CAPITAL, LABOUR AND RESISTANCE: The Working Class Movement in Bangladesh

CAPITAL, LABOUR AND RESISTANCE: The Working Class Movement in Bangladesh

Under the Neoliberal World Order and the Emerging Platform Economy

Sharif Shamshir   &   Ahmed Borhan

Centre for Social Research (CSR), Bangladesh

Abstract

This paper examines the condition of the working class in Bangladesh within the structural framework of neoliberal globalisation, tracing the transformation of labour relations from the post-independence period to the present conjuncture. Bangladesh, now the 35th largest economy with a GDP of US$460.8 billion, has achieved significant macroeconomic growth  (BBS, 2024) — yet this growth has deepened structural inequality, as evidenced by a Gini Coefficient of 49.9, a poverty rate of 18.7%, and persistent insecurity for the overwhelming majority of its 71 million-strong workforce. The paper argues that neoliberal restructuring — implemented through Bretton Woods conditionalities, structural adjustment programmes, and the systematic dismantling of state-led industrialisation from the 1980s onwards — has not merely shaped the labour market but has constituted a strategic class project of capital against labour.

Central to this analysis is the Ready Made Garment (RMG) sector — the engine of Bangladesh’s foreign exchange earnings — employing 4.5 million workers, of whom 58% are women, under conditions of chronic wage suppression, workplace danger, and systematic obstruction of trade union rights. The paper details ongoing labour struggles across multiple fronts: the mass movement for a minimum wage of BDT 23,000 in the garment sector; the historic tea garden workers’ strike of 2022; the fight of agricultural farm workers for permanent employment; resistance to the outsourcing of government services; and organised opposition to the anti-labour Essential Services Bill 2023  (Government of Bangladesh, 2023). The geopolitical dimension of Bangladesh’s labour question is also critically examined, with particular attention to the dual and contradictory role of the United States — simultaneously an agent of neoliberal deregulation and a wielder of labour-rights conditionality as an instrument of trade policy and foreign policy leverage  (U.S. Department of State, 2023).

The paper also traces the deliberate destruction of organised labour power through post-1990s denationalisation and the ‘golden handshake’ retrenchment policy. Following World Bank and IMF structural adjustment conditionalities, successive governments dismantled state-owned enterprises across the railway, banking, jute, textile, and industrial and commercial sectors — the historic strongholds of class-conscious unionism. The railway alone shed approximately 10,000 workers  (Banglapedia — Railway, 2024) and 25,000 jute mill workers were retrenched  (Dhaka Tribune, 2020); the closure of Adamjee Jute Mill in 2002 was emblematic of this assault. The Sramik Karmachari Oikya Parishad (SKOP), formed in 1983 as the cross-sectoral national trade union platform, initially extracted significant concessions through the threat of general strike — but was progressively hollowed out through political co-optation, donor pressure, and opportunist leadership  (Banglapedia — SKOP, 2024; Mutual Interest, 2022). Today, 81% of workers are in the informal sector and union coverage in garments stands at a mere 5% — the direct legacy of this engineered union destruction  (ITUC, 2023; Red Flag, 2025).

A dedicated section analyses the July–August 2024 uprising and its devastating labour aftermath. The uprising ended fifteen years of Hasina autocracy but immediately triggered the closure of over 140 factories and the loss of an estimated 130,000 to 150,000 garment jobs — predominantly held by women — while GDP growth slumped to 3.3%, the lowest in 36 years, and three million more were pushed into poverty  (Global Press Journal, 2025; World Bank, 2025; TBS, 2025). When workers launched a strike wave in response to mass layoffs in September 2024, the interim Yunus government deployed the military to crush it — demonstrating that without independent working-class organisation, political revolutions impose their heaviest costs on the very class that made them possible  (Red Flag, 2025; CPD, 2026).

A new and urgent dimension addressed in this paper is the rapid emergence of the platform and gig economy. Bangladesh is now the world’s second-largest supplier of online labour, with over 500,000 registered freelancers and an estimated 300,000 location-based gig workers employed on platforms such as Uber, Pathao, Sheba, and Daraz  (OII, 2023; Fairwork Bangladesh, 2023). The gig economy — generating over $100 million annually — has expanded the frontier of capital’s exploitation into entirely new terrain, classifying workers as ‘independent contractors’ and placing them outside the protections of the Bangladesh Labour Act 2006  (Government of Bangladesh, 2006; Woodcock & Graham, 2020). Platform workers face algorithmic management, arbitrary deactivation, wages below the living wage in Dhaka, and the complete absence of social security, sick leave, and collective bargaining rights. The internet shutdown of July 2024, triggered by the political uprising that ended the Hasina government, demonstrated the extreme vulnerability of gig workers: ride-sharing income collapsed to one-fifth overnight, exposing the structural precariousness of this new segment of the proletariat  (Gigpedia, 2024).

