the experience of a multinational company in bangladesh

M oniq ue Selim is a French Social

Anthro pologist, Research Fe llo w in

ORSTOM ( Fre nc h Publi c In st itu te of

Scienti fic Rese arc h For Developme nt

through coo peration - Par is ) . A fter two

long fiel d works on wo rking c la ss in

Fran ce , she focused her re se a rch es on

Indu str ial o rgan iz a tion s in A sia . Af ter

working in India and Ba ng lade sh. she

did a s tudy on Slate ente rprise s and

trans it ion to marke t eco no m y in Laos.

S he publi shed several books in French :

Ur bani s m e et r e h a b il i ta ti on

s ym bol iq ue , G, Al thabc, B. Lege, M.

Sclim, 1984 .

Urbanisat ion et enjeux quot id iens. G,Al tha bc , M . de la Pradcl!c. C. M arcadct,

M , Sclim . 19 85.

Une en /repr ise de de velopement au

Ban gladesh , le centre de Sovar , B.Hours. M. Se lirn, \989 .

L'aventure d 'une mult inat io nale au

Bangladesh, ethno log ic d'une en/reprise ,

M. Sclirn. 199 1.

Sala r ies et en/reprises dan s less pays

vu su d . R . C aha ncs , J. Co p an x, M .

Sc lim. 199 5 .

The Experience of aMultinational Company in

Bangladesh

The Experience ofaMultinational Company

in Bangladesh

Monique Selim

Translated from Frenchby

S. M. Imamul Huq

Published jointly by ICBS, Dhakaand ORSTOM, Paris

International Centl'e fol' Dengal StudiesRoom 1107, Arts BuildingDhaka University, Dhaka 1000Bangladesh

ICBS Series: 10

First PublishedAugust 1995© ICBS

ISBN 984-8127-04-8

This book was set in 10 Pt. Bookman Type

Printed at Dana Printers Ltd., Ga-16 Mohakhall,Dhaka 1212, Bangladesh

Distributol' : University Press LimitedRed Crescent Building, 114 Motljhee1 CfA,P. O. Box 2611, Dhaka-l000, Bangladesh

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shaH not, by way oftrade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulatedwithout the publisher's prior written consent in any fonn of bindlng orcover other than that in which it is published and without a simllarcondition Inc1udlng this condition belng Imposed on the subsequentpurchaser and wlthout llmltlng the rights under copyright reselVedabove. no part of thls publication may be reproduced, stored ln orintroduced into a retrteval system, or transmitted ln any form or byany means (e1ectronic, mechanical. photocopying. recordlng orotherwisel, without the prior wrttten permission of both the copyrtghtowner and the above-mentioned publisher of thls book.

CONTENTS

PagePreamble 7Introduction Il

1- Revaluation of the Enterprise and 1 1the Cultural Illusion in the Mangement

2- Perspectives and Problematics of an 18Anthropologie study on the Enterprise

Chapter 1 A Multinational in the Nationalist 27

Turrno ilChapter II The Instituted Joint Management 37Chapter III Tradeunion and Politics 51Chapter IV The Officers and the Looking for 63

an AuthorttyChapter V Kinship. Work, Factions in the 78

World of the LaborersChapter VI The Left-overs in the Promotion 100Chapter VII Integration into the Middle class 115Chapter VIII Feminine Ethics of Confromity 133Chapter IX Dhaka/New York/Dhaka: the 143

MisunderstandingsConclusion 149Annexure 154Index

PREAMBLE

Dhaka, September, 1988: the monsoon is severe, flood isdevastating the whole of Bangladesh, traffic at theinternational airport has to be suspended for the firsttime. The factories. whose machines are literally down,are being closed one after another. Their huts beingblown away by the eddy of water. millions of inhabitantsare left on the roads without means other than thesubsidies distributed by the local charitableorganizations. Members of middle or upper classes arebenevolently participating directly or indirectly inorganizing rescue operations, for example, by cookingrice and "chapatis" and then bringing those to the smallcenters in the neighborhood. The poverty of the countryis projected to the international community as one ofthe most tragic events on the planet; the medias focuson Bangladesh and the misery of the 110 millionsinhabitants. dramatized, unconcerned and generalized,is presented to the entire world in a show without anyhue. The staggering images remain engraved in memory:deprivation, absolute destitution. distress. radical penuryand isolation. in this far away land subjected to aIlcatastrophes. The clichés drenched with the long lists ofan external expression on what is designated as a "thirdworld," periodically extracts of sadness. do not however,keep up with the customary reality of a country but witha metonymic relationship.

Men and women work desperately throughout theyear in numerous industrial establishments of Dhaka orChittagong. A significant part of these establishments areown by the Bangladeshi proprietors. They foIlow,particularly in the ready-made garments manufacturing,a rudimentary technology with a maximum profit. Forthe purpose. they unscrupulously use competentman-power at a very low priee and without other meansof subsistence. These firms are expanding veryadvantageous contracts for themselves as weIl as for

7

their partners by meeting up the short demands fromthe Western people in an efficient manner and with theminimum delay. These Western people regularly sendtheir representatives who stay in the big hotels of thecity.

On the other hand. the presence of multinationalcompanies in Bangladesh is significant. They are notdiscouraged either by the floods or by the cycloneswhich are ritual woes, by the instability of poliUcalconjuncture, or by the fussy laws or jurisdictions like theone in 1982 which hit the phannaceutical companiesand reduced their share of profits. Sorne are increasingtheir investments (BATA 1988) while others areinstalling themselves either under the disguise of a"Joint venture" (Rhone-Poulenc 1989) or in their ownname (Ciba-Geigy 1989). They are finding their marketever f1ourishing.

The officiaIs and "expatriate" technicians sent by theinternational or non-governmental organizations meetduring the evening at dinners of the "experts of poverty".These people abound here to embark on developmentalprojects. The first ones easily celebrate the good bargainof their factories and the exceptional productivity oftheir employees. There are sorne transient difficulties.The experiences gathered elsewhere have helped themto make sorne quite simple management instinctsadjusted to the rationale of the men whom they haveunder their commando On the other hand. the latterhave become fatalists: in the face of recurring failures ofdevelopmental operations and diversion of funds forwhich they are the perpetuaI victims. they have becomedoubtful even of the contents of their mission.

Their deceptions are leading them to find in theirprofessional nomadism the obligations of a carrier whichhowever remains more or less tainted with certainprecariousness: it does not need "under developed"areas. but the concurrence is great on this quiteexceptional and rather saturated labor market. Thefonners are certain of their tangible results and of thesignificance that bears their successes in thebelongingness to those impregnable mondial

8

strongholds that the multinationals are contrasting withthe bitterness of the latter. The good intentions for astart of this second grou p badly resist the proof againstsorne facts. Surrounded by silent and diligentBangladeshi servants with immaculate dresses. theydiscuss with each other of their impression withoutreally making any reciprocal influences.

The existence of the multinationals equally allows torevitalize the views of a sad autarky and of a confinementin an obsolete production mode. These views affectBangladesh in a significant way compared to othernations. At the center of the contemporary internationalconjuncture. these multinationals constitute symbolic asweIl as economic parallel local poles of attraction.Singular representation of the world organization and ofthe overlapping logics of alterative constitution areelaborated in these social spaces that drain and form themost competitive employees. As a consequence. socialand political remodelling. confrontations with thehierarchic temperaments in force in the society canarise there. These multinationals are then the fields ofdecisive transformations of the spirits and of the socialstructures. In comparison. the private factories, held bythe heirs of a stock of enterpreneurs - eventuallyregrouped in official institutions like the Chamber ofCommerce of Dhaka. protecting certain secured andcynic family network- reproducing sorne ancestraldevices of unfair over-exploitation to the extent of theirgreediness. These multinationals then deserve to beknown from the interior; they offer the opportunity toreformulate sorne ordinary questions that reside out ofthe ideologic discussion in the form of argument or ofaccusation: what direction do give the individuals totheir work in a context of significant social, economicand cultural distance? How are the imaginariesconstrued that preside over the labor organization andthe creation of a social group of the employees? Whatplace occupies such a group in the society?

If sorne one agrees to consider this on the foundationof very little radical h umanism that can easily beshared. so that the local employees are not simply the

9

helots, the emergency of needs does not constitute theirsole motivation, the diverse choices and policies arepresented to the personal conscience in the wholesociety irrespective of economic deficits.

10

INTRODUCTION

1Revalorization of the Enterprise and the

Culturalist Illusion in Management

How does an ethnologist decides to study the branch of amultinational company. that has been established in theperiphery of Dhaka about twenty years ago, with theproper methods in her discipline? The reader - forwhom the Jargons of ethnology or anthropology arespontaneously associated with vague pictures of exotictribes that have their origin in virgin spaces. denseforests (from where the cocoa cultivators wouId havebeen evicted) or wild deserts (without any motor rallytrack) - can rightly ask this question. It is also advisableto respond to this in the preamble, to specify the senseand the perspective of an anthropologie approach which,although less habituaI, has its origin in a logic ofacquired knowledge with the contemporary world.

After many years. there is a thorough revalorizationof the enterprise. The latter was identified by the socialsciences to a profoundly negative reality where mechanisms of exploitation. of domination and of alienationwere almost uniquely playing in their eyes. The positiverole that the enterprise is having now in the minds ofthe majority is the follow-up of a number of well-knowneconomic and intellectual crisis: permanence ofstructural "non-development" in a considerable numberof countries for whom the independence has been asynonym of an imprisonment in the bondage andstagnation; finally upset of old international partitionsthrough suppressing the so-called communist nations tomake their population accede to the level of Westernproduction and consumption and consequently. immediate reintegration of these nations in the sphere of"under-development". ofTered to economic investments.

Il

Whatever be the doubts, which is witnessed by the worksof the economists themselves - economics is playing therole of hegemonic culture in this new conjuncture- andthe enterprise consecutively appears as an omnipresentand beneficent entity: its success would be the carrier of ageneralized resolution of material and immaterialproblems at the local. national and world leveJs.

Beyond these simple and partial conceptions - it givesthe enterprise the function of "cargo" for the inhabitantsof the Melanesian Islands and convey a Messianism ofmodernity - the process of mondialization that energizes,actually constitutes the enterprise in a centralphenomenon: this mondialization that follows theeconomic as weIl as the political channels. draw thecontours of a unification in the bosom of which theenterprise is brought to play a predominant role. Thedevelopment of the salariat in one hand, and migration ofwork on the other, in effect, put the enterprise at thefore-front of this unification. The latter finds one of itsethical formulations in the leitmotiv of the equivalencefrom "liberty" to "liberalism". By its omnipresence. joiningof the "near" and "far-away" societies, conjugating spacesof "development' and "under-development", exchangingmen and ideas, the enterprise looks forward, with suchuniversalizing formulations. to make its potentialobjectives for the construction of contemporary social andeconomic reality stronger. Network of connection perexcellence between the "rich" and "poor" countries,through the inegalitarian circulation and transfer of thesalaried persons and of wealth. the multinationalcompanies dominate this general recomposition.

In this context, by setting up an exemplary value ofmodernization, the enterprise thus realizes the excessand subsomption of aIl partial and specific morals in therepresentations.

If it is worrying to perceive the changes of the worldto which it belongs. the ethnologist with G.Althabe 1. can

"Vers une ethnologie du présent" (Towards an ethnology of thepresent), in Les Nouveaux Enjeux de 'Anthropologie - autour deGeorges Balandier, Varia, Université libre de Bruxelles, no 3-4,1988, pp. 89-97

12

not remain indifferent: it has been quite "naturally"conducted to carry Us attention on this strange "totalsocial phenomenon" on which the resources,subsistence and vocations, convictions, adhesions andpassions are based. The temptation is then great as Usatisnes the enterprise or those who surround theintelligentsia, which has been a priori attributed to himby simple deduction. Dfscemed outwardly as a speciaUstof "culture", the ethnologist finds two possibilities openbefore her which can sarcastically be summarfzed in thefollowing way. Familiar wUh the alterative culture, she isasked, in the first place, to make a "custom-built"enterprise; this perfectly adapted "enterprise culture"will then allow, by evocation of the "primitive cultures"of the aggregate and artificial soUdarity to restItute theunfty and the harmony of the enterprise. The secondproposition that can be addressed to the ethnologistconsists of making him endorse on the site of theenterprise the attire of a sort of "cultural exorcists": ftmeans that the "cultural traits" are diagnosed. This. in anensemble of shared culture, will introduce an internaIblockade or, to the contrary, would be susceptible to beencouraged, or even developed . for the well-being ofthe whole of the enterprise.

The professional ethnologists in France have ingeneral, appeared very hesftant to join themselves tosuch mission in the management of the enterprise.However. letung their places of "cultural therapeutist ofthe enterprise" vacant, the latter has been taken up byother practitioner of social sciences having ended thestake that constitute the "culture" in the face of theenterprise after the failure of the adjustment theory andthe individual adaptation to the organizational ensemble.

Two examples will help better understand thecompetence of the "culturalist" argumentation that isemerging now-a-days in the enterprise, and to put tolight the ethnologie illusion that subtends suchutilftarian approaches. The book of Alian Etchegoyen."Les entreprises ont-elles une âme?"(Have theenterprises a soul?) thus puts forward a renewed form,and more subtle. the "enterprise culture", which justifies

13

itself on a double level: a frame work of perpetuallyevoked philosophy through prestigious references(Spinoza etc.) in the one hand. and a permanentrecourse to the ethnology as concrete mode ofknowledge and necessary methodology for theenterprise approach on the other. The "soul" of theenterprise makes the notion of "enterprise culture"dynamic and elaborates its "strategie" dimension: eitheralready existing but becoming consolidated andencouraged. or absent and then asking to be produced.The "soul" of the enterprise is first of aIl defined as amovement of "identification" of the employees to the"project" of the enterprise. The author takes care todistinguish "these processes of identification" from the"quest for manipulatory Integration and a deceptiveconsensus" - to him, it means to "give a sense of work(. ..) each time the enterprise makes profit. the employeecan not be that much fooled"(p.88). The "sour' is then a"principle" that connotes. according to the author. the"spirit of the enterprise', the "desire of the enterprise".

Without appealing to the social science researchersbut in aIl evidence to the chief of the enterprise.Etchegoyen strongly repeats that his study deliberatelyputs forward the "management" (p.121. p.131); the factthat the researchers in management are orientingthemselves more and more towards this type of"management microculturalism". are obeying anacknowledged evolution of sorne productivity conceptionwhich is in vogue in the enterprise. The evolution itself

will merit uniquely an elaborate thought. It is also apatent that the ethnology is parallely following fromother epistemologic ambitions in the face of thisfascinating objective which for it. is the enterprise: itssubordination to the entrepreneural profitability and itsdiversion from the sense and from the content in therecipe of the manufacture of "microcultural souls".destined to put better the imaginary of the employees tothe service of an ontologized economic profit. will notsatisfy his scientific ambitions. A.Etchegoyen in factdescribes an "ethnologie fiction" in which the objectiveis the voluntary unification of an arbitrarily isolated

14

population (employee) which is the explicit affirmationof the enterprise as a hegemonic and totalizing entityand throwing-back of the contradictions that residethere, like in aU other social fields.

The success of culturalism in the enterprisepresents other facets that the book of P.D'Iribame, "LàLogique de l'honneur" (logic of honor) allows to encircle.We leave here the micro-culture to tie up with the linkof a vast culturalism which is cOIToborated in thecolonial period. The enterprise is feared as amicro-social space where the macro-cultural structuresare reflected: "to discover on what the traditions of acountry govern the life of Hs enterprises ... ", theknowledge of these macro-cultural structures isrequired by improving the management as is enunciatedby D'Iribame: "to understand better how it is managedelsewhere and how to manage it in its own place". So,the national culture becomes crucial in this perspective:it is explained by the values and determines, in theactual sense of the term, the functioning of theenterprise. The ethnologie vocabulary- largely those atthe beginning of the century-, used like metamorphosisof legitimization, abounds: morals, customs, rites,traditions, values are as objective traits as the chief ofthe enterprise must know to better face them, to betterevade them, or in the contrary, to better reveal them intheir positive attributes.

The culture, being naturalized and substantialized,thus lends itself to an idealist approach that sorne willqualify as "fundamentalist": "The perception of the socialfacts through traditions, customs, cultures or nations,that is, in essential or substantial terms, demands theomission of the conditions of creation of the entity inquestion and the injection of the present in the pastoThis has been seen well by Renan. There is a dormantfundamentalism in aB culturalism, as it is in allnaturalism elsewhere (J .L.Amselle, "Logiques métisses",p.62). If such a cultural fundamentalism had its period ofglory during the discovery of the far off societies and theconflict of the cultural difference, its reintroduction inthe enterprise then can be surprising; major functions of

15

culturalist approaches, of obliteration of contradictorylogic which flash across and constitute the social rapportand mode of thinking are nevertheless found there.According to D'Iribarne. the culturalism is. in a sense,strongly salubrious: "Compared to this type ofrepresentation (alienation), the real discussion on theenterprise culture constitutes. in many respect. a returnto a sane realism". Consequently, the culturalism which is defined in the management context- will openup in a subjacent manner, not on the cultural relativism,ambiguous intellectual position, if it is 50. but on agradation of national cultures classified according to theprinciple of rationalization of the market economy. Theauthor will not recommend the chiefs of the enterpriseto invest in Africa; the local culture there seems to lenditself little to the industrial organization and the financialloss risk is high. He will stay back to write the "guides"drawing for the managers. a distribution card of culturalresources adapted to the economic investments. In,. theguides NIPs will be recommended because of high valuesof their national culture.

