Increasing workers protests in Bangladesh
Featured image: workers protests blocking the highways of the country. Source: Dhaka Tribune.
The Bangladeshi working class is protesting and blocking the main industrial areas of the country. Recently it has been reported that only yesterday 167 garment factories closed due to the blockade carried out by the proletarians and today 60 more remained closed and two workers were detained by the Ashulia area. Local media reports that these protests are growing more and more and have extended to the areas of Ashulia, Savar and Gazipur. The Bangladeshi proletariat has blocked garment as well as ceramic, pharmaceutical and sanitary products factories. There is a 11-point list of demands, among them wage increases, days off for the workers during the holidays and that the factories hire again the fired coworkers. The proletariat has faced not only the owners of the factories and the police, but also the union bureaucracy, which accused the protesters of “vandalizing” the factories. According to local reports the most intense protests began on Sunday carried out by unemployed people who was protesting against the crisis and demanding jobs, which was refused by the managers of the factories. After that they began the protest which was joined by thousands of proletarians from the factories.
Multiple key highways of the country have been blocked, for example the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway. Local media report that this highway has been blocked by the female proletarians who demand equality in the labor conditions. In order to try to unblock the roads, the army has been sent which acted along with the police. According to local media the protesters have injured several police officers and strike-breakers what caused the intervention of the army.
Other sectors of the working class are joining the protests as the autorickshaw drivers who protested in Dhaka, chanting slogans as “Workers of the world, unite” against the high fees imposed by the State. Doctors are also protesting and they carry out an indefinite strike since the beginning of the month, demanding safer working conditions and they have held rallies in several points of the country gathering hundreds of demonstrators.
While the proletariat is struggling everyday against the abuses and exploitation by the bourgeoisie and imperialism, the interim president of the country, Muhammad Yunus, made very clear whom he serves, when he met the representatives of the garment sector and asked for their help to “rebuild the nation” and were in agreement regarding the situation of the country. More recently representatives of the garment exporting companies have met with high rank government officials to discuss the situation. They also stated the workers “don’t have any problems” and there is a group “which is trying to create an unstable situation in the industrial area”.
Thus we can see how after the great rebellion by the Bangladeshi people which overthrew Sheikh Hasina and make her flee from the country, now it is facing a new government which is neither corresponding to its interests, but the interests of the ruling classes and keep applying anti-popular measures and is at the service of imperialism.
