I’m Shamsun and I work in the Arrow factory in Bangladesh. I work at a sewing machine 13 hours a day, 7 days a week. I get up at 5am to go to work. I earn £30 a month.
I’m paid less for overtime than normal hours. Younger workers help to finish off the clothes I sew on the machines. Some of them are under 13, which is the legal age for starting work. They are only paid £7.50 a month (2.5p an hour).
Arrow isn’t as bad as some factories: Wages are paid on time and I do get 12 days holiday each year…how many do you get in UK? But it’s hard working 7 days a week. The hardest thing is having to work on Fridays – this should be the Muslim day off. If I miss one day I lose two day’s pay. This is against the law, but some factories here ignore the law.
I came here from the countryside. My parents are really poor and have no land of their own. They earn a tiny amount working for other people whenever they can.
I moved to the city of Dhaka to try to earn more, so I could send money home. But it costs me so much to live in the city I hardly ever have enough to send to my family. 10 years ago I was working in another factory. I got together with some other workers and tried to set up a trade union. I was sacked. All the workers then stopped work – but the factory had a big order, so they took everybody back. Later that year the factory closed – it probably reopened somewhere else under a new name. That’s how factories get rid of trade unions.
I live in a hut with two other girls; we protect and look after each other. The hut is bare we have just a few clothes hanging on bamboo poles, and some cooking stuff. There are thousands of huts like this in Dhaka, built on whatever land people can find. To reach it you have to walk along the railway line. We share 2 toilets with 120 people. There is one well, where women have to queue to fetch water – sometimes tempers get frayed!
The hut next door has 14 people working in it. They are mainly children aged between 10 and 14. They work 12 hours per day making eyelets for shoes – there is only one light bulb. When the power fails they work by candlelight. At least the Arrow factory is better than this.
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Hi, my name is Alison. I’m a homeworker. There are about 1,000,000 of us in the UK.
I’m a skilled machinist, and make clothes for many of the companies you see in the High Street. I have been working at home for 5 years now. I am married and have 3 children. I can’t go out to work because I can’t afford childcare, so working from home is the only way I can earn some extra money. I work about 40 hours each week I get paid £2.25 per hour – less than the minimum wage, but if I complain my employer takes no notice I work about 10 hours at weekends, once the children have gone to bed.
Each day I get up early and feed the baby. Then I get my other 2 children off to school. I do the shopping and cleaning before I start work at 11 o’clock. After a couple of hours I have to stop to give the baby lunch, then I do another two hours, before I pick the children up from school. Once the children have gone to bed, and my husband has gone to work (he’s on night shifts). I do a few more hours if I can. I never know how much work I will get for the week – so I never know how much money I’ll be paid.
It’s a lonely job, and boring. I don’t have much of a social life – I do know some other women around here who work from home but I never have time to talk to them. I often get backache from sitting in the same position for too long – but I have to work fast to get the work completed in the time my employer has set me.
Our baby has asthma, which is made worse by all the dust from the sewing, but what can I do? I can’t leave her in a separate room all day. I know some homeworkers have to use public transport to pick up and deliver their work – at least my employer comes to the house. But I’m the one paying for all the heating, lighting and electricity.
I don’t like what I do, but we need the money. I get really upset when I see something I’ve made selling in the shops for £30 or £40 – I was only paid about 75p for stitching it together.”
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