The culturalist seduction that becomes rooted in apseudo-ethnologie fascination by borrowing words andsimultaneous omission of the perspectives and themethods, presents itself now-a-days as a source ofrenewal of the internaI thoughts of management andadministration. The isomorphism on which itemphasizes can become doubtful of its lucrativecharacter even in the locations where it proposes to beefficient. These approaches- biased by the applicationsthat they flx and the image that they make of theauditors to whom they are directed- are placed inrupture with the elaboration of an anthropologieknowledge focussed on the enterprise and on the work:the interest that it presents as much for thepractitioners and deciders as for the fundamentalresearch. however, seems to be indisputable.

The conditions of production of such a knowledgeprimordially reside in the behavior of field survey inlocations which are little familiar to the ethnologists andthe access is difficult because of habituaI closure of the

16

enterprises. This is in fact like a method2 that theethnology can not only try to bring a specifie andpertinent enlightening on the enterprise. but also forthe enterprise, that can but continue to be identifiedeither as "bad" or as "good" in the cultural fashions.which must also be considered as a fact of socialobjective.

That is why. even before penetrating into the centerof an American Multinational company studied in Dhaka- in the face of which we will see that the culturalparadigms (American or Bangladesh!) in theirdistinctions and/or their crossings. do not constitutethe key of Interpretation that will open the doors of afolkloric reality- we will retrace the history of anethnologie survey whose realization sends ft back to thesocial logic in force.

2. Cf: Entretien avec G.Althabe par M.Selim. "L'ethnologue,l'entreprise, la société Industrielle", Bulletin de l'Associationfrançaise d'Anthropolgle, no 26-27,pp.31-47. G.Althabe,L'ethnologue et sa discipline", L'Homme et la Soclété,1990 (1-2),no 95-96, Mission et démission des sciences sociales, pp 25-42.

17

2Perspectives and Problernatic of an Ethnologie

Investigation on the Enterprise

In the last few decades. the enterprise for the socialsciences was. above all. the place for applicatioR of aprofoundly determinist perusal: perceived as thefoundation of production of the classes and of reproduction for the inequality. it was principally conceivedthrough schemes of imposition and for macrosocialconstraints. evacuating Us microsocial field dimension inwhich the individu ais are not uniquely the passiveelement in the construction process. but also the actorsin clear terms. These ideas are largely referred to in theprinciples of overaU explanation of social training .

Habituated to work with limited populations. theethnologist inevitably prepares herself for that type ofapproaches which look into the role of interpersonalrelationships and modes of thought that emanate from it.These are sorne insignificant details as regards thesignificance of the mechanisms of coercion for whichthey are supposed to be the Interpretation or to thecontrary. the occultation. She is put before theenterprise. with the same quite broad questioning asregards aU social groups - rural micro-societies. sects orexotic kingdoms - questioning that essentiaUy carry onfunctioning and adhesion of Us members to the circle ofappurtenance. The enterprise. which is the space ofhierarchical edification per excellence. can among otherpossible orientations. introduce the ethnologist to try tounderstand the view points of the internaI logic of theactors. the modes of constitution and distribution of theobserved hierarchic positions.

The perspective developed here is related todrawing attention on the imaginary and real explanationsthat establish a link between the different hierarchicceUs of the enterprise. the link that establishes U likesocial unUy by active definition. The group of employees

18

is thus perceived as social totality in a holistic view; thisview immediately enjoins. through the coherence ofindividual lives that go on in and out of the enterprise. toreplace the salaried ones in the bigger socialconfiguration to which they belong and to encircle theinterrelations between their multiple spheres ofexternal infusion and the hierarchic microcosm of theenterprise.

How can such an investigation in the context likethat of Bangladesh. can tangibly be iniUated. in whichthe reader will spontaneously imagine a mass of workerswho are starving and are in rags and tatters. chained tothe antediluvian machines and afraid of losing the job?

It is rather at random - here as in elsewhere. inmany ethnological studies- that a factory. branch of oneof the seven most important multinationalpharmaceuUcal companies of the world has been chosenas the field of study. Within the jurisdicUon of anAmerican group. this factory has the parUcularity ofbeing locally administered for a long Ume by aBangladeshi director. the only interlocutor with itsregistered office at New-York. There. it is acharacteristic which is less common with themultinational industrial establishments in the so-called"under-developed" countries. Usually the key posts areconfided to "expatriate" Western administrators. InDhaka. this "delegated administration" to the "natives" isvery rare. It is because of the fact that. under the style offormer colony. the practice was to depend on theauthority of the "village chiefs" as relay of administrationand state control.

So. a rendez-vous was made with the Bangladeshidirector following a series of visits to the factory' andinterviews with their local responsibles. By rapidlygrasping the scientific stakes of the study. this man.impassioned by his profession and highly cultured(raised in Calcutta like majority of the literate persons ofthe country). immediately gave his consent to the studywithout taking any prior permission from the Americanauthorities of the comp~ny. This spontaneousauthorizaUon was contrasted with hesitations or flaunted

19

dependerice of certain directors. irrespective of theirnationality. In the face of their hierarchic metropolitansuperiors they had doubts in which the fear of "troubles"were expressed as much as the fear of harmony and thetranquility of the collective work appeared to be fragile.The obvious assurance of our interlocutor and hisabsence of reticence were largely due to the selection ofhis factory for the research. The confidence of the"master of the site" is. in all circumstances. a strategicasset for the ethnologist: besides. such attitudes areeminently significative of a social atmosphere. The lalteritself is revealing of the representations and of theengaged relationships.

The existence of a precise contract with theenterprise must be underscored; such contracts in factare most often required by an external researcher forentering into the factory. Not the outcome of anydemand. not being oriented by any explicit expectation.the conditions of the possibility of the study here. referback to the exchange of a "parole" which wasscrupulously respected beyond all expectations. Thedirection allowed a complete freedom to the employeesin the framework of their work schedule through prtorinformation and the autonomy of the study in relation tothe direction itself as regards the Amertcan office andthe confidentiality of the gathered information. As aguarantee to this independence. an office room in thefactory was put under the disposition of the ethnologist.The latter was also free to move around. Sharing food inthe canteen was generously proposed. The offer was sowarmIy accepted as it was the occasion for an informaIfamiliarization with and a propitious observation to theempIoyees.

It is on the basis of these modalities. which werenever put to question despite sorne very embarrassingoccurrences for the enterprtse. that the study continuedalmost daily for one year. We will come back to thismatter.

The firm. which we will calI Euphard. came intobeing in the Indian sub-continent during 1947-48.establishing factories in Bombay: Sri Lanka and Karachi.

20

This company was established in Dhaka only in 1968under the coyer of an industrialization program of thispart of Bengal which was at that time a part of Pakistan.Situated in an erst-while less developed outskirts ofDhaka. the factory is now in the midst of a rapidlygrowing industrial zone. One can go there by a verydefective small road and the back of the factory isbordered by hundreds of shanty huts along the lake.Constructed in the middle of a big land of which aportion is an orchard. the factory has an atTirmed but notostentory look of modemity. Very spacious. clear andperfectly attired. having order and calm. it is remarkablein the midst of the sUITounding industries teeming withmen and machines concentrated in the squeezedspaces.

The firm has more than 500 persons in Bangladeshof whom about 350 are in the factory. The otheremployees are distributed between the administration ofthe enterprise of the Dhaka center and the difTerentdepots in the important regional towns. Until 1982.when a new pharmaceutical policy imposing sorne heavyrestrictions on the multinationals was promulgated inBangladesh. the Euphard was no doubt the mostprosperous pharmaceutical company in the country;now. although it is no more in the first rankingcompanie~. in the face of enonnous demands thatconstitute Bangladesh with her 110 million inhabitants.it however. is keeping itself in an average positionamong seven or eight other phannaceutical enterprisesin tough competition. In 1989. for the first time in thecountry. a unit for producing the primary materials forantibiotics was opened under the aegis of a privateBangladeshi organization3 . This organization is quiteprominent in the political field. This initiative. likely tomodify the local market in the long run. will probablyaffect. in the future. the profit indices of the Euphardlike the other pharmaceutical enterprises. This isbecause of the fact that these enterprises are in an

3. Gonoshasthaya Kendro.cf. S.Hours et M.Selim, Une entreprise dedéveloppement au Bangladesh:le centre Savar (A developmentalenterprise in Bangladaesh: the Savar center). L'Harmattan. 1989.

21

obligation to buy their primary products from foreigncountries.

Two principal steps have singled out the progress ofthe investigation. In the first step, about fortY interviewswere realized at the interior of the factory following andespousing the internaI hierarchic structure of socialgroups that constitute the employees. A similar hearingwas then made with the directors, managers, officers.workers and the menials. Then attention was given to aneighborhood close to the factory where about thirtyfamilies of the employees live. About similar number ofinterviews were effected there with the wives and theirneighbors as weIl as with the local notables who areactive members of the mosque committee, existingmultiple associations and religious or political groups.The aim of this second phase of the study was toencounter the internaI and external hierarchic logic ofthe factory and the configuration of the conceived statusnot as sorne data but as sorne products.

During the investigation the privileged connectionswhose timely value is essential- were attached. Anextremely wann reception was received in aIl spheres ofthe investigation. The nature of these receptions cansometimes appear excessive sending back itself tosentiments of a heaved social and cultural isolation, asentiment shared by aIl strata of the society in thecountry. The setback of a national development expected after a very difficult war of independence in1971 against Pakistan and putting face to face the twoMuslim people-undoubtedly strengthen thesesentiments where bitterness and disillusion intermingle.

Specialist of what somebody designates as "theimmersion" in far-off societies. the ethnologicalliteratures abound in laudatory narrations whereinexpressible emotion of contact and of the alterativeinsight: "the hospitality" appeared like a recurringtheme of the narration of this experience of cognition.The specificity of the object of the investigation , anenterprise. means here to go farther than theserecalling became customary irrespective of their weightof truth and authenticity for the principal personage; it

22

is proper to avoid this exotic romanticism and to surpassthem by analysis of the scope that lies in thecommunication established with the subject of the study.

The investigation in the Euphard factory takes placein the context of an immense social and culturaldistance: this distance is seen from the added fact bydifferent intrinsic factors to its execution itself : first ofaIl, the most distinct one is the division of sexual rolesin the society. The ethnologist is permanentlyaccompanied by a Bangaldeshi colleague4 , a youngeducated lady originating from an upper class family.Both the ladies enter into an enterprise where almost aIlare male workers (only three women); the ethic ofconduct in force demands on the contrary, that in aconstitutive way. the social status and sexual distances.which is one measure itself, be linked: the more we goup in the hierarchy of classes. stricter becomes thesexual distance: on the contrary. in the lower social classthe sexual (promiscuity. proximity. liberty) confusioncan prevail. The social position of my collaborator wouldnot allow her to mix with men of whom a large portionbelonged to the subordinate fraction. Her presencecontradicts the usual practices.

In another level, the ethnologist herself is put totroubles and Indecision of a fabric of hierarchicrepresentations. Hierarchic microcosm at the highestpoint, the enterprise has formed Hs members withproper conventions and regulations. Regular visits of therepresentatives of the company from the New Yorkoffice. more or less short stays of the expatriatetechnicians or assistants have strongly connotated theindigenous/exogenous rapport in the factory. Thehierarchic authority in which these rapport arecontained has its limits: one of those American officiaIsthus was barred from entering into the factoI)' by theworkers because of a behavior for which he did notevaluate the consequences. Otherwise. these rapportevolve themselves in a social separation instituted on

4. Elma Chowdhury's great personal quallties were the basis of anexcellent collaboration during the whole Investigation.

23

both sides and which, aIl being perceived in anambivalent way by the inhabitants, is the object of anindigenous reinterpretation making appeal to the modesand to the logic of hierarchic structuring of the society:the se (there. like every where in the Indiansub-continent) make the signs of the social distance. thefoundation and the paradigm of the differentiation ofstatus. Outside the factory. the employees. like theensemble of their fellow-countrymen, establish everywhere an hierarchic scission between the natives andthe foreigners coming from the industrialized countries.On the contrary. the investigation was made on atentative of reduction of this social distance between theethnologist and the individuaIs: she has given effort tomake the basis of a symbolic proximity. There even. shestands up against the opposition from the habits rootedin the colonial pasto This relates to the new foreigners.emissaries of the "North". continuously registeringunhappy missionaries of a multiform development.

In a certain manner. the investigation appears to belike an event breaking away from the principal normsof the milieu. Its realization then causes a very favorablenews item that rapidly opens up on a certain infatuationwith this exceptional situation of communication withthe foreigner. After being devoted to a thoughtfulobservation on the "manners to make" of theethnologist- through the first interviews. his generalbehavior and particularly his dress at the table in thecanteen- the employees themselves came for anexchange: the ethnologist finds herself beset withrequests for interviews in the factory and for visits or forhaving food at their residences. Obviously. she gladlyresponded to their requests. The discussions thus setdown are often very long. sometimes taking about sixhours5 • and assumes a quasi Goffmanian aspect: in thereal scenes of their entire lives. the period from theirchildhood to the present. covering their relations withthe colleagues at work as weIl as the very private

5. It was an epistemologic choicc not to intervene the employeesever in their discussions whatever the theme or how long thesewere.

24

domains like the family and the conjugal life. the actorsreconstruct, in front of the ethnologist, the coherence oftheir trajectory and their idiosyncrasy. At the end oftheir interviews they were astonished by the streams oftheir talks: sorne say that they did not think before thatthey were capable of such talks. What interest do theysee in such "displays"? What sense assumes these "selfpresentations"?

The investigation appears in reality to surviveprincipally on its literally extraordinary character:irreproductible circumstance and bypassing theconstitutive regulations of the social rapport. it draws itsforce even from the crucible of the hierarchictransgression that it initiates: the indivduals talk andthey talk to that extent where they have the sentimentto participate in a hierarchic derogation. to be plungedinto an "out of hierarchic" moment. The investigation. infact, became a statutory risk. By making identicalattention to an the employees irrespective of their placein the internaI organigram. by proposing everybody thesame hearing and availability without taking into accountof the rank. the investigation complies with a desiredapproach in the ethnological discipline. But, at the sametime. this equalization of the positions that it crystallizesis a violent eruption in the functioning of the hierarchicuniverse of the factory. where for example. like everywhere in the country. one does not speak to asubordinate except for ordering. one does not eat withhim. the latter himself is compelled to remain standingin front of his superior. etc.

Established in imaginary equality poles for therunning of the investigation. it is the object of areappropriaUon effort by the most subordinate fractionof the factory who show a strong willingness to benefitfrom a fictitious equality. The interview with theethnologist is the general proof.

The Inevitable egalitarianism of the investigationunder the pretext of hierarchic observance. could clearthe investigation of a part of the employees only.Consequently. this creates sorne worry in the superiorstrata. For example. the oflkers. without admitting that

25

they would be "treated" in the same manner by theethnologist as the workers, came to interrupt theinterviews with the latter. For those officers, theinteIView was made in a manner of statutory respect dueto their position; this representation is brutally brokenby the follow-up investigation which, having started atthe highest rank of the hierarchy, gradually followedtowards the lower levels, the workers, then the menials.

Such elements force to ponder over the singulardynamics of an ethnological investigation in anenterprise: built up here by the participants who are inhierarchic and identity crisis, materializing in theinternaI structure of the factory, the investigation hasalso made revelation of contradictory understandingsthat reside in this structure. AlI like the enterprise itselfin the face of a complex administration of these men,she has been consecutively asking a delicatemanagement of different risks that is present there andwhich are carried by the individuals that she has beenlistening to understand.

Finally, let us precise that this investigation in thechain of Euphard was possible because of thecooperation from the local administration and the tradeunion. This double collaboration can be surprising: wewill understand the logic in the following pages byattaching ourselves by grasping the bases of the mode ofhierarchic communication prevalent in the social groupof the employees.

26

CHAPTER 1

A Multinational in the Nationalist Turmoil

The oldest employees of the Dhaka finn are betweenfifty and fifty five years of age. They were employedduring 1963-1965 in Us factory at Karachi. They have infacto left their villages at a very young age to come to thePakistani capital to which they belonged then. Duringthat epoch West Pakistan was the principal pole ofeconomic activities of the country whlle East Bengal now Bangladesh - was living in a difficult situation. Thedegradation of the rural lives there results from variousfactors and in the first place shortage of land.fragmented in smaller and smaller pieces because ofheritage. does not allow the famlly subsistence of thepeasants because of the use of less profitable fanningtechniques. The ecology of the region. immense delta.aggravates the general precariousness of the commonpeople. Not maintained since the end of the colonialperiod. the abandoned embankments allow thecapricious rivers to llow freely and create. other thancatastrophic lloods. a terrible loss of lands for theinhabitants. These recurring events that destabilise theresources. can be expressed in the simple but harshwords: ''The river has devoured the land". leitmotiv of animportant fraction of the employees sending back to theabundance or at least to the material comforts to far-offepoch. the one before their birth or even a tragicallyinterrupted care-free infancy.

