“Competitive” Labor Force

 “Competitive” Labor Force

A slum settlement called Pur Nagar, Beautiful Town, lies on the northern outskirts of Dhaka. As I walk into one of the narrow passages meandering through the settlement, I have to be careful not to step into a sewage ditch dug out right in the middle of the passage. On the edges of the passage, just by the walls of dilapidated one-story houses, there are piles of garbage, and there is even more garbage scattered on the banks of the river running just by the settlement. The electricity poles, standing on the corners of the streets, indicate that power is available, but, as people from the settlement claim, just sporadically. The slum’s houses, built with bricks and roofed with corrugated metal sheets, are home to what the corporation executives define as a globally “competitive” labor force. The houses consist of small 40-square-feet rooms which usually accommodate two workers. 

Since a double bed covers about half the room’s surface, there is barely any place left for other workers’ possessions. The workers’ clothes usually hang on the walls, while kitchenware and other items are stored under the beds. Some workers living in the slum do not have enough money to pay for their children’s education at the local school where a fee of about $6 per month is being charged, so activists of a local labor rights organization opened their own “school,” in reality just a 100-square-feet room with four desks squeezed inside. The costs for running the school, including wages for the three teachers, are being paid by the labor rights organization.[Read more]