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Salma Akhter found out about the virus at the textile factory. She was sitting at her sewing machine on the second floor and sewing zippers on pants: “Wash your hands with soap,” recalls a manager’s loudspeaker announcement: “A virus from China has come to Bangladesh.”
Workers soon received more warnings. You shouldn’t take off your masks at the factory. Before starting work, she and the other employees were sprayed with disinfectant. But it was not until March 26 that Akhter, 24, felt the effects of the pandemic firsthand: the factory he had worked in until then had to close. A few weeks later, she received the termination notice via text message.
She is sitting on her bed in her two-room apartment; A flowery face mask hangs from her scarf. She has almost no savings. “How are we supposed to survive now?” She asks. “I have to pay my rent, we have to eat.”
Textile giants like C&A and Zara have canceled billions of orders
Akhter lives in Gazipur, an industrial city with more than a million inhabitants. There are hundreds of textile factories here. Tens of thousands of workers sew here for everyone, including German customers, and at a price that would never be possible in Europe.
For many years, Bangladesh lived on the promise of globalization in its simplest form: rich countries get cheap goods; People in poor countries in return have an income. But since Corona, the old deal no longer applies.
Europe’s shopping streets were deserted for weeks in many places. Clothing stores are still closed or they can only let a limited number of customers in. The industry is facing sales losses and layoffs and in many cases seems to have decided to pass the economic pressure: in Bangladesh alone, foreign companies have canceled or suspended orders worth € 3bn in recent weeks. These include textile giants like Primark, C&A and the Spanish company Inditex, which includes the Zara brand. Akhter also sewed hems and zippers for the Spanish.
And even companies that have remained loyal to their suppliers may in the future order fewer goods from abroad. In countries where the blockade is currently being reduced, demand is only slowly recovering. Because even those who are allowed to buy again may not be able to pay for purchases. German companies have registered short-term jobs for more than ten million employees. 33 million Americans have registered as unemployed in the past seven weeks.
Akhter’s monthly salary: just under 105 euros
But they are the weakest in the supply chain, women and Akhter the hardest hit: an estimated one million of the four million textile workers in the country have lost their jobs in recent weeks. Hundreds of thousands of workers in the textile factories of Cambodia, Myanmar and India share their destiny.
For Alexander Kohnstamm, director of the Fair Wear Foundation, a fundamental problem of the global textile industry comes to light in the crisis: “Too many in the industry have relied on a business model that depends on large quantities and small margins. Now they are lacking reserves to survive the crisis. ” This applies to large clothing chains in Europe, as well as factory owners in Bangladesh. Workers would suffer more. Because, unlike employees in Germany, they couldn’t trust savings or the state. Khondaker Golam Moazzem has a similar opinion. The scientific director of the Center for Policy Dialogue study center in Dhaka says: “Most textile workers are experiencing great financial difficulties right now. They will depend on government food packages.”
Akhter, for example, received his last cash salary in mid-April; 9800 taka, just under 105 euros. This corresponds to the minimum wage, but it is enough to pay rent and food. She has no savings. “We hardly have any more soap money to protect ourselves at home,” she says. A bar of soap costs 40 taka, a good 40 cents.
Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development asked companies to “take responsibility for the employees of suppliers and the entire supply chain, even during the crisis.” Companies like Otto and Tchibo have already pledged to participate in a federal government textile aid fund, a spokesperson said on request. The objective is to support factories in converting production to protective masks. In addition, the Government of Bangladesh is currently coordinating a participation in the National Aid Program, which provides for continuous wages for employees in the textile sector. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government had already pledged nearly $ 590 million in state aid to factory owners in late March to help pay workers’ wages. The desired success did not materialize: according to a survey by BRAC University in Dhaka, almost half of the workers had not received any wages in the first two weeks of April.
People go hungry, diseases increase
The textile industry has brought great suffering to Bangladesh before. Almost exactly seven years ago, the Rana Plaza building collapsed, more than a thousand people died, most of them seamstresses. But factories have brought new prosperity to Bangladesh. Many of the social advancements in the country also date back to the textile industry, where women in particular found work and thus always gained some power: women in Bangladesh now work as often as men. The rate of children has dropped from six to almost two in the past 40 years, while the average life expectancy has increased from 53 to 72 years. Bangladesh is one of the few developing countries where more girls go to school than boys. “Single parents and housewives have also found work in the textile industry. Work has changed our lives,” says Akhter. “If the factories close, all these women will die without food.”
Bangladesh’s textile industry is the second largest in the world after China. The industry recently generated around $ 40 billion, which represents 84 percent of the country’s total exports and 13 percent of its gross domestic product, and is the engine behind it. Economy The latter grew eight percent annually; According to a World Bank forecast, however, it could only be two percent this year. The blockade imposed by the country for fear of Covid-19 further exacerbates the situation in the country: hunger and unemployment have increased; Diseases that are actually easy to treat are on the rise.
Economist Moazzem believes that it is possible “for the textile industry to recover in half a year or a year.” It was the same during the financial crisis. Back then, the demand for cheap textiles increased again in no time, and Bangladesh was the country that could produce cheaply.
But Bangladesh has to do exactly that: produce again. To prevent the spread of the new coronavirus, all factories had to temporarily close. Even if demand is low, many homeowners believe that they cannot afford to keep their factories closed. Textile manufacturers in countries like Vietnam and China, which appear to have weathered the worst of the pandemic for now, are attracting customers. Bangladeshi Entrepreneurs worry about what Kohnstamm, the boss of Fair Wear, calls the “traveling circus”: groups that move from one country to another with their orders always chase the cheapest price.
“Brutal dilemma”: factories are now supposed to reopen
Authorities have already asked more than 4,000 factories in the country to close as soon as possible. Open The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) has issued guidelines designed to ensure the safety of workers during the pandemic: for example, seamstresses must stay away from each other, wear a face mask, and wash their hands regularly. However, the question is, says Kohnstamm: “Are the new standards also being followed?”
Entrepreneurs under financial pressure may decide that security is something they cannot, or do not want, to pay for. They would not have much to fear: they do not have to wait for controls because they are currently banned. Authorities fear that a possibly infected examiner will carry the virus from factory to factory.
Rubana Huq, president of BGMEA, called the situation a “brutal dilemma”: if the factories were closed, people could literally starve. When factories open, people also die. The number of new corona infections has increased rapidly in Bangladesh for a few weeks, and apparently especially in the slums around factories.
But more than the virus, workers like Akhter fear a future without work. The backyard complex, which she shares with eight families, is an ideal place for an infection to spread.
You and about 30 people share two kitchens and two bathrooms there. The neighbors’ colorful towels and T-shirts are dried on the patio. The 24-year-old has been working in the textile industry since he was 16 years old. It’s not really difficult for seasoned and experienced workers like her to find a new job, she says. “But who is hiring people now?”
Now that the factories have reopened, she still wants to try it.