The paper concludes that a new and evolving form of class struggle is taking shape in Bangladesh. RMG workers — predominantly women, largely outside formal union structures yet equipped with an internationalist consciousness of global supply chains and brand accountability — are pioneering spontaneous, street-based forms of collective action that directly confront both local and international capital. The paper calls for an expanded conception of working-class organising that integrates formal trade unionism, sector-based mobilisation, and new forms of solidarity capable of encompassing the informal, gig, and platform workforce who together constitute the majority of Bangladesh’s labouring population. A class politics adequate to the neoliberal moment must challenge not only the factory owner, but the algorithm, the platform, the international buyer, and the structural adjustment conditionality simultaneously  (Schor, 2020; ITUC, 2023).

Keywords: Neoliberalism, Bangladesh, Labour Rights, Working Class, RMG Sector, Platform Economy, Gig Workers, Trade Unions, SKOP, Denationalisation, Golden Handshake, Class Struggle, Minimum Wage, Structural Adjustment, Gender and Labour, July 2024 Uprising, Post-Revolution Labour Crisis

I. Current Situation of Labour and Work in Bangladesh

Bangladesh recently graduated to a low-middle income developing economy. After fifty years of independence, this graduation draws respect, refuting the ill-remark of Henry Kissinger, who termed the newly independent Bangladesh a ‘bottomless basket’ — which, for many years, was also the attitude of the Bretton Woods institutions toward Bangladesh.

Bangladesh is now the 35th largest economy with a GDP of US$460.8 billion. In this economy the share of agriculture in GDP is 11.63%, industry 33.32%, and the service sector contributing about 51.3%. Its main industries are textile, pharmaceutical, electronics, shipbuilding and automobiles. The economy is growing at a seven-plus rate. (BBS, 2024)

In the capitalist mode of production, development and growth create inequality. With all these advances in the economy, 18.7% of the total population of sixteen crore still lives below the poverty line and 5.6% lives below the extreme poverty line. The Gini Coefficient is 49.9, which reflects profound inequality in society. Income inequality, increasing poverty and unemployment are persistent. (BBS, 2024; CPD, 2022)

Bangladesh’s economy is mainly labour-intensive, but the introduction of technology in agriculture and automation in manufacturing is accelerating. From 1972 to 1990, agriculture was dominant: more than 80% of the workforce was engaged in agricultural activities — a form of underemployment. Now agriculture has diversified with fisheries, poultry and animal husbandry. Only 40.6% of the total labour force is now engaged in agriculture, still the largest absorber of employment. The number of female workers in agriculture is increasing: almost 80% of work in fisheries and poultry is performed by women. (BBS, 2023)

The industry and manufacturing sector absorbs 20.4% of the labour force — double that of fifty years ago. The service sector has shown rapid increase, now absorbing 39.6% of total labour forces. (BBS, 2023)

The total workforce of Bangladesh is 70,961,067. Among these, 31.1% are female and 68.9% are male. The employment rate is 55.8%, and the unemployment rate is 5.2% (4.1% male, 7.9% female). Every year, 2.1 million young people enter the labour market; among them, 1.3 million find employment and 0.8 million remain unemployed. (BBS, 2024)

Essentially three sectors provide employment: government (4.5%), private (5%), and the informal sector (81%). The informal sector, though the largest, is also the most fragile. During the Covid-19 pandemic, people in the informal sector suffered most — they lost their petty businesses and became fully unemployed. Almost every small and cottage industry shut down, leaving their employees starving. (ILO, 2022)

In the agriculture sector, gender inequality is prominent. Women working in crops, horticulture, forestry, poultry, fisheries and animal husbandry receive lower wages than men. Sometimes they receive no wages at all, as it is treated as family work. Household work of women is not even accounted for in the national economy. Violence and harassment are common. Patriarchy and social stigma are barriers to fair wages and to the recognition of women’s work as economic activity. (ILO, 2023; BBS, 2023)

In industry, mining and quarrying and utilities are in the hands of the government where wages are state-determined. But private manufacturing and construction sectors are unfair in paying wages. As there is no effective regulatory body to fix wages, workers are disadvantaged in bargaining. Minimum pay, no pay, or delayed pay is common in these sectors.

