Impactt was thrilled to see one of our associates, Vinita Singh, featured in the Hindustan Times, a national newspaper with circulation across India.

Vinita is widely known in the ethical trade community for her innovative work with homeworkers. Under the by-line: “Making citizens aware of their rights and responsibilities is her mission”, the article gives an insight into Vinita’s motivation and her wider work with Mumbai’s slum dwellers.

Alongside her work with Impactt, Vinita is the director of the Mumbai chapter of Satark Nagrik Sangathan (SNS), or Society for Citizens’ Vigilance Initiative. Through her work with SNS, Vinita has been educating Mumbai’s urban poor about their rights, encouraging them to access their ration entitlements, and spreading the message of government accountability.  It’s not Slumdog Millionaire, but through her work the lives of many of Mumbai’s poor are being improved.

We are really proud of Vinita and are so pleased that her important work has been recognised.

Last year, Bangladesh exported garment products worth $10.69 billion (£6.03bn). However, while the industry continues to grow, the 2 million workers, mostly women who are at the heart of its boom have not been touched by the benefits of this growth.

Increasing prices of essential goods, salaries well below ‘living wage’ levels and limited trade union action are some of the main reasons behind the growing worker unrest which threatens the industry.

On 12 April, over 20,000 workers rioted in Dhaka, demanding higher wages. Police used tear gas and batons to break up the protests and at least 50 workers were injured. A key issue that led to the protests was the rising price of rice which has doubled in the past year. Households are estimated to spend nearly 70% of their income on food.

On 13 Aug, over 5,000 workers staged a demonstration in Dhaka demanding a pay rise. When their demands were ignored, they ransacked the factory, clashed with factory officials and blocked one of the main highways for 3 hours.

Violent protests such as these are not one-off incidents, but seem to have been woven into the fabric of the Bangladeshi garment industry. While the search for solutions continues, so does the blame game. According to ‘Sammilito Garment Sramik Federation’, a platform of garment factory workers, the agitation is caused due to rising prices of essential commodities. Opposing this view, many factory owners claim that administrative failures of the government, ‘conspirancies’ from the outside and poor implementation of law and order are to blame.

The list of causes seems to be endless and there are obviously no easy answers. But it is important that the debate and efforts do not lose sight of the key issue: prices are soaring; the minimum wage is not enough to meet basic needs and the plight of garment workers in Bangladesh continues unabated.

As part of Impactt’s launch of our Asia Pacific Network we are issuing a series of viewpoints identifying the most pressing labour standards issues in our network countries. Our first viewpoint comes from Juliet Edington our associate in Vietnam and focuses on the impacts of high inflation on workers’ livelihoods.

This year the issue of wages has been particularly problematic due to inflation which stands at approximately 30% up on last year. Furthermore analysis done at a factory in south Vietnam recently showed that the price of essential goods (e.g. rice, eggs, sugar, salt, petrol, cooking oil etc) went up an average of 47% between March and June this year alone  Petrol prices have increased by a staggering 145% in just three months. 

Despite the legal minimum wage having been raised twice in the past two years, a very conservative look at a worker’s cost of living reveals the minimum wage at a Vietnamese owned factory provides only 68%, at best, of the money that a single worker needs to survive. This is not including any money for the family, any medical expenses, education, clothes or any remittances. Workers can simply no longer live on their wages without working excessive overtime hours. 

Vietnam is starting to see a return of workers walking or cycling rather than riding motorbikes to work. The poor level of wages is resulting in chronic labour shortages in many areas which are in turn resulting in excessive overtime hours for those workers that factories can recruit and retain.

Furthermore according to a report in the International Herald Tribune, some factory workers are returning to the countryside, unable to sustain an urban life on a factory wage.

The labour shortage is resulting in some emerging cases of child labour in Vietnam. Young workers aged 13 or 14 years old are now to be found working in factories, a situation which was previously only rarely seen. Factories are finding it harder to recruit workers. They are being less rigorous in their checks of those applying to work. The low wages are also forcing parents to take their children out of school and get them into work.

The question is can the inflation and labour shortages divert Vietnam off its development trajectory, or is this a short term issue and Vietnam’s growth and economic restructuring will continue apace in the long term?