Bangladesh aims to facilitate the formation of unions within companies

A government decree seeks to reduce the number of signatories needed to establish a union within a Bangladeshi company. The measure has worried the textile industry, which fears new waves of strikes.

Under the proposal, establishing a union in Bangladesh would now require 20 signatories for companies with fewer than 300 employees, 40 for those with 301 to 500 and 100 for companies with 501 to 1,500 workers. For larger companies, with between 1,501 and 3,000 employees, the threshold would be set at 300, and at 400 for companies with more than 3,000 employees.

The textile sector was quick to respond, arguing that the measure goes far beyond what was agreed during the most recent tripartite negotiations, which brought together representatives of the government, workers and employers. The companies now hope to soften the scope of the text through intervention by Bangladeshi parliamentarians.

“We want only those who have been actively defending workers' rights for a long time to join these unions,” Mahmud Hasan, president of BGMEA, the federation of garment manufacturers, told the local press a few days ago.

“We do not want the owners of jute companies (a related segment of the textile industry, editor's note) or the owners who rent housing to workers to influence the formation of unions.”

These discussions occur amid persistent social tensions. Bangladesh remains marked by the mass protests of the summer of 2024, which led to the flight of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. The BGMEA, for its part, was subjected to a form of government supervision after controversial internal elections, while a further increase in minimum wages was decided in December.

Any labor unrest in Bangladesh is closely followed by the West, which is why the country has become one of the main suppliers of clothing. Bangladesh is the third largest clothing supplier to the United States (7.5 billion dollars in 2024) and the second largest to the European Union (4.3 billion euros).

This position has been secured thanks to low wages, while its main competitor, China, increased its minimum wage in the early 2010s. However, it leaves Bangladesh heavily dependent on its textile sector, which generates 80% of its exports and 20% of its GDP, not to mention four million direct jobs.