'An inspiration for further commitment'

Amin will be receiving the prestigious award, now in its eleventh year and endowed with 15.000 euros, for "the tenacity and intrepidity with which he has tried to improve the life and working conditions" of the people working in the garments industry of Bangladesh, as the international jury commented in their citation.

Amin is a founding member and the current president of the National Garment Workers Federation (NGWF). His association with the garments industry began more than thirty years ago, when Khan was acting as an advisor to the Dhaka City Tailoring Workers Union while completing his studies from the Dhaka University.

DW: Did that experience play a significant role when the National Garment Workers Federation was being founded?

Amirul Haque Amin: Since the garment workers were the most unorganized, I decided to make that my target area. Some tailors of Dhaka city had joined the garments industry as cutting masters, whereas those who sat at the sewing machines took up the job of machine operators. I had been an adviser to their previous union.

When you look back upon your career as a trade unionist, what are the successes that come to your mind?

In 2005, when the Spectrum garments factory building collapsed and many workers lost their lives, we started a campaign that it shouldn't be considered to be solely an accident. These accidents are happening due to the negligence of some person or other: it might be the buyers' negligence or the owner's negligence - even the government might bear a part of the responsibility.

Since these deaths are occurring owing to negligence, the damaged parties should get compensation for their loss of earning as well, for the time that they are incapacitated and unable to work, for the amount they would have earned during that period. That is the amount they should get as compensation - which is more or less an established principle today.

But is it being practiced as well?

In the case of the Rana Plaza, the compensation for each of the workers who lost his or her life in that disaster ranges from 10 lakh takas to 40 lakh takas (1 lakh or 100,000 taka amounts to around 1,100 euros). The law provides for only 200,000 takas as compensation, so that's five times more.

The liability to pay the compensation is with the owners, but where we (trade unions) have taken up the matter, there the liability is not just with the owners, or with the owners and the government, a major portion of the liability has to be carried by the buyers. Spectrum, Smart Fashion, Rana Plaza - the major part of the compensation came from the buyers, in all these cases.

What were your thoughts when you heard that you were going to be this year's recipient of the International Nuremberg Human Rights Award?

Nuremberg is one of the most famous places for the upholding of human rights; the Nuremberg tribunal is famous the world over. I feel that this prize is not just for me but for the whole of the trade union movement as well as for the garment workers of Bangladesh and the labor movement in Bangladesh.

It constitutes recognition for the trade union and garment workers' movement of Bangladesh; it is a show of respect for the workers who died at Tazreen and at the Rana Plaza; it is in honor for the global trade union movement.

On the other hand, I shall have to correct my own mistakes and limitations because of this award and dedicate myself to an even larger extent to the workers in the interest of the industrialization of our country.

Amiurl Haque Khan is a veteran trade union leader who has spent the last thirty years with the National Garment Workers Federation of Bangladesh.