In this context. the social status assumes afundamentally risky dimension: a previously rich andrespected family suddenly falling into needs. Resort tokinship here. is neither a security nor a guarantee: onthe contrary. a number of employees recall the refusaIto help by their prosperous relatives. Rather. they usedthose occasions to lay their hands on the last pieces ofland they possessed. Strained overall social relationships

A multinational in the national tunnoil 27

and exploitation predominate the kinships; the conflictsare particularly concentrated on the landed propertiesand inheritance; remarriage of the father aggravates thesituation. death of siblings painfuIly unveil to theprotagonist the harshness of the ftght for the survivaland the fragility of his position as "Kin" that has beenmade weak by the loss of his supporters. known as the"guardians". Departure for Karachi and later to Dhakarelates to aIl such painful circumstances. At 2.600 kmfrom their villages. Karachi was for a promise of work ina foreign. though national, capital for these daring youngpersons who chose to venture there. There. one speaksin Urdu. a language different from Bengali. First of aIl.Karachi was the seat of the "Masters of the country".those who ruled the West as weIl as the East in Dhakalike in aIl other cities. The modes of apprehension ofethnie difference - perceived even to-day as a culturaldifference in the morals and mentalities - anchors in therelationships of domination the souvenir of which isperpetually remembered in spite of the independence.The representations on the local hierarchy of the socialclasses that developed throughout the history havecertainly infIuenced the construction of this ethniesegregation between the two people. Theserepresentations establish. in effect. the exteriority of theupper classes in opposition to the nativity of the lowerclasses in the Bengali society of the 19th century6.

The members of the upper class found one of thedecisive places of hierarchic differentiation in the usageof Urdu; research of a legitimation of the occupiedposition by an extemal and far-off ortgin (India. Assam.etc.) however. has not completely disappeared in spiteof victortous nationalism that rehabilitated the Bengalis.

6. The Bengal Muslims, 1871-1906. A quest for identity, AhmedRaCiuddin, Delhi - Oxford University Press, 1988. The myth of aforeign origin of the "nobles" (ashraO is shared by the Muslimpopulations of the sub-continent in the Mogul pertod. Cf. MarcGabrteau, "Les Oulemas SouCis dans l'Inde moghole" (the SouCiUlemas in th,:: Mogul Indial, Anthropologie historique de religieuxmusulmans" (historical anthropology of the religious Muslimsl,Annales ESC, 1989,no 5, pp.1185-1204.

28 Multinational Company in Bangladesh

Thus. an officer of the factory offered to theethnologist his remarkably arranged genealogy that goesback to as early as the 15th century and proving that hewas the descendant of the Muslim preachers comingfrom Saudi Arabia. Consequently. the hierarchic ruptureinside the society was being nourished by an ebb ofpopular religious practices. towards an Islam taintedwith negativity for its syncretic and impure nature whichis again due to its mixing with Hinduism and animism.Historically. the Bengali identity thus appearedenormously problematic and plunged in the process offragmentation of the society that adorns with symbolicelaborations and putting into game a process ofethnicization of the classes. Urdu remains the dominantlanguage of Bangladesh even in the 1990s. This connotesthe adherence of the language to aristocracy and themultiple elites who have changed the names with time.By this the difference and the quality of his blood isidentified. Sorne families like the descendants of theNawab of Dhaka. who have a strictly endogamousmarriage system. or the Maoras. the industrialists whoare linked for generations with Pakistan. never speakBengali: by using Urdu. they thus bear the witnesses tothe presence of hierarchic scission and to their refusaIto be integrated into the Bengali mass. the latter beingalways underestimated.

Let us turn back to the factory in Karachi; the youngimmigrants were recruited there after sorne more orless sad and difficult canvassing. They were offeredseveral small but tiresome jobs with a humble salary. Theluckiest ones were the beneficieries of sorne distantrelatives who offered them sorne references. Thesedifficult journeys ended with their employment in theEuphard; employment in a prestigious and Westernenterprise is a conquest. a success; nevertheless. thishas not changed anything in terms of a constrainedrelationship perceived in an economic. political andethnic mode. Those who will describe themselves lateras the "colonized from the interior" occupy the lowestpositions which can be adjudged as the most degrading.Obeying the orders of their Pakistani superiors. they

A multinational in the national turmoil 29

consider themselves to be as confined in a generalizedsituation of inferiority as the factory has opened to themthe doors of hopes and. above all. of a different world.The food that cornes in the trolleys is one of the centralmoments of this stigmatization: fed with a simplechapati along with a little sauce. they feel humiliatedwhen they find that their colleagues move towards thecanteens where the quality of the dishes (rice and meat)goes up with the status. The emotion. that yet injuresthese men when they induIge in such recalling leaves nodoubt on the value of sentiments for exclusion andinjustice that agitated them at that time. The message isclear and unilateral: "They (the Pakistanis) don'tconsider us like human". There they have theexperience of a radical institutionalized inequality at themidst of which they find themselves liable to disgrace.The modernity of the factory is compared to the absenceof technological equipments in Dhaka. Abandoning the"south province" contrasts more and more with theaccelerated progress of the "north" of th!" country. Suchneighbors spread elsewhere a little everywhere and thediscontent resuIts slowly announcing a revoIt afterwords.Taking into consideration this dangerous conJuncture.the Pakistani responsibles thought that it was urgent tostart a developmental program for "East Bengal".

It is under this very particular political context thatthe decision to install a unit of Euphard in Dhaka wastaken. The factory came into being in 1968. Thishappening is acclaimed as the success of a war that hasnot yet been declared. The factory al10ws therepatriation of the willing Bengali workers whoenthusiastically participate in its construction: brickafter brick, the erection of the building lays stress onthe first steps of progress towards a collective dignitythat has been fiouted for a very long time. Establishmentof the factory is not attributed to the generosity of theAmericans or to the goodwill of the Pakistanis: it is. foraIl those exiled ones, the work of an individual whoseglorious achievement shows the start of a micro-historyin the midst of which the make-believes are theconstitutive elements of reality.


This man is one of the very exceptional Bengaliofficers of the Karachi establishment. His high position.his demeanor, are distinct in a weak body of the limitedreservoir of workers coming from the unhealthymarshes of the East. These qualities easily qualify himfor a Pakistani. This purely extemal ambiguity will not bewithout consequence on his trajectory that takes him upto the direction of the factory in Dhaka. the post that hestill holds.

Like his subordinate compatriots he also cornes backto Dhaka where he remains subordinate to thehierarchic Pakistani responsibles. Guided by an yetexisting irremissible logic of the 18th to 20th centuriesfor colonization of the under-developed countries. theWest Pakistanis have in facto applied this in the Dhakafactory at the level of high ranking officers andtechnicians by transferring a structure of relationshipand implacable discipline. Thus, everybody is in hisposition without significant change. Canteens and foodsremain catered to the hierarchic level. The Bengaliworkers always eat as bad as before. This element is nota "matter" in a land where regular starving is chosen as asocial strategy.

In 1971. the insurrection starts and engulf the wholecountry in a record time. The hostility is Herce from topto bottom of the social scale, but the modulatedresistance by the people in positions is held back. Onlysorne isolated fundamental Muslims fear in theirconscience a separation with Pakistan which, for themwill signify the abandonment of a less assured Islam tothe obscurantism of indigenous powers.

In the factory nothing is predetermined a priori forthe Bengali workers to join immediately the armedstruggle; apparenUy they are relatively privileged anddefend for them. in the expectative. their affirmedopinions; braving the dangers. they continue to come tothe factory although the surrounding area of the factoryis invaded by the Pakistani army. A clandestineassociation named "for the Revolution" was howeverformed earlier in the factory. Its secretary is this man(the future director general who has already been

A multinational in the national turmoil 31

mentioned) whom everybody thanks for havingsucceeded in "offering" the people of Dhaka theirfactory. Let us call him Jahan. Members of theassociation participate in demonstrations. The slogansare fierce towards the President of the country:"Brothers-in-Iaw, the Pakistanis (brother of my wife) becareful, you will go to the cemetery".

The notification for their collective dismissal upsetsthe Bengali workers: only this makes them officially jointhe "Mukti Bahini"- the "freedom fighters"; expelledfrom the factory, without money. replaced by thoseknown as the Biharis. they have no other alternative.

On the other hand, the Bengali officers recruitedlocally during 1968-69 were retained to be present intheir office during the period of war. Because ofinsecurity for the transports they were picked up by carsfrom their residences. This inevitably ambivalentobligation for a cooperation. though linked to theirstatus, will strongly blemish their position later in theinternaI relationships of the enterprise.

"The Karachi team", welded by prior expatriation,the return and the work. can not however, make uptheir mind to forget a factory so much hankered afterand in which they were profoundly involved. Jahan.always in service. is designated by the workers as theirsingle agent for liaison; among the workers. sorne goesback to their villages while others cross the Indianborder for military training and yet others becomecommanders of small guerilla groups. In spite of thisforced break up. a constant secret and dangerous Iink ismaintained with Jahan and the factory remains a pole ofattraction mobil1zing the devotion. Besides. theparticular appearance of Jahan, which makes him looklike a Pakistani because of his figure and knowledge ofUrdu, makes him vulnerable in this tumultuous periodto be killed by the Bengalis themselves. The workersassure his safety and save his life several times. Thesevicissitudes fortify a tainted relationship of anunforgettable humane value.

When the national issue becomes clear to themajority of the country, the factory area of the Euphard


remains one of the last few areas to be under the controlof the Pakistanis. Having consultation with Jahan. thesmall "Karachi" group prepares with its force to seizethe factory. The factory is liberated. the Bihari menialsare sent back. the Pakistani managers expelled. "underthe foot". says one of our interlocutors, who is stillimpressed by the improbable ouster of the perpetuaIdominations in which he has victoriously participated.AlI the goods of the enterprise were sealed. A number ofBengali workers were enrolled. The factory wasreopened and started producing again under theguidance of only six men. AlI of them were theex-immigrants to Karachi who have shouldered theoperations since the beginning.

These events, engraved indelibly in the memories,subject matters for epic and inexhaustible stories,teeming with details and anecdotes, constitute beyondtheir eventful and poliUcal dimensions. the foundingmoments of the history of the factory and particularly ofits future social organizaUon. Let us take note here. forexample, that the relationship developed between Jahanand the workers, on the base of a shared nationalistconviction, has the character of a hierarchictransgression: the relationship deploys a sort of socialrapport which is novel and unthinkable in a culturalconjuncture where ontologization of the distance ordersthe hierarchic status; it cornes doser to the participantsplaced far away socially; above aIl, it opens up. betweenthemselves, a communication otherwise prohibited.

An equally agitated era, but making appeal to otherinterests. opens up aCter the independence. ThePakistanis have left, the post of the director general ofthe factory is vacant and consequently, the competitionamong the aspirant Bengali officers is bitter. Jahan is thetarget of several complicities master minded by sorne ofhis colleagues and attempted to eliminate himphysically... In 1989, the old conspirators are stillworking in the factory, knowing - from the sayings ofJahan - that their identity and the past intentions arenot unknown. Once again. Jahan must salute the sagacityof the worker heros of the "Liberation" who foil the

A multinational in the national tunnoil 33

plots; at last. they oppose by force, the nomination tothe post of director of a Bengali Hindu who was amanager of the factory.

In this very chaoUc context, there like in aIlcountries where the resistant groups impose theirauthority, these men, in fact, possess the real power.Disposing many a group of powerful men and smallarmed groups formed during the war, they have thecapabilities to make their decrees accepted. Intrigues,traps, corruption, death threats, tricks triumph in thefactory,- this troubled phase - follows the advent ofindependent Bangladesh. In the terms of thisintermediary, the worker leaders, who have till now,chosen their chief, win this new party: Jahan isenthroned as the Director General of the factory.

A man, "commander" in the resistance, have played amajor role in this squabble. His stoutness is equallystrong as his morality; the intelligence fuses to thegeneral absence of scruple in this leader who is aspassionate as cruel when situations demand it. "Thetiger" - then young and undoubtedly have become an "oldtiger" , according to the expressions that Jahan uses notwithout a colored humor of tenderness in his placevoluntarily propagates terror. He left for Karachi to jointhe Pakistani army during the years 1964-1965. He wasvery quickly expelled from the army for revolttng againsthis superiors. He refused to be downgraded and as hewas humiliated for being a Bengali, he joined Euphard asa worker in 1966. He already made himself distinct byhis acknowledged dealings which were to be shownagain in the future: thus, he was challenged by the localtrade union of Karachi whereas he had, by sheerdefiance, decided to make the production increase toprove the capacity of the workers to the direction...Jahan says that he has never understood quite weIl as towhy he was the only officer towards whom "the tiger"behaved with respect. On the contrary, he has alwaysbeen convinced that "the tiger" could kill someonewithout hesitation who would deceive him as he couldcourageously kill himself to defend them whom he hastaken under his protection like that for Jahan. On his


part. "the tiger" - who wIll be for fifteen years thesecretary-general of the trade union of the factory atDhaka- and who still works. daims to feel in an inferiorposition in front of Jahan. The idea of "debt" whichJahan would owe to him is not reciprocal.

This personalized relation is instructed in thetonality of the rapport between the labor leaders andtheir new director. They have fought. under coyer of thewar of independence and within the framework of theirwork, to establish there the legitimate foundations of anindigenous authority in continuity with the overallpolitical situation. that is to say. Bengali Muslim. In thefactory. they have traced and insUtuted the ethnicizedhierarchic net-work at the center of which Jahan. drawnfrom superior cadre, actively assumes the idealizedfunctlon of a competent commanding and of the justifiedascendancy.

Little after the resumpUons of work. the six mostvaluable labor leaders are the first in the whole of thenewly established Bangladesh to receive nine months'arrear salaries corresponding to the war period. No bodyhas forgotten and each is pleased to underscore thatJahan singly and promptly decided about this matterwithout asking for any authorization or even informingthe New-York office. The factory, in fact. was given backundamaged to the director-general: even a singlemedicine was not missing. not a machine wasdeteriorated: on the contrary. everywhere, theestablishments were pounded and the resistantmovements became more and more oriented towardsbanditism, provoking fear in the countrysides and thecities. Making public the recognition of their devotionand irreproachable honesty, Jahan promoted "the six" toa post specially created for them and which isconnected with the responsible of the section whiletheir companions were also promoted to their grades.When, 2.ft~r a few months. JahHn ~rl(h·esses theembryonic trade union for the necessity to augment theproduction. the response of the latter was unequivocal:under the order of their leaders. the laborers workedday and night with enthusiasm and exaltation to surpass

A multinational in the national tunnoü 35

their fixed quotas.Uncontested, as it was initiated at the lower class

workers themselves. the hierarchic relation with thedirector is at the center of social field of work. This hasbeen possible for the quality of the director and thespecifie communication that he opens up. His organizingcharacter, however. must not shadow the sentimentsthat reside in the laborers on the following day ofindependence: they have evaluated their weight. theystrongly understand, influenced and united by the war;aCter having demolished the exploitation by thePakistanis. they are not ready to go back to an identicalform of rapport in which the Bengali officers will behavesimilar to the Pakistani officers. ReversaI of thedominations in the enterprise is already in the minds.On the other hand, desired from Karachi, constructed bytheir own hand at Dhaka, "liberated" by their care. themultinational company is undoubtedly "their factory" tothem; they continue to repeat it and are intimatelypersuaded to it. This imaginary appropriation of theenterprise, anchored in a mutation of national politicsfrom which it nourishes. will not be checked. Ananecdote weIl illustrates these sentiments: a factoryusurped aCter the war, put the name of Euphard on itsmedicines: the leaders of Euphard themselves castigatedthem for their concurrent dishonesty and took them tothe police.

This explosive situation determines itself thespecifie imperatives of administration: according to whatprinciple and how these are being translated in thereality of the factory? What are the effects of thisnationalism on the location of the enterprise. where, letus not forget that, the proprietors are foreigners?


CHAPTER II

The Established Joint Management

A perusal of the last collective convention7 that governsthe rights of the workers of Euphard in Dhaka cansurprise aIl Western citizen habituated to think that themultinationals easily exploit their workers in theunder-developed countries populated with submissive.uneducated masses subjected to manipulations by theemployers. This collective convention attaches a socialadministration completely remarkable in the localcontext. Through what processes this has beeninstituted?

