Bangladeshi workers protest against abuse

More than 200 Bangladeshi migrant workers in a textile factory in Jordan staged a sit-in on Oct. 1 to protest against physical and verbal abuse by their employer. "We tried to end the issue peacefully but the management refused to listen to our demands," said Fathallah Emrani, president of the General Federation of Textile Industries. The workers, who were demonstrating outside the office of the governor of Zarqa, 18 miles east of the capital, Amman, vowed to continue their strike until their rights were respected and demands met. These include the release of six colleagues from police custody who were detained the day before on orders from the Zarqa governor. The six men were accused of instigating a strike that began last week, said Emrani. The Bangladeshis work at the Rainbow Textile Factory in Duleil Qualified Industrial Zone (QIZ), which houses several factories, including Rainbow, that manufacture major US brands such as Levi Strauss, Gap and Calvin Klein. The workers signed a document detailing the abuse inflicted on them by their employer, including "severe beating, verbal insults, threats of deportation and forcing them to sign blank documents." One of the workers, who would only identify himself by his first name, Hilal, said five people, including two women, had been beaten over the past two days. "They want us to work like slaves," he said. Employees first went on strike on Sept. 27, protesting against delayed payments, prolonged working hours of up to 15 hours a day without overtime and confiscation of their passports. According to Jordan's labor laws, workers should not work more than eight hours a day and passports should not be confiscated, said Emrani. "We persuaded the workers to end the strike after the management promised to meet their demands. But the next day, the management deported four women to Bangladesh with government approval without paying them their financial dues," said Emrani. He said the factory management refused to meet representatives of the labor union and threatened to deport workers and beat them if they did not return to work. Last week, in another incident, 1,000 Bangladeshi workers at Duleil QIZ also staged a one-day strike demanding improved working conditions.