Gender Discrimination at Workplace: A Study on Garments Industry in Bangladesh

Abstract

Bangladesh, a fast growing developing country has been experiencing rapid development in export-oriented industrialization. There is a rapid rise in manufacturing particularly in the garment industries because of foreign direct investment in the last few decades. The total contribution of earning foreign exchange from the garment industries is around 74.2 percent (EPB, 2004). About 85 percent of the garment workers are women. Those women have very little education (BGMEA, 2006) and most of them have migrated from rural areas to industrial cities. Garment industries have provided unprecedented wage employment opportunities for young women because their labor is comparatively cheap. Women are employed in this industry mainly to exploit the "comparative advantages" of their disadvantages, like the low price of their labor, their lower bargaining power, and their docility. Women workers work in a vulnerable working condition in comparison to their male counterpart because they are to a great extent, forced to be interested in earning a living than to find a healthy working environment. Gender-differentiated working conditions prevailing in the garment industry has not got proper attention yet✓ There was no thorough and comprehensive study held in this regard. In some researches this problem has been addressed in a piecemeal way. The present study is an empirical as well as explorative and descriptive study based on both primary and secondary data. Questionnaire survey, key informant's interview, case study and observation were used for primary data collection. The present study attempted to identify the various states of gender discrimination in working conditions prevailing in the garment industries with a view to develop an integrated policy guideline for gender-sensitive working conditions in the garment industry in Bangladesh. In this study, to compare the working conditions between men and women working in garment factories, both the workers and the managers of three garment factories were interviewed. The workers were interviewed through a set of structured questionnaire and some case studies were conducted. For the managers of the concerned factories, a checklist was used to know about the history and characteristics of those factories. A total of 300 workers from three garment factories in Dhaka city and its peripheral were interviewed; of them 150 workers were males and 150 were females. The workers were selected randomly from four main production sections in manufacturing garments i.e., sewing, finishing, cutting and quality control of the surveyed garment factories where both women and men were working. In this study, working conditions were analyzed from different facets: physical environment, social aspects and other supporting facilities. Comparison of working conditions of surveyed garment factories was made in order to understand how different performances of these factories were. To focus the view of the research, differentials in working conditions of men and women in the same factory as well as among the other factories were also analyzed. Regarding physical environment, it was found that the physical working conditions in the factory no. (3) were better than other two factories. The factory no (3) Constructed new building with all modern and scientific amenities, and had bigger floor space per worker, adequate ventilation and other facilities. Due to consciousness of workers' welfare for both men and women, the working spaces, light fans, toilets were equally distributed between men and women in this factory. Regarding other two factories, the factory buildings were rented and they were not so big to accommodate everything nicely. The management of these factories has fixed their priority to set up office room and different production sections and it goes to the men because male-privilege has institutionalized as a fundamental principle of these factories that affect their ability to produce outcomes beneficial to women. Regarding social aspects, it was found a big gap in social security and benefits between women and men workers of the surveyed garment factories. In the factory no. (3) women workers could take maternity leave for 16 weeks with their full wage. In other factories, women were allowed to take 12 weeks maternity leave without pay. There is also a gap among the surveyed factories regarding child-care facilities as the factory no. (3) had a child-care centre but the other factories do not have. The factory no. (3) has health check-up and medical clinic facilities in the factory premises having adequate doctor and nurses. They also organize medical examinations upon recruitment of workers and conduct regular examinations for the workers. But the other two factories have no adequate doctor, nurse and treatment facilities. Regarding supporting facilities, it was found that facilities of toilet distribution in the factory no. (3) were adequate and maintaining condition of toilets were better as they had more space including a washing area. In other two factories, although there were separate toilets for men and women but there was gender discrimination in terms of number of latrines in different production sections. The factory no. (3) provided drinking water in each floor of the workshop. In the factory no. (1) and (2), the drinking water was supplied by taps near the toilets. There was difference among the factories regarding supply of preventive measures. In the factory no. (3) workers were provided with noise, dust protection and other safety measures where as in other two factories, these were inadequately provided. It was found that in factory no. (1) and (2) the traditional male dominating ideology is deeply rooted in the culture of factory management that plays a vital role in reflecting perception on men's and women's role and capacity, and creates gender unequal outcomes, which affects the women's working conditions. In these two factories, there was a gender discrimination of men and women's work allocation in different sections based on perceived traditional ideology on men and women's role and capacity. Since men's work is more valued, men's wages are also higher than women. It has been seen in the study that workers in the factory no. (3) have more bargaining power than other factories as they could take decisions on leave and other issues by negotiation with their employers. It may be explained that workers in the factory no. (3) have labour union as in a form of "workers welfare committee" and the workers have better knowledge on labour laws and labour rights. Moreover, in the factory no. (3), to compete the global labour market in an international standard, the management has adopted strategic human resource management (HRM). Affirmative Action Programme (AAP) is a main component of the HRM strategy, which attributes the equal opportunity for men and women workers in the factory. In the light of the findings of the study, it requires an integrated effort to improve women's working conditions in the garment factories. Policy guideline from the factory management, government, BGMEA, Trade Union leaders, ILO, UNDP, NGOs is the key to ensure gender-responsive working conditions in the garment factories. This would mean integrating women's needs and preferences such as proper wages and other benefits in the factory's operations, limiting working hours providing adequate healthcare and childcare facilities, maternity leave and benefits, annual leave, sick leave, skill training, promotion, allow trade union activities, enacting gender-responsive labour laws and ensuring their enforcement, gender awareness training programme for the managers as well as for the workers are the key factors for gender-equal working conditions. If all the stakeholders relating workers' welfare extend their cooperation and undertake a long-term strategy to promote gender-equal working condition, then the women workers would be the "main actors" in the production process rather than mere a worker. The findings of the study will help to identify the gender discrimination prevailing in the garment factories and will be useful tools for the policy-makers and the concerned authorities to formulate development programmes to improve the overall working conditions in the garments industry in Bangladesh.