A year ago, a massive student-led movement overthrew the dictatorial rule of Sheikh Hasina. One year on, where does Bangladesh stand? Women’s experiences show that Bangladesh has a long way to go.
A year ago, a massive student-led movement overthrew the dictatorial rule of Sheikh Hasina. One year on, where does Bangladesh stand? Women’s experiences show that Bangladesh has a long way to go.
A massive movement of students overthrew the dictator and aim for deeper social transformation, which needs to encompass various social forces. Can the needed solidarity between students and workers chart a way forward?
Garment workers poured out of factories in Dhaka and other cities in Bangladesh to demand a wage of about $200 a month. The police responded with tear gas and rubber bullets. Bangladesh is the second largest garment-producing country in the world after China.
Garment workers and organizers from Bangladesh and Los Angeles discussed their labor conditions at the downtown L.A. Garment Center
Rana Plaza, the building that collapsed in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on April 24, killing 1,127 workers—most of them young women—was constructed illegally. It is easy to show negligence and affix blame to this or that individual. But the greater truth lies within a system that is based on the most production at the lowest cost, with workers’ lives—and deaths—regarded as only one more cost of production.
From the new issue of NEWS & LETTERS, May-June 2011:
Readers’ Views
Contents:
A CALL FROM SOUTH AFRICA
A call by Abahlali baseMjondolo for Madikizela to step down as MEC [Member [=>]
South Africa’s ‘Class Apartheid’
Two decades after Nelson Mandela was freed from prison, South Africa has actually increased the apartheid-era race and class inequality. Neoliberal capitalist economic policies have resulted in massive unemployment and poverty that has been termed “class apartheid.” So extreme is the situation that the unemployment rate for Black youth has reached almost [=>]