The war ended. a certain confusion looms over thecountry where political passion seems to haveparticularly developed since a quite long time in aIl thestrata of the society. In 1989. this outsider observer was·astonished by the keen conscience and the extremeinterest that the individual showed in the face of thepublic affairs and changes of the governments: thethought on the nature of the society (samaj) is a habitwhich is weIl strung here in the minds of everybodyirrespective of his status. One can easily imagine theoutburst and amplitude of the deliberations few monthsafter the liberation from the Pakistani oppression.

In the factory. a real trade union is yet looked for inspite of the pieces that it had during 1968 to 1971 andthe labor leaders are mediating in their new situations.The news of nationalizing the Euphard. published in anewspaper. dumbfounded them. Their counter-thrustwas not delayed; this can a priori put off a rationality thatwill see a "natural" equivalence between nationalism andnationalization. Through the strategies of the "tiger". theinfluence of whom is increasing day by day. the"nationalization" will become a "wrong news" and rapidly

7. Cf. annexure of thls chapter (1985J

The mstituted joint management 37

gone to oblivion like many other projects. 'The Uger"goes to the editor, makes him admit that he receivedmoney in exchange of that announcement, forces him togive a rejoinder during the subsequent days. Accordingto al1, the Euphard factory must remain American. Itbecame apparent that, this was the only way to gethigher salaries.

For dtfferent reasons, these men also oppose therecruitment of women in the factory, a pracUce thatexisted in the establishment at Karachi. M1x1ng in thework is totally refused in the I1ght of argument which isconsidered as susceptible to create "problems". Thisopinion- which nobody challenges now, afftrming sornesort of a breakthrough there, authenticating their wishesto give educaUons to their daughters - needs to be moreexplicit. This opinion is coherent with the aspirations ofsocial dynamics that has been revealed by theindependence in a society where mixing of sexes issocial1y looked down; ft is then, above al1, arepresentation of the position held in the social classing,one of the indices of this being sexual distance.

Object actors, on which crystall1zes the construcUonof the status, the women come into the scene at otherlevels of symbolic detalls of the place held in thehierarchic scale. "The tiger" thus thought the necessityof an efficient trade union organization when he wasobliged to opt for a caesarian operation for his wife; thecost of the operation was about ten times that of hismonthly salary which he managed to obtain throughseveral borrowing; according to a specific logic which isshared by aIl, "the tiger" is thus in tether: "the workerscould be led to allow theu- wives to visit other men atnight for need of money..." The obsession of prostitutionor al1 that could assimllate there put face ta face theethics that aliments the social structures in which enlistthe individuals. The socio-sexual theories of moral valueshave a constitutive role in these structures, indissolublylinking sex and status. This, between others, for thefactory, signifies the design to mark the elevation ofone's status across the visibility of the external sign ofbenefit for the wives, a path through which the complete


coIlecUvity rises to a higher grade.From this point of view, the itinerary of the "tiger" is

not without ambiguity, corrupting his power, which willbe confirmed for a long time to come, but then declined,of less prestigious attributes so far the social values areconcerned. Married a Pakistani woman for the first Ume,he is said to have a second marnage during the war withthe sister of a Buddhist worker of the factory whom heescorted for their protection during their flight from theoccupation zone; this young woman, converted to Islam,actually lives with him. His first wife has ultimately lefthim and is remarried to a subordinate employee of aprovincial depot of the Euphard. Branded as thecharacteristic of the lower classes, the polygamy of theleader is litUe appreciated by his colleagues as if it hasthrown a reflecUon on their own dignities. Nevertheless,this man with highly paradoxical personality, takes onhis shoulder a series of daims, aIl of which, besidestheir material aspects, have a highly symbolic character.Preferred interlocutor of the director-general, a positionthat he arrogates himself and in which he finds hispersonal identity on a quasi- emotional manner, "thetiger" first of aIl decides to make himself documentedwith the labor rights outside Bangladesh; his perusal onthe United States, India and other countries led him todream of a singular microsystem that he wishes in acertain way to be simultaneously adapted for the localand superior situation in his own place and to otherplaces.

The most "revolutionary" and the most significativeof the measures attained by the trade union is, withoutany doubt, the establishment of a single canteen for aIlthe categories of personnel - from manager to menial - acanteen supplying similar food to everybody withoutconsidering the rank. Clean, big, no place is stricUyreserved, this canteen still remains central in theminds; it establishes like a myth always reminding therupture between the colonial past and the expectationscontained in the battle for independence: the massagethat it writes in the consciousness and in the day to dayreality is that of an institutionalized equality between aIl

The instituted joint management 39

the employees of the factory, a purely Ideal equality ofthe same belongingness to the humane condition. of thesimilar fundamental needs of which food is the first one.The actors are made equal around the foods. thehierarchic distances are abolished for a moment. Tillnow and almost twenty years after, the workers comeback to this conquest with an unequal eloquence and tryto convince the foreign interlocutor of its extraordinarycharacter. In a society where sharing of food is ahierarchic ritual, the noteworthy dimension of thiscommensality must, in effect. be considered.

The setting up of the canteen has. in addition,accompanied a series of reforms indicating a profoundrupture with the usual customs in all industrialestablishments of the sub-continent. First of aIl, the"contractor" had to be withdrawn. He is the worksforeman of the canteen who had an over-aU budget thathe used for his menials as weIl as for the purchases.Accused of embezzling the enterprise and the laborers,of making profit on the back of aIl, he was dismissedfoIlowing proceedings by the particular small tradeunion which was formed by the employees of thecanteen; these people became permanent salariedemployees of the canteen. Until then, they were externalto the enterprise like in majority of the cases. They wereintegrated in the cadre of the personnel departmenL Acanteen committee comprising representatives from aUcategories of employees was set up: the complaint bookthat this committee keeps at the disposaI of everybodyto note their wishes. helps it to remedy the complaintsand dissatisfactions including their opinions concerningthe menus. It indicates the extreme importance that isattached to the food and the representations thatsurround iL The chief of personnel still remembers theday when the withering diSsatisfaction engulfed thelaborers in front of their dishes who literally upturnedthe tables. Now. the food that is distributed is of a betterquality than what a middle class family can afford. Forsorne the food is too "rich" and for medical reasons theyget the price of the food reimbursed, they bring theirfood in tiffin careers or yet they go to their close-by


residences for the food. Tea is punctually served everyday with eggs, salted puff-pastry and fruits in themorning and with biscuits in the afternoon. Theenterprise estimates Us expenditures per person to beabout 40 Tk.(S F) per day; let us take note that this sumis higher than the average pay of a day's labor in the ruralareas, or yet in the construction sector in the cities. Alarge number of people in the country also work inexchange of food only. The Euphard then is quitedistinguished by the privileges that it offers.

A reading-cum-games room has been opened nearthe canteen for relaxation before the start of the work;this room, earlier reserved only for the officers, has alsobeen made collective after the independence. This hasbeen done in a general will of access to the symbolicequality.

The erection of a mosque in the park of the factoryby the demand of the trade union is likewise related tothe respectability which the laborers desire after theindependence. They used to pray in an open space inthe first Hoor (where the office rooms are present). Themosque, as it is now, looks lavish compared to others.particularly those erected in the very big establishmentsin Bangladesh. It is dazzling white SUITounded by smallgardens and a big prayer hall; at the prayer time. asection of the employees strictly following the Islamicregulations assemble there. They represent aIlcategories of employees. Nevertheless. their number isnot really very high. There are appreciable number ofpersons only during the Friday prayers in theneighborhood mosques. Perfectly maintained (in this theImam himself says that more expenditures will become"wastage"l. the mosque is clearly more of a socialintegration in which the religion, in its obvious forms, isa pertinent part than the symbol of a weIl acquireddevotion. On the other hand, from the very beginning.the members of the trade union had in their mind thatthe religious activities must continue: they have showntheir condemnation for aIl excesses in politics as weIl inadministration of the enterprise. Thus, an Imam wasexpelled soon after his employment for having


propagated the ideas of a fundamentalist party (Jamaat iIslamil. The present Imam, working for the last twelveyears. keeps himself out of the limits specified for him;he as weIl as the Muezzin are the employees of theenterprise; housed with his family within the premisesof the enterprise. he is at the disposaI of aIl for counsels,divine practices or for therapeutic jugglery, there asevery where, the Koran, sacred water or blows of air. Buthe appears to be quite conscious about the authorityunder which he is placed. In the urban or rural milieu.the Imam is bound to the power of the notablescrowding the mosque committees who recruit them andcan dismiss them; here he is a shaky employee whosetasks are principaIly fixed by the trade union to whichhe becomes subordinate even though there is a mosquecommittee which has the Director-General of the factoryas its president and the more pious of the employees,laborers. managers or officers as the members. TheImam of the Euphard. a Hafez (higher degree on theKoranic knowledge), is about forty years old with abeard. with eyes as brilliant as with make-up, with awhite turban and is the father of four children; hehappily declares to uphold a devotion and profoundattachment to the enterprise as to the collectivity of theemployees. From his part, it seems that he is quitesatisfied with his job and salary of 2000 Tk. (around 400F) which is higher than the salaries of many urbanImams. His praises are as much for the director of thefactory as for the laborers, and in a submissive judgmentto the dominanting ones, verily shared by a professionwhich is dependant on the local groups, he always praysfor one or the other thanking God for reserving such agood life for him. Reemphasizing the "egalitarist"message of Islam by his presence in such an opulentmosque, that is, the equality in front of God, he seems tobe perfectly adjusted to the social field of the factory inwhich he is placed.

Among the most emblematic of requests from thetrade union, that of a proper ofTice for its own, came outrapidly. The enterprise conceded to it offering instantlyto the representatives of the laborers only, a separate


building. the comfort and the pleasant architecture ofwhich is completely different [rom its local uses. Twooffice rooms equipped with air-conditioners and aconference room give the trade union a remarkableotTicial status in the enterprise. The "tiger" repeatedlymuses that he had been wanting a conference hallsimilar to that of the administration. This trade unionused to meet before in a place where sorne wouId comefor their prayer. A fierce altercation ensued one day withthe responsible of the factory. an ex-professor ofuniversity, because of the disturbances caused due tohigh voiees of the laborers in the nearby room. Thelaborers refused to stop their discussion and this led tothe demand for the necessity of a separate room. Jahan,the Director-General, took the decision for theconstruction of the building which was beyond theexpectations of the employees.

The office of the trade union is adjacent to a shop ofthe enterprise from where necessary commodities aresold to employees at a very low priee; because of thisshop. the men are not to go to the market after theirday's work; for fear of mixing of sexes, frequentingmarket by the womenfolk is regarded Indecentthroughout the country. This shop, very muchacknowledged, is one of the noteworthy advantages wonby the trade union aCter the independence and to whichthe administration has responded with awareness.

The canteen, the mosque, a local trade union and theshop, these are the achievements of a struggle. Nurturedby the battle of the leaders born out of liberation war,place for statutory perceptibility. they have also beenconnected with a series of measures for materialbenefits of the laborers. An enumeration of thosearrangements will be fastidious8 . But, it must beunderscored that in the one hand, these whollycorrespond to a very significant amelioration of the workconditions, and on the other, these have considerablyaugmented the income of the subordinate employees.Let me cite sorne of these exemplary clauses. Paid only

8. See the collective convention in the annexure of this chapter.


to the laborers and not to the officers, the over-timeconstitutes a quasi-regular extra salary; this isparticularly true in the case when the factory has to bekept open on holidays (Fridays and Saturdays) for theneed of production. On the other hand, the bonuses helpto make a noteworthy annual savings: at the highest rankof the hierarchy, a laborer can get, in 1989, 30,000Takas (around 6,000 F). Although the basic salaries ofthe employees are similar to those in other multinationalpharmaceutical companies, the actual salary of theEuphard however, is much higher because of thevoluntary adjustments by the local administration whomeets each year for this reason and offers a number ofsubsidies on transport, housing etc. These privilegesreinforce the dignity of the laborers. A very attractiveleave rule, introducing the enjoyment of a month'ssupplementary salary for them who will voluntarilyrenounce to take more than five days' leave per year, alife insurance, free medical service for the familymembers received either from the doctor of the factory(living in a closeby neighborhood and open to aIl afterhis work at the factory) or in a good clinic of the city,ascribe sorne privilege to the laborers of the Euphardcompared to their counterparts in other enterprises. Aprovision that makes the payment of salary obligatory tothe company in case of stoppage of production,irrespective of duration, is similar to the rights of thelaborers in vogue in the developed countries and isstrikingly contrary to the situation prevailing in othermultinational companies in Bangladesh. Thus, in thefactory of BATA, the only possibility of increased incomeis personal output; the basic salary being very low, alaborer is unable to support his family in case of physicalinability.

FinaIly. the trade union has got the preferentialrecruitment of the kins, a stipulation by which it hasmade itself sure about the employment of the laborers:this was achieved soon after the independence. Thisconcession from the administration has opened up forthe labor representatives the doors to management ofthe enterprise. Bearer of decisive consequences, no


doubt little evaluated at the beginning. theadministration has conferred to the laborers anenormous power: il needs to be pondered over thenature of this power. This power. relé.ting to themediation between the mass of laborers and theadministration. forces upon both the sides and is notseparable from the historic processes that have put it onthe hand of sorne specific persons: the leaders of 1971.ex-immigrants to Pakistan. identified as the "Karachiclan". Their empire has been built on the twenty years ofhistory of the factory. which also reveals itself to be anascensional micro-group, omnipowerful. spearhead ofthe labor collectivity as well as the entire enterprise.Propagator of extreme contradictions. we will comeback to it later. this group, by procuring itself thepossibility of controlling the employment, has by acurious mechanism. arrogated to decide upon thepromotions: in effect. there are repercussions within thegroup itself because of the tensions arising from Usdomination making the trade union a field for distinctinternaI conflicts. The "tiger", whose influence waspreeminent, thus was able to get rid of his opponentsand rivaIs in the trade union by asking Jahan, theDirector-General, to promote them to officers: which hehas been doing since 1972. The deputy manager of theproduction department was thus the first laborer to havebeen named an officer. a position he got because of hisattempt to becorne the head of the trade union after theliberation war. This strange solution to maintain peacesimultaneously in the trade union and in the factory wasrevived during the crisis moments in the followingyears. and succeeded in institutionalizing the passage ofthe laborers to officers. This is further to establish thehumane philosophy of administration of the Euphard.The possibility of this passage is radically exceptional inBangladesh where the education and the degrees.sanctifying the hierarchy of the classes. are conceived asa major obstacle to all promotions of this type. Twonational rules underlie the choice of such a strategyadopted by both the trade unionists as well as by theadministration : heritage of the Anglo-Saxon tradition. a

The mstituted joint management 45

sole trade union in an enterprise is known as theprofessional negotiating partner. On the other hand, theofficers do not have the right to form a trade union:becoming an officer thus makes him lose hismembership from the trade union.

By dint of the provision for preferential employrnentof the "kins", the trade union has thus established itspreponderance over the recruitment, internaIpromotions to the category of laborers as inadministration of the officers: by its central elements. ithas confirmed its place more and more in theadministration of the factory becoming the unavoidablepartner of the administration.

What are the conceptions that underlies this scene ofa distinct joint-administration with the labor tradeunion, which, quite emphatically calls itself the"parliament/regrouping of the employees"? The termused in Bangla for "regrouping", in fact also signifies thenational parliament (Sangshad); the term used to namethe categories of laborers (Kannachari) is a very vastacceptance that includes the high ranking officers also.This is the dignity of this situation.

There has been no strike since 1968 to causedisturbance to this joint management which is based onthe close link that exists between Jahan, theDirector-General and the "Karachi group" from 1971.The hierarchic communication between these twoactors establishes the pre-eminence of a symbolicexchange which is in itself antinomic of aIlrepresentations of a claim in the strict sense. The claimis subsUtuted by a logical bestowal/counter-bestowalpivoted on the values of reciprocality and mutualobligations: "he gives us what we want; we give him whathe wants". say both old as weIl as new trade unionmembers formed by their eIders with a view to thisprimordial exchange (binimoy) with the director. Thesyrnbolic exchange surpasses and undertakes two trendsof contradictory understandings: in the one hand. farfrom abolishing the hierarchic difference. this has beenlegitimized and substantialized by decontextualization;on the other hand, this situates the actors in imaginary


spaces of an absolute equality. which as we have seen. isinspiring all reforms of the enterprise after theindependence. Valldated to the eyes of the subordinatesby the existence of strike. this exchange will imply arationality and sorne shared rights based on a permanentunderstanding; this will only come into effect in a directand Immediate communication excluding aIl delegationto talk and excluding aIl levels. That is why. the tradeunion representatives were refusing for a longtime todepend on an intermediary from the administration:they emphaslze that a face to face. a physical proximity.is the only competent way to solve the problems: "healways cornes directly to us. we go directly to him. healways understands us". insists the bigwig of the tradeunion talking with grandiloquence of the humanequalities of Jahan. of his intimate knowledge about theindividuals and of the familles. of his attention. of hisbounty. of his profound anxiety for the well-being of aIland of the poor in particular. Prisoner of his own myth.the hierarchic authority of the Director-General pusheson an inversion of the behaviors of creating maximumdistance being present in the society: the subordinateactors are llterally besieged with emotion of having beenable to. other than their meeting in the factory. go atleast once to Jahan's place and explain to him theirproblems without any hindrance. As it is transgressive.the contact has a quasi-magical effectiveness. Forexample. during the catastrophic flood in 1988, thespontaneous gesture of Jahan who remained himself inthe factory and asked the chief of personnel to gohimself in a small boat to the residences of theemployees including the most deprived ones whose hutswere destroyed; wallowing in the shanty towns.assessing the needs of every one. he decided thepayment of emergency aids and an extra-ordinary bonus.The result is that the Euphard will be the factory inDhaka that will probably have minimum of stoppages ofproduction: two unavoidable days. after that theemployees reorganised among themselves for startingwork at the quickest possible time.

