Md. S. Islam
Almost all sectors around the world have been affected to some extent due to Covid-19. Though it is mainly related to health, economic activities came to an almost halt due to its impact.
The Covid-19 has had an overwhelmingly negative impact on vulnerable workers in the food system and the ready-made garment (RMG) sector. Wage-based workers and farmers are some of the most devastated by the pandemic, and they will likely continue to be vulnerable for many months to come.
The RMG sector supply chain workers in low-paid jobs are being laid off due to businesses unable to operate in government lockdowns for many months. The wage-based workers in Bangladesh, where labor policies are not fully developed or enforced, were not provided compensation during the lockdown and some are losing their jobs.
Female workers are particularly at most risk due to intra-household food distribution within the limited food provision. According to Business Consultant organization- LightCastle Partners research report titled ‘Impact of Coronavirus on Livelihoods of RMG Workers in Urban Dhaka'(report-2020) that the RMG workers’ household income has reduced approximately by 31% while increased by 29% of their food cost. Along with that, the other wage-based labourers are probably experiencing the same situation.
This less income and increased food cost will fling them to consume a low-cost carbohydrate-based diet. Due to Covid-19, most of the factories had faced challenges to get back on track for their business and are trying to provide standard wage and nutritious diet at the workplaces.
The crisis has exposed and compounded the negative impact on accessing nutritious and safe foods by the workers in the workplaces as well as at home. In this situation, the health and wellbeing of the workers are likely to be significantly affected.
Standard Group is one of the largest garments manufacturing companies in Bangladesh. Standard Stitches Limited (Unit- 2) is one of the factories of Standard Group. The total workers’ number is 1500 among them the percentage of female workers is 60 and they were the most vulnerable group.
Usually, this factory used to provide snacks to their workers when they do overtime. Due to Covid situation this snack provision is not running, so, there was no option of providing any food/snacks to the workers. Even the Factory had no option for workers to give overtime for extra income. Also factory failed to provide salary timely to the workers.
As a result, the workers also have a very limited opportunity to maintain a balanced diet for their daily life due to limited purchasing capacity. As a result, several workers especially female workers became sick after regular intervals even sometimes they faint on the floor.The situation demanded that private sector alongside the government come forward to mitigate the sufferings of the workers. The government expects that the private sector would supplement its activities on ensuring welfare for the workers.
Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), a Switzerland-based international development organization, is one of the organizations that came forward to address the problem of the workers amid the pandemic.
In a bid to address the nutritional requirement of the workers, GAIN started a project titled ‘Nutrition Security to Vulnerable workers (NSVW)’ for the most of the vulnerable workers.
Standard Stitches Ltd. Unit 2, Savar, Dhaka applied for the grant to GAIN for addressing the short-term hunger and nutrition-related issues of the factory workers. Before starting the project, some factory management was not positive since the snack distribution process overlapped with worker’s production time. Not only that, but snack distribution also involves additional activities that need extra time e.g., keeping the floor clean and maintaining food hygiene.
Finally, Standard Stitches Ltd. (Unit 2) has completed 50 days of snack distribution without facing any complications and trouble. After the end of the project, Factory management shared their positive views individually about the consequence of this project.
The author is a journalist of a Weekly