In the service sector, workers engaged in trade, hotels and restaurants receive salaries at the whim of owners. Transport workers earn wages for their duty time but receive no monthly salary or benefits. Employees of health, education and other social services also receive salaries determined by their employers, without any nationally fixed minimum.(Government of Bangladesh, 2006)

Bangladesh’s largest foreign exchange earner is the Ready Made Garment (RMG) sector, employing 4.5 million workers — the single largest sector, with approximately 58% female workers. Forced closure of factories without paying wages has become common. In the last ten years, more than one thousand workers died from factory building collapses and more than five hundred died in factory fires. Workers are losing jobs due to automation. Female workers, once 80% of the workforce, have been reduced to 58% due to lack of access to education and new technology. Wages are, in real terms, decreasing due to global recession and the Russia-Ukraine war. (BILS, 2023; ILO, 2023)

Bangladesh recently experienced 9.8% overall inflation and 13% food inflation, forcing workers and the poor to skip at least one meal a day. (CPD, 2022)

Workers of 167 tea gardens, mainly women, went on strike for a wage increase and continue to suffer from the meagre outcome of that struggle. The worst conditions are in the ship-breaking sector, which is not only damaging the coastal ecosystem but is deadly for workers. Almost manually, workers break ships at the risk of injury and fatal death. No safety, no medical support and no social benefit — 15,000 workers subsist on subsistence wages. (BILS, 2023)

Child labour is very common in Bangladesh — 1.7 million children aged 5 to 14 are engaged in employment. Officially, child labour is not prohibited but campaigns to discourage it are underway. Forced child labour is officially a criminal offence. 83% of child labourers are in rural areas and 17% in urban areas, where children are often employed in hazardous work. (ILO, 2023)

Overall, with all technological development, the workers of Bangladesh work for minimum wages, safety and security. Workers died at the highest rate last year — 1,053 deaths, which is 44% higher than the previous year. Among these, the most (513) died in the transport sector. The causes of death include road accidents, fire, lightning, falls from height, poisonous gas, electrocution and boat or ship accidents. Workers in the construction sector also work in unsafe conditions. (BILS, 2023)

Workers in the formal sector may benefit from the Labour Law 2006, but 64 million workers employed in the informal sector — 51% of the workforce — receive no protection from this law. Work hours vary across sectors: 42% of workers work for 9–10 hours, 40% work for 11 or more hours, and 25% work for 12 or more hours. Most workers work without appointment letters. (Government of Bangladesh, 2006; BBS, 2023)

The principal problem in Bangladesh is that the working class, except a limited few in the government sector, are in the hands of individual owners or companies where ILO conventions and labour law do not function in practice. The vast majority are unorganised. Unemployment and underemployment enable employers to extract maximum exploitation from a reserve army of unskilled labour. International capital also exploits this workforce through direct investment in the EPZs and other sectors. (ILO, 2022)

The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) has placed Bangladesh among the ten worst countries in the world for workers’ rights, particularly regarding: (a) workers’ right to strike; (b) the right to establish and join trade unions; (c) arbitrary arrests; (d) right to justice; and (e) violations of all kinds against workers asserting their rights. (ITUC, 2023)

II. The Emerging Platform Economy: A New Frontier of Exploitation

Background and Growth

A new and rapidly expanding dimension of Bangladesh’s labour landscape is the platform and gig economy. Within less than a decade, Bangladesh has witnessed dramatic growth in both location-based and cloud-based platform work. Platforms such as Uber, Pathao, Sheba, HelloTask, Daraz and Foodpanda now constitute a significant segment of the urban service economy. The ride-sharing market alone is estimated at $260 million, generating six million rides per month, while the broader gig economy generates over $100 million annually in revenue. (Fairwork Bangladesh, 2023; Gigpedia, 2024)