The idea of a domination. subtly thought on the part


of the director-general. could come in the minds of theWestern readers. Contrary to this Manicheaninterpretation. it rather needs to brood over the culturalfoundations which the behavior of Jahan upholds. In thelineage of a historically developed charitable andphilanthropic tradition of the upper class society in theIndian sub-continent, Jahan is the proof of a sincerehumanism derived from the joint sources of Bengalinationalism and Islamic equality. His participation invarious benevolent organizations, one of which isearmarked for giving religious education. the activities ofhis wife in a school for the disabled, or of his daughter inthe locality of underprivileged in London, bear witnessto his progressiveness and his personal involvement infavor of a reform of the society. This investment in the"social work" or yet the "development" , as it is called inBangladesh, is locally appreciated as an essential virtuethat strengthens the symbolic domination of thearistocracy for those who have made this moral choice. Avery refined psychologist. Jahan is also a convincedpartisan of dialogue and of fusion of emotions fromwhich he himself does not tend to withdraw. Thegenerous proposaIs to his employees - like that of givingbenefits to their children for particular education onfinances from the enterprise9 , "because my children arealso having it", he adds - his pleasure to find himself inthe midst of "his people" ( which he terms for a soughtafter relaxation when he feels himself depressed) are asmaterialistic as it allows to find in this person a deepintelligence, a loyal man whose practices are coherentwith those of a fraction of the native elites. characterizedby their "capital of ethics".

Thus, a certain consensus seems to be prevailingbetween Jahan and the trade union; the basis ofcommunication are shared; Jahan himself is convincedthat he is always capable to make the laborers listen tothe global explanations on the status of the enterprise.Considering the fact that sentiment and relationship win

9. This proposai, given about twelve years ago, was refused; thereason will become apparent in Chapter VII.


over material gains. he will easily involve himself intothe new school of administration that advances thedetermining characteristics of "human resources" never contradicted in reality because. for example. whenthe employees of aIl multinational pharmaceuticalcompanies of Dhaka were getting 35% pay rise. thelabor leaders of the Euphard. reasonable to themomentous dilTiculties of the enterprise for the last fewyears. themselves fixed the rise at 8% - Jahan adds. onecould say an "effective management" in which theinherent romanticism was renewed from both parties.

This specifie mode of communication. beyond thesympathetic fervor and otherwise productivist for himwho makes it. nevertheless. conveys itself thesegmentation potentia1tties of the employees. Far frombeing assimilated to what can be designated in thepractice of the theories of management as a process of"communitary identification" to the enterprise. contraryto the logic of inclusion and exclusion thatsimultaneously defines it must be noted. The symbolicexchange between the director and the trade unionistseliminates by Us own nature. the group of officers fromthe communication: being accused of wanting to detractthe exchange for their benefit. they are kept out of thescene. The dichotomy of the hierarchic structure. leadsthe exchange. in rea1tty. against the highly paidemployees (directors. managers. officers) for making thesupreme authority more essential. This is thepersonified incarnation of a positive and fittinghierarchy in which the depositary. Jahan. is more andmore a titular figure-head. At the same time. thishypostasis of an authority. which is native. reinforces thekeeping away of a mentally denied foreign authority.Whatever be the happenings that will tend to remind lO

them that the factory is not their property as they thinkit. but a property of far away foreigners. an object ofconstant denial. the American office of the Euphard ishowever. absent from the view of the laborers. Taken inan exclusive communicative sphere with the

10. See chapter IV

The instituted Joint management 49

Director-General, they are, thus encouraged there todevelop the fiction of the possession of an enterprise inthe administration of which they are already taking part.

The hierarchic communication which is in vogue inthe factory, thus pushes back two types of authority tothe periphery of the social field. which, to be distinct,are however. constitutive: in the one hand. that of theofTicers is minimized and neutralized. and on the other.that of the foreign share holders is overshadowed. Thisdouble negattons has jointly produced the internaIdominant authority of the sole Director-General as wel1as the determining scission in the collectivity of theemployees. By this structural elements. it is understoodfrom now on that the representation of the native andforeign powers is intimately linked to the position ofthe actors in these social rapport. One can no doubtguess already that the situation of the ofTicers is nothappy in such a context and in consequence they are ledto develop quite different conceptions.

Before entering into the other world at the interiorof the factory, that of the officers. it seems however,necessary to furnish sorne information on the globalpolitical configuration in which the trade union itselfmoves around and on which the readers have questions.


CHAPTER III

Trade Union and Politics

To unravel the political intricacies of a group is adelicate task in a country where the political Ideologiesare not based on a political field so much so is theconstitution. The follow up of groups like that of thetrade union in the Euphard, appeared in thisperspective to reveal the dependence of politicalaffiliations so far the social relationships are concemed.More than elsewhere, these political affiliations inBangladesh, are changing and are apparently risky forthe reasons of their profound dependence. both atmicro-local as weB as at national level on the powerconfigurations. Political instability dominates the nationsince Hs liberation where two presidents weresuccessively assassinated. The principal politicalweapons here are the violence, the crime and thepurchase of henchman recruited from the mostdeprived strata of the society. Loyalty to the memory ofthe head of governments serves as the other part ofpolitical thinkfng. The two main opposition parties arethus, now under the aegis of the descendant or wife ofrenowned personalities: the Awami League is led by thedaughter of the founder of the nation. Sheikh MujiburRahman (Bongo Bondhu. the friend of Bengal). killed in1975. The BNP, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, hasthe widow of Ziaur Rahman as Us chief. Ziaur Rahman isthe successor of Sheikh Mujib and was assassinated in1981. General H.M.Ershad. who holds the record ofpolitical longevity as he still roles in 1990. is perceivedby the people as an "ex-collaborator", a Razakar. a wordthe pronunciation of which is charged with repulsion: in1970-71. he was in fact. in West Pakistan and did notactively participate in the liberatioÎl war. The JatyoParty. of which he is the founder is now the governmentparty, having like the opposition parties. multiple formaI

Trade union and polïtics 51

posting-houses like the movement of the young and thewomen. national trade union organizations. facilities forhelp etc.

This brief table has been summarized. Theactualization in the field of a quite abstract political mapmust be evaluated. No body believes it because it has nopolitical conviction in the real sense. On the contrary. itdraws the contours of power shores always reshaped interms of the major or minor events that pass andcontribute to promote them.

The history can be narrated as follows. In thebeginning. the leaders of the Euphard. united by theliberation war. were aIl activists or party members of theAwami League. The area where the factory is situatedalong with the rest of the area was one of the fiefs of theAwami League. Its local potentate was a regional e1ectedmember from the Awami League before newadministrative rearrangements of the outskirts of thecapital. This man was a Dhakaia- a pejorativedenomination by which the oldest families of Dhaka arecharacterized. having remarkable specific accent. He isthe witness of the existence of extreme feudal despotswho. with brutish oppression. maintain over-exploitationof the innocent laborers. extortion. usury and armedgangs skilled in stealing. raping and if needed.spreading violence. One kin and a number ofdescendants having doubtful antecedents are shelteredin his house that overhangs almost an Island. whichreally turns into an Island during the annual floods.Uneducated. this family does not possess any industrialcapital; its source of income is its lands. In order tokeep in the family. a portion of the lands was officiallygiven to the mosque by a religious arrangement knownas Waqf ("dedicated to God"). This was made whensuccession laws limited the extension of landedproperties. A number of photos hang on the walls of hishouse ; showing in its archaic splendor and coarsenessof him who daims himself to be the "King of Zingur" 1 1.

The political iUnerary of this man is more than chaoUcIl. Zingur is the fictitious name of the area. This man will be

designated in the subsequent pages by this name.


and is inseparable from those of his relatives: of thesethe near crudeness will tend to indicate the richness. Tosummarize. let me say that all the political parties havesuccessively and/or simultaneously been funded throughone or other of his sons. brothers. uncles, cousins etc.Thus. one of his sons has recently been sent to themovements of young Jatyo Party, while the father issaying that he his under pressure to join the BNPalthough deep in his heart he is with the Awami League.

Because of the location of the factory and of thelocalities where they are residents. and as it is placed inthe area of influence of the "King of Zingur". all the laborleaders had relations with this king during the timewhen the Awami League could be a shield ofreconciliation; for sorne. these relations have notbecome distended as it were officially maintained withthe party of Bongo Bondhu. A lone old "freedomfighter"12 is still responsible for the regional branch ofthe Awami League and the trade union organization(Sromik League. laborers' league). He is also one of thedirectors of a local association of Mukti Bahini(Resistance force). Like the majority of the population ofthe country. the labor leaders also were very muchdisappointed by the political and economic changes ofthe country which are being more and more divertedfrom the aspirations that they had during their war forindependence; their disappointments in the face of thepolitical parties do however. signify neither a disinterestfor politics nor their incapacities to come back to theactive "politics" at any time: this recourse to the politicsis, in reality, a necessity for the trade union.

An example will help to understand the modes ofpolitical implications in the spheres of trade unions. if itis partially autonomous, which in no way can be seen asan isolated case or yet, according to the Western images.as a "syndicat maison", Le.. to the pay of the patronate. In1982, the govemment of Bangladesh promulgates a lawwhich. by cutting the number of accepted medicines andfixing their prices. considerably restricts the profits of

12. Amin, whom we will find in chapter VII

Trade union and politics 53

the multinational pharmaceutical companies. Knownunder the name of Drug Policy. this law is internationallycited as one of the most advanced for the so-caIled"under-developed countries". There is a substantialinOuence of an ex-freedom fighter for the initiation ofthis law. He is the director of an importantorganization 13 that has a pharmaceutical factory and in1989 it has started its first unit for locally producing theprimary materials for antibiotics. Let us mention herethat. till now all of these materials were being importedin Bangladesh as in most countries of Mrica. Themultinational companies also did the same. Claiminghimself as owner of a monopoly business. this man, Dr.ZafruIlah Chowdhury. has become a renowned politicalpersonality, very close to the President. He accompaniedthe President during the latter's official visit to France in1989. On the other hand, this fact very weIl illustratesthe new strategy of the head of the government who istrying to concentrate 11is power: gathering around himthe right as weIl as the left forces - even thefundamentalist parties to whom was ofTered the bonus ofdeclaring Islam as the State religion in 1988- he isweakening the opposition in a way and thus broke thefragile unity of a common platform of the opposition Hl

1989. These "seduction" practices towards theopposition and his progressive incorporation in thegovemment sphere transform itself into the politicalfields thereby increasing the tendencies of politicalswitch-overs of individuaIs as weIl as of the groups.

The Drug Policy had severe consequences on aIl themultinational pharmaceutical companies forcing them toretrench drasticaIly to compensate the losses of theirbenefits. These measures have made very tense therelations between the trade union and the management :simple visits to those multinational companies will allowto appreciate the sharp nature of hostility and anatmosphere of general mistrust. For example, the leaderof the trade union in one of those multinationals. who

13. Une entreprise de développement au Bangladesh: le centre deSavar lA developmental enterprise in Bangladesh: the Savarcenter), n.Hours, M.Selim, L'Harmattan, 1989.


wandered in the courtyard for information. was notgreeted by the responsible accompanying the externalobserver. and was immediately indicated to the latter asa dangerous swindler. In this type of situations. strikesare of course as severe and spontaneous as violent.

The Drug Policy affects the Eu phard like aU theother enterprises. The management think of retrenchments. One of the leaders. a hero of 1971, then thesecretary-general of the trade union. accepts theproposaI and negotiates these retrenchments inagreement with the clerks (employees of the office)highlighting the "laborers" in the organigramme of theEuphard. They are also members of the trade unionoffice. Part of the discussion remains secret. each tryingto protect his "kin". recruited in large numbers by aUunionist leaders since the provision for priority ofemploying the kins was introduced.

Until now. nothing serious happened to breach theunderstanding of the "Karachi clan": but the separationis instantaneous. He who betrays, whom we will caU hereMohammed. is immediately isolated and denounced. Hisex-companions promptly establish the strength of theirunion forgetting their habituaI discords and their rivalrylinked to their personal aspirations for getting hoid ofthe power of the trade union. Mohammed was then thepresident of the local trade union organization attachedto the Awami League. Arshad, a returnee from Karachiand a leader particularly respected for his personality 14,

himself is the leader of a federation of labor trade unionsthat coordinates aU political maneuvering. He fomentswith his organization a vigorous counter thrust: a secondtrade union is formed thus putting the Euphard into anenormous crisis. Mohammed, lone in front of themanagement. is in a delicate position as the decisionwas challenged in the court by the second trade union. Itneeds to be mentioned here that. the law pemlits onlyone trade union for each enterprise. The political linksof one or the other group were then bluntly and

14. M.Sellm, "Pouvoir et/ou statut. Une ascension maîtrisée",I3iographie et Société, no 13,1989.

Trade union and polilics 55

unscrupulously called to the rescue from the impasse.Involved with the Awami League for a long Ume,Mohammed sought help which he could not get there.looks to the Jatyo Party and, it seems, to the "King ofZingur" with whom he still maintains a closerelationship. The latter has diverse links of which JatyoParty is one. Arshad. on his part, got hold of thisopportunity and mobilized his political allies. An articlein the press denounced the renegade and summonedhim for openly choosing his field. Mohammed wasobliged to officially join the Jatyo Party and then he wasexpelled from the post as head of the trade unionfederaUon linked to the Awami League. One of the firstfew laborers recruited in 1968 in the Dhaka factory andwho participated in its "liberation" replaced Mohammed.This is how a strategie support was given to the secondtrade union. It is to be noted here that, these events didnot at all perturb Mohammed to declare now hisuninterrupted support for the Awami League.

The ruling from the court was in favor of the oldtrade union, that of Mohammed, that means to thecooperation with the administration and thus makingthe activities of the second trade union illega1. The latterhowever, refused to obey the court rule. Bearers of ahistorie legitimacy, they represent, though not totallyunanimous, a real force. Among the most young laborersexposed to this established power block, sorne have infact been convinced by Mohammed to give him theirsupport. It is true that this support was to be givenagainst a promise to recruit them as permanentemployees in lieu of retrenchments: a list of theseselected persons has already been prepared and theselatter are desperately fighting against the leaders of thesecond trade union portraying them as the"exploiters" 15. No solution is visible in the horizon andthe situation is growing so bitter that the interventionsby the politicians are becoming futile.

Convinced about his rights and to fight for the causeof general interest, the second trade union denounces

15. Chapter V.


the "domination of the young" and becomes ready to gofor a conflict. Experience of the liberation war of 1971makes the leaders uncompromising and fearless aboutany confrontations. They have their henchmen ready tofight it out in the field. From his part. Mohammed optsout of aIl possibilities of retreat or of negotiation.

Taking into consideration of the insurgency thatprecipitates in the factory and of armed violence. Jahan.the director-general. starts the imaginary communication in which he is preoccupied. In fact. he puts forwardthe only measure possible to restore the unity of theenterprise. a measure wh1ch he has already tried inparticular cases and which becomes. in these tragicCircumstances, a new extent: the unionist leaders. pastfreedom fighters. of the two enemy camps will bepromoted to officer cadre against their will. Thisimposed status obliges them to renounce their un10nistactivities and the harmony 1s thus restored. The idea togive up a power. the purpose of wh1ch is to have thesynonym. does not make the leaders happy; on the otherhand. they know that they will lose there. besides thefact that they will have an appreciable increase in theirsalaries because of the1r internaI ascend over thelaborers; moveover. they are going to reg1ster in a chainof hierarchic delegation to which they feel repugnance.In a word. they find themselves trapped in the edificethat they have constructed and which aimed at since1971 to neutralize and to lower the influence of theofficers. Only the symbolic exchange that relentlesslylinks them with Jahan will make them yield: He cried."we have promised to accept what he will say, he saidthat we must become officers". nostalgic. Arshad stillrecounts and explains how this promotion is in fact aretrogression against which he could rise as he had torespect the terms of exchange. The clash in the factoryfinally dies down; a lone trade union becomes alive withnew leaders and 38 recruitments were effected whereasin other multinationals the recruitment is eITected withmight and main.

