Friday, December 08, 2006

Workers of the World Unite

The BBC reports that textile workers in Bangladesh get paid as little as five pence an hour and the mainly female workers regularly spend 80 hours per week in "potential death trap" factories, according to anti-poverty group War On Want to make cheap clothes for UK companies Tesco, Asda and Primark.
Starting wages at the factories were as little as £8 a month, barely one third of the living wage in Bangladesh. War On Want added that wages rose to £16 per month for better-paid sewing machine operators, but that some workers spent up to 96 hours per week in the factories without even a day a week off.

"Bargain retailers such as Primark, Asda and Tesco are only able to sell at rock bottom prices in the UK because women workers in Bangladesh are being exploited," said War on Want chief executive Louise Richards. "The companies are not even living up to their own commitments towards their overseas suppliers."

But the working class don't take exploitation lying down . Previously the BBC has reported here and here thousands of garment workers resisting factory owners .

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