In the sphere of online or cloud-based freelancing, Bangladesh has achieved global significance. It is now ranked the world’s second-largest supplier of online labour, accounting for approximately 16% of the global online labour market. Over 500,000 registered freelancers contribute to this digital export economy, and approximately 300,000 location-based gig workers are active on domestic platforms. (OII, 2023) The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated this expansion, as massive displacement from the formal and informal economy drove workers to digital platforms; the gig economy expanded by 27% during the pandemic period. (Gigpedia, 2024; World Bank, 2023)

The government’s ‘Smart Bangladesh 2041’ initiative and the country’s rapid expansion of mobile internet infrastructure have further enabled platform proliferation. Digital entrepreneurs benefit from a vast, low-wage labour pool, dense urban populations, and expanding connectivity. The platform economy is increasingly intersecting with the traditional informal economy, in which 85.1% of Bangladesh’s workforce is already embedded. (BBS, 2024; Alam, 2023)

The Class Character of Platform Work

From the standpoint of Marxist political economy, the platform economy represents not a qualitative break from capitalist labour relations but rather their intensification and extension into new domains. Platform companies extract surplus value from workers who bear all the risks of production — vehicle maintenance, accident costs, income volatility — while the platform appropriates a commission on each transaction and retains full control over the terms of work through algorithmic management. (Woodcock & Graham, 2020; Schor, 2020; Vallas & Schor, 2020)

Platform workers are classified as ‘independent contractors’ under Bangladesh labour law, which exempts platforms from providing minimum wages, social security, health insurance, accident compensation, or any other benefits mandated by the Labour Act 2006. This classification is not a neutral legal technicality — it is a deliberate instrument of class power. Over 90% of ride-sharing drivers operate rented vehicles, surrendering nearly half their income to vehicle owners, compounding their exploitation at multiple levels of the capital-labour relationship. (Government of Bangladesh, 2006; Fairwork Bangladesh, 2023)

The Fairwork Bangladesh Ratings of 2023 found that monthly wages on most platforms fall significantly below the living wage in Dhaka. Alarmingly, 89% of platform workers expressed serious concerns about their safety and security. Platforms operate with opaque contract terms, arbitrary penalties, and automated account deactivation without right of appeal. Only one digital platform workers’ union currently exists in Bangladesh — a reflection of how severely the union-formation threshold (requiring 20% of workers to sign) obstructs organising when workers are classified as contractors and subject to instant retaliation through deactivation. (Fairwork Bangladesh, 2023; Alam, 2023)

Gender inequality is reproduced within the gig economy. While ride-hailing and delivery work is dominated by men, women are more likely to work on platforms offering domestic work, beauty services and care work — all lower-paid segments with greater physical precarity. A 20% gender gap in mobile ownership and a 40% gender gap in mobile internet adoption further constrain women’s access to platform opportunities, entrenching pre-existing inequalities in new digital forms. (Mimi & Mani, 2024; Fairwork Bangladesh, 2023)

Platform Labour and Political Crisis: The July 2024 Uprising

The political uprising of July 2024, which culminated in the ousting of the Sheikh Hasina government, provided a stark demonstration of gig workers’ structural vulnerability. During the government’s ten-day internet shutdown imposed to suppress the movement, ride-sharing trips collapsed almost entirely, cutting daily earnings to one-fifth of normal levels. Delivery workers, paid exclusively on commission, saw their income vanish overnight. This episode laid bare the absence of any social safety net for platform workers — not even the meagre protections available to informal sector workers. (Gigpedia, 2024; TBS, 2024)

Ironically, the 2024 uprising was itself substantially driven by youth unemployment and the absence of decent work prospects — conditions that had pushed hundreds of thousands of graduates toward gig work as the only available livelihood. The uprising thus expressed, in concentrated political form, the same crisis of labour and class that this paper examines across all its dimensions. (CPD, 2022; ILO, 2023)

Regulatory Void and the Path Forward

Bangladesh currently has no regulatory framework governing platform work. The interim government’s labour reform commission has recommended initial measures: formally recognising ride-share drivers as workers, ensuring fair wages, reducing platform commission fees, holding multinational gig firms accountable, and introducing accident insurance.(Alam, 2023; TBS, 2024)

Internationally, China is considering social security coverage for gig workers; India has passed state-level legislation for gig workers’ welfare; and the European Union has moved toward a directive extending employment rights to platform workers. Bangladesh must be pushed — through organised working-class pressure — to at minimum: amend the Labour Law to include platform workers; mandate a living wage and accident insurance; remove barriers to unionisation; and hold both domestic and multinational platforms legally accountable. (World Bank, 2023; Wood et al., 2019)

