Determinants of labor unrest in the Bangladesh readymade garments industry

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to Determinants of labor unrest in the Bangladesh readymade garments industry. The readymade garment (RMG) sector has been playing an important role in the overall economic Development of Bangladesh. Due to the labor unrest there has been huge loss of production and some of the garments factories were ruined by protesters, several laborers were killed and lots of injured and arrested. It is said that there were legitimate demand of the laborers which should have been addressed by the owners. But these demands were not addressed which created the grievance the laborers. In course of the time these grievance bolstered the unrest. In this connection, this study tried to find out the factors behind the unrest in the ready-made garment industry of Bangladesh and identifies some measures to improve the situation. In this study, 545 workers were interviewed from the different garment factories located in Savar, Gazipu and, Narayanganj district of Bangladesh. Data were analyzed with factor analysis, correlation analyzed, and regression model and by using other suitable statistical tools. The results show that the main causes of labor unrest include Health and hygiene, safety problem, working hours and leave, wages and payment, Labor union and owner’s relations, political violence effect. If the policy makers of Bangladesh consider these causes and make policies to overcome the problems the labor unrest in garment sector may be minimized. Data analyzed using SPSS 23.0.