax on fuel import
  • Primark wants to increase sourcing diversified apparels from Bangladesh
  • BGMEA calls on Primark for partnership in product diversification, sustainability
  • BGMEA urges buyers to allow sourcing fabrics, accessories from multiple suppliers

Features

Nandita Sharmin's journey to give organic skincare a new identity

Nandita Sharmin's journey to give organic skincare a new identity

5h | Mode
Illustration: TBS

'The silver lining is that the worst is sort of behind us': Hamid Rashid, UN economist

8h | Panorama
Photo: Bloomberg

BuzzFeed and AI are a match made in fad city

7h | Panorama
Snipe in flight. Photo: Enam Ul Haque

Baikka Beel: 'A world where snipe work late'

1d | Panorama

More Videos from TBS

“Investments risky without consistent policy, reliable data”- SK Bashir Uddin

“Investments risky without consistent policy, reliable data”- SK Bashir Uddin

1h | TBS Round Table
What does Shahrukh has in his 770 million dollar property?

What does Shahrukh has in his 770 million dollar property?

21h | TBS Entertainment
15 Reasons Your Entrepreneurial Career Can Fail

15 Reasons Your Entrepreneurial Career Can Fail

20h | TBS Career
Women are going to make history in match management in cricket

Women are going to make history in match management in cricket

19h | TBS SPORTS

Most Read

1
Picture: Collected
Bangladesh

US Embassy condemns recent incidents of visa fraud

2
Illustration: TBS
Banking

16 banks at risk of capital shortfall if top 3 borrowers default

3
Photo: Collected
Splash

Hansal Mehta responds as Twitter user calls him 'shameless' for making Faraaz

4
A frozen Beyond Burger plant-based patty. Photographer: AKIRA for Bloomberg Businessweek
Bloomberg Special

Fake meat was supposed to save the world. It became just another fad

5
Bapex calls candidates for job test 9 years after advert!
Bangladesh

Bapex calls candidates for job test 9 years after advert!

6
Representational Image
Banking

Cash-strapped Islami, Al-Arafah and National turn to Sonali Bank for costly fund

EMAIL US
[email protected]
FOLLOW US
WHATSAPP
+880 1847416158
The Business Standard
  • About Us
  • Contact us
  • Sitemap
  • Privacy Policy
  • Comment Policy
Copyright © 2023
The Business Standard All rights reserved
Technical Partner: RSI Lab

Contact Us

The Business Standard

Main Office -4/A, Eskaton Garden, Dhaka- 1000

Phone: +8801847 416158 - 59

Send Opinion articles to - [email protected]

For advertisement- [email protected]