III. Ongoing Struggles of the Working Class

A. Demand for Minimum Wages

From 1972 to 1982, the Wage Board had the authority to fix wages every five years. But after 1982, the government adopted the path of the open market economy. In 1984, the Worker-Employee Unity Council — a combined body of all national workers’ federations — formed to press the government on the demands of the working class. For the first time the government declared a minimum wage of BDT 570. After ten years, in 1994, the minimum wage increased to BDT 930; in 2006 to BDT 1,662; in 2010 to BDT 3,000; in 2013 to BDT 5,300 (with a yearly 5% increment); and in 2018 to BDT 8,000. (Government of Bangladesh, 2006; CPD, 2022)

In the meantime, Covid-19 not only took human lives but collapsed the main vein of the economy. In 2022, when people were returning to a new normal, the Russia-Ukraine war pushed inflation to its apex. Bangladesh’s economy was forced to abandon the poor and toiling masses. Workers and employees of the private sector are organising movements for increasing the minimum wage to BDT 20,000. In the garment sector the demand is BDT 23,000. Left political parties and civil society organisations have expressed their support. (ILO, 2022; CPD, 2022)

The ILO has stated in a recent report that in the Asia-Pacific region, the minimum wage is lowest in Bangladesh — and that the Bangladesh minimum wage falls below the international poverty line. (ILO, 2022)

The government constituted a Minimum Wage Board, liable to fix minimum wages in different sectors following the Labour Law 2006. But the Board does not function properly. According to law, the Board is required to fix a minimum wage every three to five years following the prices of essential goods, house rent, medical and education costs, and the rate of inflation. The government fixed minimum wages in 2018 reviewing 42 sectors. Already five years have passed with approximately 10% annual inflation. (Government of Bangladesh, 2006; CPD, 2022)

Minimum wages are not uniform across sectors. The lowest minimum wage is BDT 3,000 and the highest is BDT 16,000. In the RMG sector the government fixed BDT 8,000 in 2018. Rubber, jute, biri, jute press, cotton, cold storage, petrol pump, herbal, and salt industries remain outside fixed minimum wages for many years. The lowest paid are hotel and restaurant workers at BDT 3,710, and the highest paid are skilled construction workers and carpenters at more than BDT 16,000. Workers and employees are in a dire situation, fighting to increase their minimum wages to live above subsistence. (BEF, 2022; BILS, 2023)

B. Demand for Amendment of the Export Processing Zone (EPZ) Labour Law 2019

The Bangladesh Government in 1983 first set up the Chittagong Export Processing Zone to attract foreign investment. Now there are eight government-owned EPZs and one private EPZ. North Korea has also established an EPZ in Bangladesh. More than 500,000 workers work here, of which 66% are women. In the 2021-2022 fiscal year, these EPZs exported nearly $8 billion, most from RMG (54%). (Government of Bangladesh, 2019)

Workers are demanding the amendment of the EPZ Labour Law 2019. From its inception, trade unions were prohibited in EPZs — a condition demanded by foreign investors and contrary to the existing Labour Law of 2006. Left parties and trade union organisations demand the amendment of the EPZ law to establish workers’ right to be organised and to strike. The ILO, EU and USA are also demanding trade union rights and the prohibition of child labour in EPZs. The EU has linked this to Bangladesh’s request for GSP Plus facilities. (Government of Bangladesh, 2019; ILO, 2022; ITUC, 2023)

C. Demand to Stop Outsourcing in Government Services

The political framework of the Bangladesh Constitution firmly declares in the principles of ownership that the people shall own or control the instruments and means of production and distribution. This is to be achieved through: (a) state ownership to create an efficient and dynamic nationalised public sector; (b) co-operative ownership; and (c) private ownership (Article 13). The Constitution further states that work is a right, a duty and a matter of honour for every citizen, and that the state shall endeavour to create conditions in which human labour becomes a fuller expression of creative endeavour and of the human personality (Article 20). (Government of Bangladesh, 1972)

After the 1980s, a global wave of liberalisation through structural adjustment compelled governments to withdraw subsidies from the public sector and simultaneously sell nationalised industries to private ownership. To satisfy the conditions of lending institutions, Bangladesh shifted its constitutional economic positions by adopting neoliberal, market-oriented policies. From 2006, the concept of outsourcing gained popularity in the name of reducing corruption and misuse of public funds. (ILO, 2022; CPD, 2022)

