A report, ‘Precarious Work in the Walmart Global Value Chain’ by Asia Floor Wage Alliance (AFWA) has claimed serious workers’ rights violation in the garment factories of Bangladesh working for Walmart. Some of the allegations claim that employers expel workers without prior notice and dismiss them without paying due wages and benefits. Besides, workers did not get any casual leave, sick leave or annual leave(s). The report says that 62 per cent of workers do overtime beyond the legal limit and 29 per cent do at least 4 to 5 hours of overtime per day – more than twice the legal overtime limit. 66 per cent of workers reported that overtime is mandatory at their factories.
There are many top companies mentioned in the report, like Ananta Garments Ltd., Nassa Apparels Ltd., Dird Group and many more. This is the third report in the series. Earlier two reports were focused on Indian, Indonesian, and Cambodian companies engaged in manufacturing for GAP and H&M. Bangladesh Nari Progati Sangha (BNPS), an activist women’s organization is also associated with AFWA for preparing this report. While reacting on the report Col. KAB Mainuddin (Retd.), ED, Dird Group (Savar Zone) strongly denied all the allegations. He told Apparel Resources, “It is completely a false statement for our organization. We are truly surprised to see such types of allegations are being made against us. We always treat workers with humanity and the workers are provided with leave following the law of land. We have active elected Participation Committee and Anti- harassment committee in our factory, we do have freedom of association policy and our workers are free to join in any trade unions at their will.”
Also Read – AFWA reports violation of international labour standards in the Walmart Supply chain
The report is based upon research on violations of international labour standards in Walmart garment production factories conducted between December 2012 and May 2016. It also claims that the survey of 121 workers selected randomly from 47 factories from the list of 280 factories discovered to be Walmart suppliers after extensive field investigations. Respondents were from Dhaka (50 per cent) and other major districts in Bangladesh where readymade garments are produced, including Gazipur (42 per cent), and Narayanganj (8 per cent).