50. Arshad. Mohammed and others are officers inthe production department from 1982. None of the

Trade union and polities 57

defenders of the second trade union has pardonedMohammed and the enmity towards the "renegade"remains alive although it has been perfectly camouflaged.Since then the relationships are eut. Only one of the oldleaders however, deviated from this formaI agreement:"the tiger", without minimizing his filial admiration forJahan, did not yield. He did that because of hisprofession of an indefectible militant laborer and his willfor not abandoning a trade union for which he himselfhas given so much. So, he is still now a laborer at thehighest level of hierarchy and almost "without categOIY"because he has been given a specifie and unique post. Heis in charge of a section where his total freedom isadmitted by his bosses: often absent. he has maintainedsorne of his privileges as a head and no manager dares toask him anything; he always provokes fear. The "oldtiger" thought of conserving his power in this way but hehas lost most of his credibiliUes during the subsequentyears 16. He now asks himself about his refusaI for thestatus of officer. Humiliated to be under the orders andunder the mercy of assessment of those whom heordered as a formidable master. he is looked down withdoubts and asks himself if, after six years, he would goask the Director-General a promotion which he fiercelyand singularly gave away. Shattered, diabetic. much morebulky than before, having lost his slimness of the yesteryears. constantly masticating betel leaves which he spitsout without any hesitation around him, the "old tiger"still gazes on the photos that hang on the walls of thefactory canteen and of his house: on these photos, Jahanand he are found face to face with almost identical suitsand ties. ft is a congruity whose symbolic characterholds back the look that shows the collective conventionin front of a subjugated mass of workers. Brilliant. ironiebut sad and somewhat heartening. the "old tiger" knowsthat he no more has any future; his brief entries in theBNP and in the Jatyo Party did not help him open up anew career. During the elections of the trade union, hislectures are listened because of his passionate eloquence

16. Chapter V.


and its attractive forces drwaing very easily theaudiences. However, these are not followed.

By 1989. the trade union of the Euphard isassociated with the pharrnaceutical branch of theNational Trade Union Federation where it has tworepresentatives. This has raised its importance to theother factories that have only one representative. A Httlebefore a big labor congregation at Dhaka, the federationjoined the Jatyo Party. This joining with the progovernment party is seen in the Euphard as an excellenttechnic that will help to make many demands fulfill. Thecloseness of a minister who is an advisor of thecommittee, is thought to be promising. These demandshave precise material aspects (for example. a raise ofsalary to a minimum of 3,000 Tk.(600 F)) and othermore elaborate ones that help in pointing to thecontradictory dynamics that work in the representationof the position of the actors in the society. So, one of thebig questions is the inequality that exists between thenationalized factories and the multinational companies.As such. the directors of the trade union of the Euphardthink that the employees of the multinational companiesare subjected to an unjust discrimination compared tothe employees in the public sector; they would like toenjoy the same privileges as those of the latter: taxespaid by the enterprise, availability of the basiccommodities at a fixed priee, better housing allocationsetc.

The controversy on the Drug Policy surfaces inunheard expressions at this stage: the over-all positiveeffects of the Drug Policy on the country are notquestioned by the trade union of the Euphard and theprogressive slogan "Health for aIl in the year 2000"(conference of Alma Ata in 1978) is used. The profits ofthe multinationals for years together from the syrupsand the vitamins- now banned-, denationalization of theenterprises by the government and the encouragementfor investment by the multinationals as weIl as theabsence of production of the primary materials formedicines in Bangladesh are denounced. At the sametime. the unionists of the Euphard, inspired by the

Trade union and poUties 59

nationalist logic, confirm their Bangladeshi citizenshipand their contribution, even if they were the laborers ofa multinational company, the edification of the economyof the nation, and that is also in the same way as thenationalized sector. They reject to be placed in twoantagonist camps. Moreover, they ponder, quiterationally, on the limited nature of the Drug Policy in theworld: why this should not be extended to the developedcountries? Is it because that its purpose to restrict themultinationals become unduly rich which they dounanimously so far the "third world" is concerned?Being possessed by the Euphard in their imagination, atthe verge of identifying themselves with "their" factory,they demand for a rightful competition of themultinational enterprise with the public sectorenterprise, a competition in which they are sure ofcoming out successful: the production that they manage,control and take care in the Euphard, will be, to them,the first in terms of quality: they will be the bestworkers and the best servants of the nation.

These debates take back to the complexity of theview points and the stakes rooted in the social andpolitical reality. A breach with the discussion appearshere which, in the West, gets through an extremeschematism by omitting- particularly in their legitimateaccusations on the financial powers of themultinationals- to think on the ideas and the practices oftheir native employees. Let us start a quotation. A fewyears ago, when a long and diiTicult strike was called inthe Gonoshasthya Kendro 17, a developmentalorganization that fights against the multinationals. it wasunilaterally ascribed to sorne external agents and for theinternational community, it was said that the strike wasdue to pressures from multinationals and their tradeunions. Inside the organization, the responsibles. on thecontrary, thought about internaI tensions on the socialrapport of work and on the hierarchic relations, atension that explained the emergence of such a strike.The example of the Euphard likewise shows that it

17. Une entreprise de development au Bangladesh: le centre deSavar, S.Hours, M.Selim, L'Harmattan, 1989.


would be erroneous to deduce singly. from the service ina multinational. the systematic alienation of theperspectives of the individual actors and of the unionistgroups. to whom. there like any other places. thepossibilUy of margin between thought and maneuveringmust be given. This has come out to be essenlial.

To close lhese indications on the vague confusionsthat entangle the political configuration and in whichthe trade union of the Euphard moves around. we willleave the reader think on the leaflet that was distributedby the pharmaceutical branch of the Jatyo Party backedfederation in 1989. The trade unions of the laborers ofFisons. ICI. Squibb. Glaxo. Beximco. Organon etc. areadhered to the same federatton:

"Revolutionary workers. your quality of life is inrelation with the quality of work. The lower classworkers have a big responsibility in the economicdevelopment and in the production. To increaseproduction their essential needs must be satisfied(education. health. housing. food). Economic demandsare neeessary for the working class. Workers areexpulsed and the administration of the faetories treatthe workers badly. They are oppressed by the capitalistswho make profit by depriving the workers. So. theworking class mus t read against their exploitation andtheir oppression. Many in Bangladesh do not know this.The working class must speak to the public. They makeeverything by their work and toil whieh is taken away bythe capitalists. The economic oppression of the workersfor such a long time must be understood. The capitalistshave created a system to exploit the working class... Thepeople are ignorant: they think that their salaryincreases while it does not. and the increase in salarydoes not follow the increase in production... Socialmovements {Anodolon} have been divided and split. Butthere is still hope. And for that you must go ahead andrise yourselves unitedly. The Phannaceutical Federationcan lead the social movements of the working class.expose their exploitation and oppression. advance theirrights and demands. We want to get on what we haveright. For that we need a united movement".

Trade union and pollties 61

The very connoted terminology of this pamphlettends to acutely apprehend the ensemble of theapparently antagonistic but undissociating heterogenouselements which are constitutive of the history of thetrade union of the Euphard. In 1972, this trade unionfought for the multinational status of the factory althoughthis was one of the pioneers of the fight for theindependence. In 1982, it succeeds in avoiding the waveof retrenchment which was made in other companies. In1989, under the coyer of the government party. itexpects a recognition equal to the public sector by partlyaccrediting a pharmaceutical policy that affects theprofits of the enterprise where it itself is situated.

Reflection and actors of a particularly fluctuating andshaky national poliUcal field, the trade union of theEuphard shows the determining and amphibiologicalcharacter of the organic connection that brings togetherthe microsocial groups to macropolitical structures: thislatter will not be conceived as the far awayreinforcement: on the contrary. these are presented asthe fundamental conditions for production destinedindividually and collectively. This carry in their stridesfor the supposed institutions as rigid as a multinationalwhich they have remodelled in their own way.


CHAPTER IV

The üfficers and the Quest for an Authority

"[ had problems at the beginning in entering theEuphard; the chief of personnel presented me to the"tiger" as a new employee. and not as an oificer. This wasdone not to surprise "the tiger". "The tiger" then said.: ifwe are not satisfied with him. he will be dismissedwithin seven days. He refused to shake hands with me.he took away his hand when [ extended mine. [addressed him as Shahib18 with much respect.

There was also an incident with the actualsecretary-general of the trade union. One day. a friendcame to visit me at the factory; the secretary-generalthen started Lelling me at the top of his votee that [ didnot know the rules. He complained to the director of thefactory. He used abusive words. But. the director did notsay anything.

[n the production side. the laborers do not acceptthe newly recruited oificers. they treat the latter verybadly. Even the manager of my department can donothing as because the director of the factory will notsay anything..."

Fazlul was recruited in 1980 in the productiondepartment and then transferred to the quality controllaboratory where he is sUll working. His complaintsperfectly refiect the spirits of the officers of theEuphard and terms of their relationships with thelaborers. Before this. Fazlul was an employee of one ofthe most important indigenous pharmaceuticalcompanies. The factory of this company. quite decrepit.existed from before the independence. This factory issituated at the center of Dhaka in the premier industrtal18. Sahib. custornary fonnulatlon to show respect and Is equivalent to

"Sir". Apnl Is the rnost respected forrn of addresslng a secondpersan (In Bangla there are three dlfferent forrns of address forthe second person. Apni, Thmi and Th!; the last one Is also usedfor Insultlng sorne one.)

The questfor an authority 63

zone of the city and is owned by a rich family having anumber of hotels and other businesses. This familyadvocates a usual hierarchic model associating anunabated coercion in obstinate defiance of the lowerclasses. Moreover. for the latter a forced sterilization isdesired. Habituated with a working condition in whichthe laborers with their dirty and tattered clothes workand are not given any importance and literally are barredfrom talking to their superiors. Fazlul. like aIl hiscolleagues. was profoundly shocked by his reception atthe Euphard.

Deprived of aIl sorts of Interpretation in the face ofan unusual social arrangement. he had to adjust himselfwith the situation by force aIl the time ruminating anincreasing dissatisfaction. Aged about 35 years. Fazlul is akind. open-hearted man with an ever-smiling face: hehas a Masters degree from the University of Dhaka: likehis colleagues in the factory. he cornes of an educatedfamily in which the boys and the girls alike have theireducation up to Masters level. One of his sisters has aPhD and his wife is a physician and is the daughter of aChainnan of a department of the UIÙversity of Dhaka. thelatter being a doctorate from the London School ofEconomics and is a consultant for various national andmultinational organizations. Thus. Fazlul belongs to thefraction of the higher middle class which is modernistand holds sorne general ideas of progress: this classhowever. has to stop exactly at the place where the dayto day hierarchic relationships start: these relationshipsare conceived as authentic and justified. these wouldrefer back to an order fixed for the capacity of each one.From the house to the factory. the inferiors. addressedwith disrespectful (thou) pronouns. the servants. therickshaw pullers. or the three-wheeler drivers. thepeons. or the laborers. are subjected to a physical andsymbolic separation. For Fazlul. this is a "nonnal" and"natural" social scenario the implication of which isproperly unimaginable. Fazlul left his previous companyin search of a more lucrative position in a multinationalwhich is thought to be a promotion. His recruitment inthe Euphard was far from his longings: more precisely.


like aB other officers having the same itinerary like him.he is ready to quit the enterprise as soon as it is possible.For such people. the Euphard is in fact, a contrast to aBpromises for an ascension: th1s is an organized dismissal.day to day humiliation and is unbearable.

Founded on the principle of an Ideal equality since1971. the system in vogue at the factory is notacceptable to these individuaIs who are habituated with arule of social distance in which they find the basis ofedification of their status. Obliged to share the rest roomand the canteen, having the same food. aH these distinctreforms made by the enterprise after liberation givethem a sense of imposed and systematic humiliationwhich they take as destroying their social dignities thatthey think they are endowed with. The impropriety ofthe laborers that has given them the "freedom" of talkingdirectly with the officers evading the hierarchicdecorum of addressing superiors is an unpardonableinsult. The discussions in this domain will give a longlist: mixing of the social classes is appalling. detesting. itis sickening till nausea. till it takes away the appetite.The revulsions neither faint nor format it molests theofficers deeply. to the roots of their position in thesociety. Being offended. they have devised manystratagems to avoid defilement caused due to contactwith the laborers. Thus. Fazlul eats very late along withthe officers of his department by rescheduling his timetable to meet there the minimum possible number oflaborers. After receiving the puffed smokes of cigarettefrom a laborer. the manager of the laboratory hasstopped going to the games room. AlI these displays ofresistance aimed at recreating a social distance of whichobliteration means an overaB loss of the identity. Thesystem of promotion enacted at the Euphard for thelaborers up to the officers 1s of course. in this context.subjected to condemnations and accusations by theofficers with higher degrees: more than any thing else.the poss1bility of th1s passage between the twocategories 1s taken as the bone of contention. Thus. theofficers of the Euphard become ashamed to be anemployee of a factory. where the ontogenic separation

The quest for an authority 65

between the two hierarchic categories has beenobliterated. when they discuss about their work withtheir colleagues from other enterprises: they arousecommiseration and pitY in the minds of their colleaguesas if the Euphard was a blister of prediction caused bythe confusion that prevails there.

The educated officers refuse to recognize thelaborers turned officers as their equal. the latter being asmany as the former: the formers try to keep the latter ina subordinate status. maintain a distance with them andshow that they are generically inferior to them. The bestexample is the quality control laboratory where there isonly one officer from the laborer category. This man.otherwise reselVed. is considered by aIl his colleagues asa subordinate. He is excluded from the meetings of thelaboratory. from technical discussions. from delicateoperations and also from taking meals together. and"high" conversations which he will not "understand";this has made him a condemned person per excellencearound whom a "community of educated officers" of thedepartment has fictitiously been built with its culturalprestige. This is how the educated officers have made adetour to a semi-caste representation of theirappurtenance to the class. They will be "born officers"compared to the laborers "born laborers". the latter arededicated to Incompetence. to unmannerliness. toilliteracy and to incapability to leam.... In the face of asocial microstructure that has shuffied the ritual cards ofhierarchic distribution. the birth and the bloodconnection become the only arguments for revoit: theeducation. which is highly regarded. has no acquiredvalue. only the tiUe transmitted through heritage counts."A king behaves like a king. a subject like a subject:when the subject becomes the king. he apes the king.but he ts always a subJect: when a bird goes too high upin the sky. he always looks down". the manager of thelaboratory explains this. inspired and with graveseriousness.

In real dissidence compared to the enterprise. theeducated officers. on the other hand. because of their socalled metaphysical sufTe ring. have reasons to be less


satisfied with their condition. The various materialbenefits that the laborers enjoy ( particularly. over-Umeand bonus). and from which the officers are deprived of.make the officers , salary quite insufflcient: a seniorlaborer earns much more than a newly recruitededucated officer or an officer having a few years ofexperience. So. the privileges for the laborers arevehemently resented and the educated officers thinkthat there lies one of the primary sources of theirmisfortune. How can the subordinates be commandedwhen the sum total of their eamings is higher than theirhierarchic superiors? How can the status of the officersbe maintained and made to be respected under a generalcondition of degradaUon. and more over. when there isno trade union to defend the rights of a categoricalgroup unjustly oppressed and where the administrationseems to have completely given in to pay their wholeattention to a mass of laborers who are unmanageable.irascible. sensitive and weIl equipped with their trumpsof starting a strike at any instant?

On the other hand, it is true that the laborers are notobeying their officers since 1971 either individually orcollectively. The ex-trade union leaders happilyacknowledge that, since the end of the war. they arehaving in their mind an inversion of dominations inwork: "During the Pakistani regime, the oificers werehaving aU the benefits, later we have wan[ed to givethose benefits to the laborers. we were strong and wehave succeeded", daims Arshad with pride. So. thelaborers are little inclined. even after twenty years ofthis noble fact, to observe the respect that· the educatedofficers demand of them. The officers have been besetsince their childhood with respect, politeness and theveneration from their faithful servants. A craving forvengence is always kindled in the minds of the laborerswho do p.ot hesitate to intensify the small harassmentswhenever they find sorne opportunity and the officersimmediately creates big scenes out of it. Such situtaionshappen for days in a row. The drivers "scrupulously"maintain their time table. they will leave only after a fewminutes of waiUng for the offlcer whom he cornes to


pick up at his residence: or yet, they will allege that theroad is not good and on that ground they will park atabout hundered meters off from the residence of theofficer. This they do intentionally so that the officer walkthat distance and soils his clothes and cornes to thefactory with dirty clothes. The boys will remind theofficers with strong voice that serving tea at his office atone o'clock is not allowed and serving him tea will be abreach of discipline on their part. The productionlaborers strive to make the officers defaulters even intheir own working places: in fact. formed by a more andmore administrative and legal trade unionism, thelaborers show a formidable procedurial as weIl astechnical mastery, or even judicial, than formaIcaharacteristics , and nothing is enough to bother aneducated officer to find a laborer blaming him forforgetting to put his signature in such and such places,or that he has overlooked an important verification.