Presently, the government outsources not only human resources but also the handling of various economic activities of state-run entities — including port handling and extraction of mineral resources — which is very delicate for national sovereignty. Outsourcing of human resources in the public sector has an immense impact on labour rights and the employment market. The outsourcing policy, as implemented, is in direct tension with the constitutional commitments of Articles 13 and 20. (Government of Bangladesh, 1972)

D. Opposing the Essential Services Bill 2023

The Bangladesh government planned to revise and enact an Essential Services Act 2023, including a clause that criminalises strikes in organisations whose services are declared essential. Essential services include post and telecommunications, internet, ICT, mobile financial services, digital financial services, power generation, gas supply, transportation, terminals, customs, and food procurement. In addition, the government can declare any industry or service ‘essential’ at will. The maximum punishment for instigating an ‘illegal’ strike is one year imprisonment, a fine of BDT 5,000, or both. (Government of Bangladesh, 2023)

Labour leaders are concerned that this law is not only anti-labour but also anti-constitutional, since the Bangladesh Constitution guarantees the right to association and freedom of speech. It is widely discussed that this law could also be used against any strike in EPZs. Experts argue that this law will eliminate the minimum rights of the working class and provide employers the legal power to maximise exploitation. (Government of Bangladesh, 1972; ITUC, 2023)

E. Tea Workers’ Strike for Wage Increase

On 9 August 2022, almost 150,000 tea workers — most of them residential women — began with a two-hour work-stoppage programme and then escalated to a full strike to meet their demand for raising wages from BDT 120 to BDT 300 per day. The strike continued until 26 August 2022. The government, consulting with tea estate employers, increased wages by BDT 50 and fixed daily wages at BDT 170. Almost all workers of 167 tea gardens joined the strike.(BILS, 2023; ILO, 2022)

Tea gardens are colonial agro-industries operated by migrant family workers. This movement, though apparently gaining minimum (an increase of only BDT 50), achieved many things in the long run. Most importantly, it demonstrated the solidarity and firmness of women workers. Local communities came forward to support the continuation of the movement. The struggle remains on the agenda of national trade union federations. (BILS, 2023)

F. Bangladesh Agricultural Farm Labour Federation (BAFLF) Struggles for Permanent Employment

State-owned farm workers across Bangladesh protested for a week (18–28 July 2023) under the banner of the Bangladesh Agricultural Farm Labour Federation (BAFLF) to demand an end to precarious employment, abolition of the piece-rate wage system, and a fair wage increase. All workers at the Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation (BADC) and the majority of agricultural workers in government institutes and farms are employed as precarious workers. The BADC plays a crucial role in providing quality seeds to farmers, requiring permanent and trained workers — yet 80% of them are precarious. More than 4,000 workers receive only a daily base wage. (BILS, 2023; ILO, 2023)

In addition to permanent employment, the BAFLF is demanding that paid maternity leave be increased from 120 days to 180 days. The BAFLF is struggling across the country to press its 13-point demands. (BILS, 2023)

IV. The United States, Geopolitics and Bangladesh Labour

Bangladesh had a diplomatic rupture with the United States in its liberation war of 1971, but soon after independence in 1972, the US established diplomatic relations under a cloud. Bangladesh was then close to India and the Soviet Union. The US was not only familiar with but also an adviser to the Pakistan civil service, especially after the SEATO and CENTO agreements. The US had not supported Bangladesh’s independence war. In 1974, the US settled all differences with Bangladesh. Bangladesh’s foreign policy shifted toward the US from the Non-Aligned Movement.

The constitution of the newly born People’s Republic of Bangladesh contained four basic principles, one of them being Socialism — defined in the Nehruvian model as planned, state-run industrialisation with nationalisation of major industries. (Government of Bangladesh, 1972) To pressure Bangladesh to accept its policies, the US held PL480 wheat supplies for some months, causing thousands to die in the ensuing famine. The situation improved when President Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was killed in a coup on 15 August 1975. From then, military rulers suspended the constitution and moved to an open market economy. Private and foreign capital were invited and welcomed.

