UİD-DER Women’s Committee: We Share Our Bangladeshi Class Bothers/Sisters’ Grief

Our dear Bangladeshi class brothers/sisters

As Women’s Committee of the Association of International Workers’ Solidarity (UİD-DER), we are deeply saddened by the loss of our class brothers and sisters as a result of the collapse of Rana Plaza building on April 24. We share your great outrage against capitalist system of exploitation, and extend our feelings of solidarity. We extend our condolences to the families who lost their beloved relatives and wish the wounded workers a quick recovery.

We, as UİD-DER Women’s Committee, know that majority of the victims of the disaster in Bangladesh are working women. Just as in our country, the greedy bosses of garment industry employ women more than men because they consider them cheap labour. Garment bosses who employ women workers for very low wages and in very bad conditions did not evacuate the building which had given clear signs of collapse. They clearly consider any halt in production or any reduction of their profits more unbearable than death of more than a thousand workers. They are so inhuman to make statements that garment industry would not be damaged because of the disaster, which means they do not care at all the death of workers. The bosses are responsible for this massacre because they did not take any precautionary measures and forced the workers to work under unhealthy and unsafe conditions and did not evacuate the building. And the government is also responsible because they did not inspect the workplaces and punish them.

The disaster in Dhaka is neither an accident nor fate. The disaster in Dhaka is a massacre and bosses who are responsible for it should be punished.

This massacre is unfortunately neither the first nor the last one. We know that many workplace accidents with fatalities happen in Bangladesh. We remember in deep grief our worker brothers and sisters who were killed on 24 November 2012 and on 8 May 2013 shortly after the collapse of Rana Plaza. Enough is enough! Stop this massacre at workplaces! Stop this suffering!

For 5 months UID-DER has been carrying on a campaign in Turkey under the main slogan: “Workplace Accidents are not Destiny! Stop Workers Dying of Workplace Accidents!” We demand the same for our brothers and sisters in Bangladesh. We demand full precautionary measures to be taken in each and every workplace, we demand all workplaces to be inspected strictly and we also demand those bosses who do not take precautionary measures to be imprisoned.

Our sad brothers/sisters,

We, UID-DER Women’s Committee, swear in memory of our sisters who were buried in the ground and our brothers who were children of the women of our class. We will heighten the struggle we have been waging to overthrow this cruel capitalism which takes the lives of workers. We wish to be arms in arms with you in this struggle and call out:

Down with the system of wage slavery!

Long live the international unity of struggle of the working class!