On the other hand. the shadow of a war looms overthe officer. A war in which, this group, because of theconstraints of their status, have in general, participatedactively in relatively little numbers. Without citing theextreme cases - like the earlier director personnel. whohas gone into retirement in 1989 and was thought to bea Pakistani informant during those days and inconsequence he became the target of fierce andpugnacious hatred of the trade unionist laborers- theambiguity of the past situations. irrespective of theintimate nationalist individual convictions. can weighheavily on the officers, even after fifteen years. Thelaboratory manager illustrates weIl the embarrassmentsthat are created from the ever lasting suspicions. Duringa conversation for several hours, the theme of which hechooses, and no question was asked on it, he is accusedof courting with the Razakars (collaborator of thePakistani army) who were stationed in the factory in hispresence during the war. These accusations led him toremind the laborers of the purchases of Mukti Bahinicertificates in their part and this cast doubt on theresistance war itself. In consequence. he emphasizes onthe quality of his relationship with the Pakistani officers


who would have respected him as a Boro Bhai (eIderbrotherJ, as if the previous masters of this country werealways good. Such discussions with manycircumvolutions. show the existence of a process - bothinternaI and external - the nature of which is in theconjuncture of the social relationships of the enterpriseto reinforce the antagonism between the officers and thelaborers. The latter have erected a monument at theentrance of the factory to commemorate their "deathsfor the Nation". (the reader can refer to the liberation ofFrance in 1945 for a better understanding of thesituation.)

One can not be surprised to find that the history ofthe factory be the object of an exactly antinomiereconstruction of those of the laborers and this is fromthe part of the educated offtcers: the pictures areopposing as it concerns the outlook of the authority asare the interpretations of the actual situations. 1t is astake. that was in the past and that will remain in thefuture.

The frustration and agony of the educated officers inthe face of their present positions is to be read throughthe perception of an unstoppable collective decline. Theperiod of Pakistani domination is melancholically andregrettably mentioned: the discipline. the cleanliness.the privilege of exquisite food reserved only for theofficers and the service by the humble boys withimpeccable uniforms are the signs of a precisehierarchic identity distinguishing the outsiders(Pakistanisl and the natives (Bengalis). Theindependence is the coming of a complete rupture ofthese structures. The new native authority (the BengaliDirector-General) brings with him a process ofequaltzation. The officers. a distinct category earlier.have a sentiment of disppearence under this process.Ethnie unification of the enterprise and Usconsequence- ascension of the lower categories to betterworktng conditions and standard of living- stops aIlbenefits of the educated officers that were given withincreasing dereliction. Parallely. outside the factory. theclass to which these officers belong. is stupefied and


finds a new social stratum is rapidly enriching itselfsince the war and surpassing the former class by anostentatious perpetration. Brutal1y delegitimized in theenterprise as wel1 as in the society, where the degreeshave no more etemal values in front of the ever growingpower of the "newly rich", the officers recount theirtorments and their acrimony.

On the other hand. one must lmow that the war inBangladesh was a bitter test for the educated familieswhich has often tom them apart. A number of theatricalpieces yet show as a preferred subject of the incapabilityof the parents in the facet of one of their sons, getshimself engaged in the armed struggle at a very tenderage and the differentiation after the war is also shown;the experience of violence and of banditry has often ledthese young men, incapable of being reintegrated in thesociety, to become delinquents or gangster chiefs19 .

Forced to hide their pariah, these respectable familleshave sometimes sent them to foreign countries to avoidthe shame and the pain of an otherwise unimaginableinternaI deviation. The educated officers of the Euphardhave more or less faced this familial perturbations, if notdirectly in the family. but they have had similardistressing experiences.

AlI these elements explain that the officers do nottake any local authority which they identify as the causeof their statutory degradation in the factory. TheDirector-General, personally respected but littleappreciated for his functions. is blamed for the absenceof his "grip", his indulgence. his softness and above aIlfor his bizarre thinking about the laborers. Hisadministration is highly criticized; it is inefficientbecause it would systematically refuse to take note oftheir complaints and punish the laborers who are alwayscertain of their rights. The "management" seems to havebeen abandoned since 1971 leaving the power to theinferiors and their omnipotent trade union. The factorythus will not have any head. the actual command; theotTicers. being desperate, do not even take the pain to

19. see chapter VII


refer this to their director. They are almost sure that thelatter will not rehabilitate them even for a moment intheir previous grandeur.

The ultimate expectation of the officers toreestablish the order in the factory - thought to beprofoundly anomalous and anarchic- is placed to aforeigner who came to the post of the Director-General.A Westerner wouId allow the return to a situation of theyester-years in which the Pakistani colonists assuredtheir Bengali officers a valued existence because thiswould keep them detached from the subordinatemasses. This myth of a foreign authority who will betheir savior. becomes the consensus of the educatedofficers who see there the only possibility to recovertheir past legitimacy. Their envious comparison with theother multinationals at Dhaka. where most often anuncompromising expatriate keeping distance from aIl.predominates. makes them become more sore to beemployed in an unusual factory. It is better in fact. tohave an unknown and arrogant master who would keepaway the officers from the common people than theconfusion of ranks and status that has been started bythe arrivaI of a countryman who is too clement, tolerant.liberal and charitable. The Western foreigner isfearsome; he will know to judge and decide withoutunnecessary delay; he would be capable to bully thelaborers and would keep them in their nOffilal humility;in other words. he will be able to defend the dethronedofficers- the latter imagine this all together and askthemselves when Jahan. already quite old. is finallygoing to leave and give up his place to a "real chief'.

The profound dependence of the educated officers toan external power - antithesis of the imaginary autonomyof the enterprise put into effect by the laborersnevertheless. presents sorne versatile and equivocalaspects. The system of greetings can also be destroyedby definition of this autonomy. A very embarrassingevent for the Euphard will help understand better thecontradictions that disturb the different categories, ofthe employees. In this month of January. 1989. anannouncement is published in an English daily. then

The questjor an authority 71

published later in aIl the dailies of the city: the Euphardis accepttng that one of its medicines does notcorrespond to the labeled composition; there has been amistake and for the public health, the enterpriserequests aIl the citizens to kindly retum the remainingboxes of that medicine and they will be reimbursed.There was no damage reported for the use of themedicine, the blunder being minor, but the medicinedoes not have the required effectiveness. This ls the firsttime that the Euphard at Dhaka had to admit such anegligence, susceptible to affect the American companyin its totality. This incident soon became a nationalPolitical issue; the polemic in the daily news paperscontinued for several months where the associations ofknown political personages would respond day after day.Dr. Zafrullah Chowdhury was behind one of theseassociations villfying the regular negligence of themultinationals who look after their profits only withoutcaring about the inhabitants of the third world countrleswho are dying every day for lack of appropriatetreatments. In the one hand. this situation is good forthe revelation of the Drug Policy put lnto effect afterseries of meetings of government committees whichwere always extensive till they succeeded in making askeletal list of the permitted essential mediclnes. on theother hand, it gave an exaltation for a naUonalist revivalthrough opening of a unit for the production of primarymaterials of antibiotics indicating the beginning of anemancipation from the monopoly of the multinationals.On Us part, the Euphard begged excuses profusely,asked for pardon and denounced the destruction of aIllocal pharmaceutical industries through the voice of abenevolent organization. The country is accustomed tosuch political confrontations to which aIl partlcipatewith joy, look for, in the momlng news paper, the latestdevelopments on the affalr. Several governmentalinspections of the factory were made in succession. Atthat Ume, the New York office sent new consignmentsand regulations approved ln the thick report over whichleans one of the managers being conscious that trying taapply these to the laborers would simply be to take a


risk of an uncontrollable strike. In the quality controllaboratory the steps of the tragedy are apprehensivelyreconstituted: a mistake in the labelling of the primarymaterial sent by a group of Western multinational wasthe origin of the "error"; but this mistake wasimmediately communicated to the Euphard. which it didnot spontaneously recognized. as it would havehappened during systematic analysis for quality control.There are sorne ambiguities in the subsequent phases.otherwise the medicines would not have beendistributed all over the country. No body conceals thehypothesis. of course. it can not be verified. that anofficer in the laboratory with help from his personalrelation. have passed the infonuation to the "enemy" andthat is solely to fuifill his personal ambition; bydiscrediting the manager of the laboratory. he couldeasily replace him. In fact, this manager was forced totender his resignatîon after twenty years of loyal service.But this ofTicer was not promoted.

Since then the factory presents itself as a microcosmof accusations in which the specifie logic of eachcategory of the participants opens up clearly. Theanxiety of the educated officers of the laboratory is at itspeak; they know that the products coming from theWest are not to be tested. in an impetus of blindconfidence which. according to the tenus even of themanager of the laboratory. would prove their "alienation"and their inferiority of being from the "third world";they think that a multinational from the "north" does notknow to make mistakes while the primary materialscoming from Singapore. Peking. Korea or Portugal werea priori considered to need testing. These officers arebrought to place themselves between two powers thattakes the image of evil forces: the external authority andthe Government of Bangladesh. The external authority isenvisaged as they have demonstrated themselves before.it is apprehended under its negative side: a Westernmultinational is accused of habituaI misuse of the trustthat is put on it; the American office can very weIlchoose to close the factory in Dhaka thus leaving itsofficers, with a number of young men having foreign


Ph.Os. unemployed and in hard competition in the localjob market. But the state is equaIly doubted: theministerial committees can in fact, force to retrench theofficers of the laboratory demote them to the ranks ofchemists or analysts. or. in the worst. they can alsoimpose the closure of the production of the Euphard. InaIl cases. the future is as dark as the sharp imaginarydependence of the actors: they will be the toys of theextemal and native authorities who. in their timely andphantasmic conjunction will sign the law for theirsubsequent deaths.

In the laborers' world. on the other hand. anatmosphere of serenity and even a sort of jubilationpredominates. The leaders are quite sensitive to the taskthat is coming. for the first time. retain the reputation.that is their own reputation: but. in aIl calmness. becausethey are not responsible for the tests. they do notapprehend any disastrous consequence: a leaderexpresses with much placidity the sentiments of aIl thelaborers: "The Arnericans can have nothing against us. itis our first rnistake. they rnight give us sorne counsels.and that is all"! In these circumstances like in aIl othercases. the foreign authority is far away. outside the socialfield. as if only the Bangladeshis are in stake in thefactory. Evidently. the trade union cornes over theincident to brand the officers of the laboratory: they willbe the weak link of the enterprise while they mustconstitute. by their greater knowledge. the most noblefraction of the employees. Their well-knownincompetence. low quality of their degrees. their obviousfoolishness in their credulity towards foreign productswill explain that they can over look such a simple andstupid mistake. No one says that any officer caninterpret the results of analyses: to explain this graphswere shawn ta the author. The dismissal of the managerof the laboratory is evaluated as just and a slimpunishment and it is expected that he will be replacedby a doctorate. a qualification that will imply a littlemore rigor. An absolute solidarity seems to link thetrade union with the indigenous controIling force: bybecoming draconian. the political and ministerial


instances certainly cause damage and trouble for theEuphard. but their intransigence also allows tosymbolically heighten the position of the countryentirely in the planetary hierarchic scale. Although wemay be the poorest nation of the world, think thelaborers deep down inside, we can not behave as wewant with the health of our citizen. The trade unionistleaders use this internaI crisis to make theDirector-General listen that sorne superior officers arerendering their services with increasing calaesness.

They desire that an old chief of personnel, who hasalready left the Euphard in two occasions to join anothermultinational. cornes back and takes charge of theactual director personnel who is shamed and run down.Their wishes will be executed few months later. Thecontract with the director personnel, who has alreadygot the benefit of two years extension. will not berenewed after the oITicial date of his retirement. J ahan.after having approved a pay rise from the New Yorkoffice for the director personnel. will make him comeback to the factory whom he considers the adopted sonand who says that he is ready to reintegrate the "familytie", even with a lower salary than what he is getting inhis present job. Son of a rural mystic- big land lord whohas given up the earthly affairs for devoting himself toAllah- this man, about fortY years of age, soft and brightlooking and whose profile and big almond eyes remindsthat of a miniature Persian, has never ceased to maintainextremely warm relations with the laborers of theEuphard, they nakedly admit it and adore him (a leaderhas recently named his youngest son after him as if itmeant a happy omen). His curious career that has madehim oscillate between two multinationals, is. by his ownwords, from the very beginning within the hands ofJahan who is tender at times and very firm at others. Hehas always followed his counsels with fidelity. Jahan hasmade him accept a job twice in another multinationalwhere he was offered an important financial andprofessional promotion. Medical representative of theEuphard at Karachi in 1966, he will become the directorpersonnel of the Dhaka factory by the end of 1989.


The decision of Jahan once again appears to be thatof a subtle psychologist having a rernarkable knowledgeabout the men whom he guides. The error in thepharmaceutical composition that has, at the nationallevel, publicly censured the Euphard, and the rigidity ofthe government on the point that the Drug Policy bereinforced each year, opens the most difficult period forthe rnultinationals. To maintain a positive financialaccount acceptable to the head office at New York, theenterprise will be obliged to take sorne inconvenient andtricky measures in the future. Such measures aresupposed to be taken in consultation with the tradeunion without fail. In case of a defiance, it will push thefactory to a failure by declaring strike. The "adopted son"of Jahan is no doubt the key man for this consultation;the proposaIs of the latter offer to observe a managementmodel of semi-mystic musties: fanatic about theconsultation and dialogue, about "communion" and aboutsharing, about the equality of mankind, he foreseesahead of everything to let himself to listen to thelaborers and to discuss with them - as if he was followinghere the last precepts of Crozier...Let us lend our ears tothe proposaIs of this unknown and debonair man,moved by an extrerne idealism, he speaks melodiouslyabout the factory as a visionary: "1 will ask their advise,we will make a plan together to make some profits, wewill try not to dismiss, we will ask for voluntaryresignation, because, if aH of us are of the same family,how can we accept to separate ourselves from some ofus. The first thing that we will do, is to economize onthe food in the canteen, and also on electricity and payrises (...) There are some thing that does not hurt peopleand that will help make economy... In the pasl, 1 wasalways in the canteen to discuss with the laborers(...} toask them "how to resolve our problems" and 1 always hadgood reactions. In the factory, 1 have good friendships Arshad, Mohammed and .. (he cites the names of otherold labor leaders) they always came to visit me at myresidence and 1 also go to their residences. Euphard ismy base and each Ume 1 come back to work there, 1have accepted a reducUon in my income. Jahan has


asked me, l could not refuse him. l love the Euphard toomuch. l love the atmosphere that is in the factory ... Weform a single group with a common objective. l do notwant separation with the laborers. We are aH employees,we forget about the dilferences in status, aH of us hereare equal. and l have much leamed from Jahan. he hasalways resolved everything by listening to every body..."

The reader might think that Jahan has very stronglyprepared his successor. This idea can come to the mindof the officers who will then not be nearby to see theend of their cross...Waiting to welcome their newdirector personnel. disciple and inheritor of an unusualnationalist utopia that hides behind the walls of amultinational, the trade union leaders. themselvesopenly rejoice for an everlasting historie and symboliccontinuity.

The two categories of personnel in the factory do notseem to have definitely reconciled. This alarmingscission however does not bother Jahan, who judges hisofTicers as not enough qualified to take sorne chances inthe local job market.

In this context. one can think of the unity of a laborgroup regulated by its honored advisor. There is nothinghere. Let us now enter the world of the laborers todiscover there the nature of the internai conflicts thatagitate them without respite for the last twenty years.

The questfor an authority 77

CHAPTER V

Kinship, Work, Factions in the World of theLaborers

"We have twenty families in the country who are therichest in Bangladesh; it is similar in the factory, thereare 7 families who are the riches t, they want to oppressand dominate over others: they are "the tiger", Arshad.Mohammed (he cites the names of 7 leaders of 1971);they always want to inerease their own benefits, theythink of them only, they do not think about the lowergrades."

This is how Rafiuddin, the youngest member of thetrade union committee, expresses with ardor; his fiercetirades against the "old' show without deviation, theantagonistic relations that play between the laborers.These relations constitute an extremely complex socialscene. It is necessary to retrace its origin.