In 1980, the government invited foreign direct investment and formed EPZs to create a haven for foreign investment, deliberately avoiding the existing labour law. The World Bank, IMF and other international money lenders pushed the government to implement structural adjustment policies — preventing agricultural subsidies and offering ‘golden handshakes’ (retrenchment packages) to workers of railways and other public institutions. From 1980 to the present, the journey of privatisation — in the name of the open market economy or neoliberal economy — has marched forward, amending the constitution and the labour law to ensure high profit through exploitation of skilled and unskilled labour.(ILO, 2022; CPD, 2022)

The irony is that the US now plays a dual role in the name of its foreign policy. In 2013, following the Rana Plaza collapse in which more than one thousand workers died, the US suspended GSP facilities for Bangladeshi RMG, using labour rights as an instrument of trade policy. Now, the US has many agendas in the Bangladesh labour market: (1) advocating trade union rights in EPZs; (2) workers’ safety in RMG; (3) no child labour; (4) amendment of EPZ labour law; (5) stopping harassment and violence against women; and (6) encouraging so-called independent trade unions — free from left-wing political influence. (U.S. Department of State, 2023; ITUC, 2023)

A recent US State Department report on Bangladesh’s business climate stated that the Bangladesh Labour Act specifies compensation for injured workers, employment conditions, freedom of association, health and sanitary conditions, leave policies, minimum wage-setting procedures, the right to join unions, and working hours — but that in practice, the government does not consistently enforce labour laws, and independent trade unions face persistent barriers to registration. Workers in unions have been subjected to police violence, mass dismissals, and arrest of union leaders for asserting their rights to protest. (U.S. Department of State, 2023)

Companies frequently discourage or prevent the formation of independent worker-led labour unions, preferring pro-management unions. Labour organisations have reported that most workers fear reprisal if they exercise their rights to form unions, attend meetings or engage in collective bargaining. The government reports over 1,000 registered trade unions, but labour leaders estimate fewer than 200 are active in the RMG sector, and only 30-40 engage in collective bargaining, because union activities are inhibited by intimidation and violence. (U.S. Department of State, 2023; ITUC, 2023)

The US is not pursuing these agendas for the welfare of the working class of Bangladesh — it is using this leverage to prevent Bangladesh’s RMG products from entering its market under the cover of foreign policy and WTO rules. The US is not concerned about other sectors, only the RMG sector. The US policy on Bangladesh labour aims to keep the government tied to its agenda and to develop so-called independent, politically-neutral trade unions dependent on NGO funds and confined to labour rights — specifically to prevent revolutionary trade union activities and left political influence within the workers’ movement. (ITUC, 2023; ILO, 2022)

V. New Forms of Class Struggle Taking Shape in Bangladesh

The present status of trade union organisations across different sectors is vulnerable. There are unions, but few sustained movements. Nevertheless, their day-to-day activities prove their existence. Among organised sectors, transport workers are among the most highly organised and active, willing to show their collective power through strike action. (ITUC, 2023; BILS, 2023)

In the RMG sector, despite restrictions on trade union activities, workers have developed new forms of collective action. In cases of layoffs, factory closures, delayed wage payments, withheld festival bonuses, or harassment, RMG workers spontaneously sit in the nearest highway or street, obstructing traffic to press their demands. Over the last two decades this has become a recognised pattern of struggle. Workers show solidarity across factories: when a factory building collapses or catches fire, fellow workers rush without delay — even leaving their own work — to support their victimised comrades. (BILS, 2023; ILO, 2023)

These new types of workers in the RMG sector — predominantly women, with minimum formal education, rural backgrounds, and largely outside formal trade union structures — are active and ready to strike and rally for their demands. It is important to note that RMG workers operate with modern technology. They work in factories owned by foreign capital. They know that the products they make are sold in shopping malls across Europe, Japan, Korea and the United States. They know the brand buyers. They know that buyer countries have rules about both products and labour standards. (ILO, 2023; ITUC, 2023)

So RMG workers now press demands not only to local factory owners but also directly to international buyers. Workers are fighting against international capital in a way that is qualitatively new. In the RMG sector, the ILO, EU, US, Japan and Korea are all actively involved. Amnesty International and other United Nations human rights organisations are engaged. RMG trade union leaders also work with the World Federation of Trade Unions and the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). (ITUC, 2023; ILO, 2022)

Fighting against local capital and neoliberal policies was the dominant characteristic of the trade union movement of the recent past. But now, the mass of RMG workers — with less formal organisation yet with an internationalist consciousness forged in the globalised production process — are fighting against international capital both at home and abroad. Neoliberal globalisation has enabled Bangladesh’s female workers to be bold enough to confront the global capitalist system on the street — against high profits won through violation of labour law and human rights, for their rightful wages and their human dignity. (Schor, 2020; ILO, 2023; ITUC, 2023)

In the platform economy, a similar dynamic is emerging. While platform workers lack any formal union, they are beginning to organise through online social networks such as Facebook groups — a new digital form of workers’ self-organisation adapted to the conditions of algorithmic management and contractor status. The struggle of platform workers, if it is to succeed, must ultimately connect with the broader trade union movement and challenge the legal framework that denies them worker status in the first place. The working class of Bangladesh — across the factory floor, the tea garden, the agricultural farm, the highway, and the digital platform — is, in different ways and at different levels of consciousness, engaged in a common struggle against capital in its multiple, interconnected forms. (Woodcock & Graham, 2020; Wood et al., 2019; Alam, 2023)

VI. The July–August 2024 Uprising and Its Labour Aftermath

A. The Uprising and the Fall of Hasina

On 5 August 2024, following weeks of mass student-led protests — initially against a discriminatory quota system in government jobs, which rapidly expanded into a broad uprising against fifteen years of Awami League authoritarian rule — Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled Bangladesh. The uprising united students, workers and the urban poor and was a genuine political rupture rooted in accumulated grievances over unemployment, corruption and the crushing of democratic dissent. However, from the standpoint of the working class, the immediate aftermath was not liberation but catastrophe: factory owners affiliated with the Awami League abandoned their establishments and fled, leaving behind unpaid wages and shuttered gates. (Global Press Journal, 2025; Asian Labour Review, 2024)

B. Factory Closures and Mass Unemployment

Approximately 140 factories shut down within days of Hasina’s departure. (Global Press Journal, 2025) The Beximco Group collapse alone rendered 40,000 workers immediately jobless, (Context / TRF, 2025) and in total an estimated 130,000 to 150,000 garment workers — the majority women — lost employment in the immediate transition period.(Global Press Journal, 2025; GlobalCDG, 2025) Over 100 factory units remained closed through May 2025, with registered garment factories falling from 4,500 to 1,806 as the combined impact of Covid-19 and the political crisis took hold.(CADTM / Alternative Viewpoint, 2025)

C. Economic Losses, Poverty and Hunger

The demonstrations, curfews and internet shutdown caused an estimated $400 million in RMG losses and over $1.2 billion economy-wide. (Asian Labour Review, 2024) GDP growth slumped to 3.3% in 2024–25 — the lowest in 36 years — and the World Bank projects three million additional people pushed into poverty, with the extreme poverty rate rising to 9.3%. (World Bank, 2025; TBS, 2025; CPD, 2026) Food insecurity worsened sharply, with around two-thirds of female-headed households reported as unable to meet basic nutritional needs. (Financial Express BD, 2025)

D. State Repression on Workers Under the Interim Government

In September 2024, garment and textile workers facing mass layoffs and unpaid wages launched a strike wave shutting down 83 factories. The interim government of Muhammad Yunus responded by deploying the military to suppress the strikes. (Red Flag, 2025; Asian Labour Review, 2024) Women workers — visible participants in the July uprising itself — were doubly marginalised: disproportionately displaced by factory closures, and then excluded from the political reconstruction that followed. The lesson is sharp: political regimes change; without independent working-class organisation, the state’s disposition toward workers asserting their rights does not. (Red Flag, 2025; ITUC, 2023)

E. Class Lessons of the Uprising

The July–August 2024 uprising is a historic event — but its labour aftermath exposes the limits of political change conducted without an organised working-class movement at its centre. The absence of an independent working-class political force in the transition has meant that power has shifted toward business-friendly technocrats and military administrators rather than toward the workers who made the uprising possible. The trade union movement and the political left must draw the correct lesson: solidarity between students and workers must be institutionalised, and the labour movement must advance its own independent programme on wages, safety, the right to organise, and social protection. (CPD, 2026; Red Flag, 2025; ITUC, 2023)

 

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© 2024 Sharif Shamshir & Ahmed Borhan | Centre for Social Research, Bangladesh. This paper is circulated for discussion and comment purposes.

Correspondence and feedback welcome from trade union and labour movement organisations.