The article for preferential recruitment of the"kinships" of the permanent staffs has brought to thefactory, since the end of the war. men having friendshipor kinship links with the permanent employees. Theyare the second cousins. younger brothers, paternal ormaternaI relatives, but for sorne. the eIder brothers too.The permanent employees were, in their villages. intheir families. in their neighborhoods. the objects ofmany solicitations from every body assiduously lookingfor a job, which is rare in the country. ln the context of alarge number of candidates, the prospect of thepermanent employees for recruiting the laborers haveplaced the former in a position of real power for thelatter who. at the factory. consequently remaindependent on them. This dependence is as indelible asthe need of seniority has for promotion, but it is totallyin the hands of the trade union leaders. A big number ofthese leaders have been for many years of the same agegroup as the "recruiting parents". Employed first as the


dally laborers. apprentices or temporary workers. thesemen think only of becoming a permanent staff once theyenter the factory: they once again find here thepreponderance influence of the same leaders who willfavor the selection of one or the other of their"dependents". Thus. the labor population of the Euphard(around 200 persons) form a very specific microcosm.Three factors characterize this social field:

- the first. of major importance. is its duration andits coherence: the history of the factory not only has acentral political dimension carrying it to the summit oflabor hierarchy and the eventual transcendency of theindividuals who emerge as the ringleaders during thenational events (1971-1982); it is also the place of a verypersonalized history. The men met when they wereyoung. they have witnessed each others marriages. tothe various arrangements to which they sometimes haveparticipated. they have helped each other during thebirth of their chlldren and durtng the latter's education.they have seen themselves becoming older and. underthe keen watch of thetr peers. they can solidly measurethe consequences of their decisions. small or big. andeval uate the difference of their itineraries. theirsuccesses and their fallures;

- secondly. this labor world is itself a berth ofextremely dense kinship where the relationships areinter-twined. embracing and originating mostly fromtwo regions of the country (Noakhali/Feni and Comilla).A regionalîst culture of antagonism and cohesion. oftenalleged by sorne participants themselves, but also deniedby the others, nevertheless appears to be erroneousconsidertng the dynamics of the social relations thatrather answers to the dialectic conJunction of theelements under study. However. this regional doubleorigin has a notable double bearing: it reinforces theindividual understandings and re-understandings. Theirreciprocal views accumulate which mould the partiallyautonomous hierarchial lineages.

- finally. the factory is a matriX of hierarchicdetermination per excellence having its logic ofstratification linked formally to the organization of work

Kinship. work, jactions 79

but sending back deeply. as we have seen. to the socialascension for political movement.

Two principal hierarchic axes are then thefoundation of the social structure of the labor group: inthe one hand. the kinship has its proper codifiactionand hierarchic order to pay. depicting the cultural andideological values of the society. which remains engravedin the minds like noble. religious and spiritual ideaswithout being ridiculed; on the other hand. the workdistributes the performers very precisely in thehierarchic grades that extends from l to xn20 and whichdetermine their incomes.

The widely accepted view in the West that thekinship will nurture a greater unity of the labor class inthe third world countries is proved to be true. but here.singularly false. The coexistence of two hierarchicprinciples stemmed out of kinship and of work is. in theEuphard factory. explosive: it is not only creating intensecontradictions in the minds of every body of these socialdomains. it is moreover introducing veritable aberrationin the whole social structure of the group and of theenterprise.

In the first instance. let us consider the results ofthis conjunction on the relations of internaI kinship ofthe laborers in the factory. In most of the cases. theserelations follow recurring steps. The "dependent". stillworking as temporary. lives in the house of his"kinsman". the permanent employee who recruited him- and to whom the salary is disbursed. Althoughconsidered "normal". this cohabitation and theestablished unequal exchange are little appreciated bythe individuals: they have feH like an unpleasantsubordination in the one hand. and like a heavy burdenon the other hand; as soon as they cano that means. assoon as the "dependents" are integrated as permanentemployees in the enterprise. the actors voluntarily getout of the cohabitation. On both sides. bitternessaccompanies this separation: either the "dependent"think of being "shown the door" or the "old recruiter"

20. See collective convention. chapter II.


regret a calculated departure as a public confrontation.after so many years of fraternal helps. Themisunderstandings are often attributed to the women, asif the culpability of the men in the face of an unavoidableseparation was very strong to be taken on their ownshoulders: the differential observance of Purdah. thebehavior or the disputes between the wives for themeals. the children or others, are then invoked to putblame on the women. This first separation of themembers of family in the urban milieu opens up anautonomization of the nucleus cells21 • the ex-dependenteventually bringing his wife from the village or decidingto get himself married. This first separation is. on theother hand. often followed by a second that touches thevillage properties: the process of inheritance isaccelerated and materially. the individuals. after thesemeasures. find themselves concretely overcome thekinship link.

The kinship rapport are nevertheless inscribed inthe hierarchic organigram of the enterprise and theemancipation of the participants can not be complete inthis perspective. They must always think about thestructural inequality of their status in the enterprise.This they realize through the type of residence theyhave. the dresses. the food. the possibility of schoolingfor their children. appointing or not a house tutor etc.The last is a widely practiced affair in Bangladesh. verycostly. and the parents accept a real sacrifice in thismatter. This they do considering the primordialimportance that must be given to the education of theirchildren irrespective of their social position. This alsoindicates the expectations shared for social upliftment

21. According to the National Statistics, there are about 20% "jointfamilies" in Bangladesh, this is strikingly different from thesituation in India. The studies made on kinship in Bangladesh onthe other hand, shows the feeble capacities for social andeconomic unification which should be the reason for a joint farnily.The lineages are becoming lesser and lesser for the place ofspecific cohesion. Cf. H.K.Arefeen, "A changtng agrartan structurein Bangladesh - Shimulia - A study of perturban village", Center forSocial Studies. Dhaka, 1986.

Kinship. work. jactions 81

of the descendants. Because of the composition processin the ensemble of the laborers, this structural inequalityis also an inequality between the members of the samegroups of kinship. This phenomenon appears to beessential: the sharp and uncompromising differentiationof the "kinship" who confront daily to the rules ofsubjugation in the work, and are placed under theorders of one or the other, appears properlyinsupportable and unacceptable. In the life outside thework, this very big hierarchic and statutory differenceshave its effect on the enrollment in the social classes:they are as intolerable as the actors have conscience thatthe situation in the enterprise has changed and that itsactual decline and difficulties make it improbable thatthey can achieve the same extraordinary rise as that ofthe "old" ones. This perception of an obstruction tosocial rise is recent, it acts as a substitute for the ideathat the itinerary of the "old" was a sort of advancingpromise to which aIl could legitimately aspire. Theabsence of labor recruitment since 1982 brings about ageneralized mIe for promotion and also for succession. Ifthe carrier of the "seniors" is not automaticallyreproducible then these "seniors" present themselves asthe lords whose propinquity, flow of the relations ofkinship and/or alliance. exchange the sense even oftheir examples: to be positive. it becomes really negativeand grows ruddy with the signification of dominationand of injustice. These sentiments nurture a rebellion ofthe inferiors against their leaders. a rebellion thattransforms into two directions intrinsically enchained inthe reality and which will be distinguished here only forclarity of the presentation: the tenor of the kinshiprapport and that what is called in the factory. the"politicians", that is, power of the trade union.

Globally. the kinship at the factory is the object of aneffort for keeping away and neutralization: the confusionof hierarchy of work and the hierarchy of kinship annoyand embarrass the individuals irrespective of thecrossing of these two modes of hierarchies. Theirconcordance and their dualism under the care of thepriority orders of the kinship are as shameful as their


antithesis. The "kIns' ln superlor posItion ln the jobarrange among themselves never to employ theiryoungers llke the brothers, brothers-In-Iaw, nephewsetc. under them; this Is a common agreement;displacements of the section are asked and are generallyobtained. It means not to mix the two spheres,work/kinshIp, to the poInt that the Individuals avoldeach other in the factory, during lunch time and ln therest room as weIl. This Is an effort to produce a show ofthe absence of privileged links that will Influence thekinships. The case of the youngers having recrultedtheir eIders also exists. Consequently, the latter areplaced in an Inferior status. In fact, the eIder brotherhad to assume the responsibility of his brothers andmostly for their education at the death of their parentsor following economic losses. They thus fInd themselves,after years of self-sacrifIce, ln a material situation whichis much inferior than their younger brothers and thatcould make them ask help from the latter. In thefactory, the hierarchy of kinship is thus found to becontradictory by the hlerarchy of job and the brothersface an uneasiness which Is as profound as thisInvalidation is known to aIl.

Mustafizur and Jalal are ln such testIng situation. Theformer says not to have ever asked anything to the latter,his younger brother, who wl11 have himself understoodhis distress and would have him employed ln theEuphard. Mustafizur immedlately enunciates thesuperior rank (upore) of his younger brother and thedIssensIon of others: Jalal Is chotto bhai (youngerbrother) but osiad (master in Urdu); he complainsagainst the "ugly jokes" by his colleagues on theirbrotherly relationships: he Is visibly suffering from thisand keeps himself as away as possible from his youngerbrother. On his part, .Jalal refuses to be considered asosiad of his eIder brother and, on the contrary, affinnstheir equallty of position in the job which "the peoplewill not understand". He admits to be so disturbed bythis contradictory and uneasy rapport that he pennanently keeps his dIstance vis-a-vis his eIder brotherMustafizur; he feels that there Is a dangerous blow to the

Kinship, work, factions 83

respect in the "mockery of the people" a respect whichhe wants to show to his barra bhai (big brother). The twobrothers. quite imbued with the religious morals thatembrace the kinship, in fact are fighting to maintain asymbolic hierarchy undermined by the job. This ethicalbattle is upsetting them and Jalal concludes a longdiscussion by: "Only the universe hereajter and Gad arereal", as if this incantation had the power to dissolve aquite empirical hierarchy in which one another can nofrecognize each other. In their affirmation for thesupremacy of the kinship. Mustafizur and Jalal areatypical in the Euphard. But this is not Indifferent thatMustafizur, on his part, is creating a very close relationwith Karim, who is exactly in the same situation as him.

Karim is the eldest of five brothers two of whom arein the village and three are in the factory. One of hisyounger brothers, Morsheed. has the highest grade of alaborer (section chieO while another younger brotherhas quite an honorable grade of shift in-charge. Karim isonly a qualified laborer because of his late entry in theEuphard during the year 1971 by request fromMorsheed. Karim and Mustafizur can certainly sharetheir problems of having the eIders made inferior in thejob and thus are subjected to a singularly humiliatingcondition. The attitude of their younger brothers arehowever, clearly different. and Morsheed's family isquite representative of the familial relations existing inthe factory. Morsheed, moved by an Irrepressible desirefor power, aged about fortY. is a ruthless and aggressiveman having a tough face and is easily vulgar. He wasrecruited in 1966 at the Karachi factory as a temporarylaborer and was made permanent in 1968. Like aIl menof his generation, his power as a former leader is shownby a number of his "dependents" being employed: aboutseven persons including his two eIder brothers, Karimand Rahman. Like his partner, Morsheed too has a notedstatus22 • a big and beautiful mansion in a neighborhoodclose to the factory where he has a number ofpharmacies and grocery shops, lands purchased in the

22. Cf. Chapter VII


village during the last twenty years where he hasconstructed an expensive abode. The path that he hastraversed is immense if sorne one listens to his eIderbrother, Karim, who reminds how many families were"poor" - he uses the word garib that vehicles a verystrong stigmatization - at the death of their father whenthey were at the point of starvation, they did not get anysupport from their only maternaI uncle. Karim took careof his brothers with self-sacrifice: two of them havesurpassed him now. He arranged for their marnage too.He is their subordinate in the factory. The veryvindictive and provocative nature of the discussion ofMorsheed brings into light the internaI fractures in thefields of kinship where such hierarchic modifications onthe foundation of kinship/Job conjuncture is running: "1recruited six or seven persons, aU relations havedeteriorated, the persons whom 1 recruited are themost jealous of my success because, 1 have a mansion, abusiness (...) they are very jealous, and the most jealousis my brother Rahman. We have separated everything inDhaka and in the vUlage. 1 supervised him and he is noieven capable, he is jealous because 1 earn more2 3 • 1constructed a house in the village for 100 000 Tk. (20000 F), so my brothers are jealous. 1 rent out the rest ofmy lands because they are not capable of cultïvating aU,and l do not aUow them to disobey me as they must obeyme. Mohammed24 has also recruited many like me andaU his brothers are jealous of him, this is because of thefact that he has two mansions. And aH whom herecruited are against him during the elections becauseihey are jealous. He has lost power because his brotherswere against him. Like "the tiger", he has also beenabandoned by aU the people whom he has recruited. It isvery sad - aU who have recruited us, who have helped us,we betray them- . We are now accused for winning theelections".25

23. His net salary, that Is, w1th the various benefits (bonus etc.) Is 13000 Tk (2,600 F).

24. Cf. Chapter Ill. Mohammed advocated for the retrenchments ln1988.

25. Election for the office of the trade union.

Kinship, work, factions 85

In a few and very crude words. Morsheed points outthe social effects of excessive statutory inequality whichis rife in the kinship in the factory. The relationsbetween these two brothers have been Iipped and they.as we will see later. are active in a faction of trade unionopposed to that of Morsheed. The conflicts are alsospread elsewhere. as in other cases. on the landedproperties in the village: Morsheed says that he alonepossesses the land: he will leave a part of his farrning tohis brothers: Karim and Rahman afTirms that each of thethree brothers employed in the Euphard has purchasedthe land on equity basis which will be registered inthree names. The equivocation has arisen due to asystematic ambiguity in the pIimary cohabitation of thekins "recruiters" and "dependents". The salaries ofKarim and of Rahman. until they resided together. werein the hands of Morsheed. He used that money not onlyto meet the needs of his sisters-in-Iaw in the village, butalso to increase his own capital. He presents thisoperation as a collective enrichment of the family. Onceseparated. Rahman and KaIim sincerely think that theycan claim the portion of the land corresponding to theirsalarial investment, while Morsheed more or lessconsciously thinks that the possession of the whole landpays for his previous service. It is interesting to mentionhere in this context that before the divisions of hiskinship group and the increasing hostility of his eIderbrothers who challenge an everlasting dependence thathe wanted. Morsheed has established a fictitiousrelations of kinship with a young laborer recruited byMohammed. This young man. a symbolic nephew. sees amaternaI uncle (marna) in Morsheed and imaginarilyrehabilitate the latter in a dominance. which. since itsinception was made worse by hierarchic antinomies.Morsheed is junior but his status in the factory issuperior to those of his brothers. his substitutive kinshipis one of the solution that the actors can look for tocompensate the public antagonism which corrodes theirrapport of socio-biological kinship.

Let us proceed with the rationale of another lineagefor a better understanding of the mechanisms of


reconstruction that are the roots of rupture of kinship.These mechanisms are born out of the concomitance ofthe two hierarchies, job/kinship. Mohammed, formerleader of the "Karachi clan" is the eldest son of a bigfamily, his mother died young and his father remamed.He has recruited, among others, two of his youngerbrothers, his wife's brother. a member from the villageof his wife, an inhabitant from his own village. He is theowner of two mansions in the same locality whereMorsheed has his own, businesses. many lands in thevillage where he has also constructed another house. Hisdaughter is a university student. she has solely learnedEnglish and is conversant in it. she dresses luxuriouslyand in big occassions. attires herself as a "Pakistaru" withsumptuous "Salawar Kamiz" which gives her a majesticlook to her natural beauty and this allows her to competeeasily with the young girls of dominating educated class.Mohammed. now an officer in the productiondepartment, is definitely one of the most splendidexamples of social upliftment to which the laborers ofthe Eûphard can r~ach. The priee of this suceess isnevertheless. like that of Morsheed. severedrelationships with his brothers and his "dependents".who left him one after another. The fights for the landedproperties have become central and are ravaging thefamily relations. To consolidate their opposition. themembers of Mohammed's kinship have becorne his"political enemies" for the last several years. Theexception is the brother of his wife who has also becomeambitious and now he is one of the office bearers of thetrade union. This man maintains an alliance with hisbrother-in-Iaw Mohammed with the intention of takingadvantage of sorne of the latter's influential frtends. Oneof the younger brothers of Mohammed. Wahid. in thefaee of breaking relationships of the siblings. hasreconsututed a relationship of symbolic kinship. Theequalizing terminology of address of this relationshipmust be noted because of the fact that it deviates fromthe socio-biological hierarchic laws of kinship. The "newbrother" of Wahid is the nephew of an old leader ofKarachi whom he recruited and is now an officer like

Kinship, work, jactions 87

Mohammed. Let us calI him Alam. Wahid and Alam arethus two Junior laborers. coming from "kins" of the laborcategory and promoted to officers. Alam lets Wahid livein his house since the latter has left the house of hiseIder brother Mohammed. Intimacy of the two men istotal and Alam has integrated Wahid in his family in sucha way that. his wife who wears Burqua26 when she goesout and strictly folIows the Purdah. cornes in front ofWahid without hesitation. Wahid and Alam calI eachother Bhai (brother)- in fact this vocabulary is notreciprocal and is used only by the younger brother toaddress the eIder one. The two men have thus inventeda fictitious equal fraternity. This does not exist incultural prescription of kinship. More over. it shows thefauU in their own group of kinship undermined by thestatutory inequality in the factory; they are unitedbecause of their situations as youngers in the face of theeIders with whom the hierarchic differences havebecome so tense that even the internaI communicationof kinship have been interrupted.

There are multiples of such examples. The secondbrother of Mohammed is consciously developing thesame type of relation as Wahid and Alam. with anyounger brother of a former leader who has beenretrenched from the Euphard several years ago forcharges of theft and selIing of medicines.

The world of laborers of the enterprise show thatthere are a number of mean families of which severalmembers are employed in the factory. They resist theprocess of crumbling and fragmentation of the spheresof kinship under aegis of their association with thehierarchies issued from the job organization. In general.the dissensions predominate and are embittering therelations little by little. This ultimately is propelIing theactors towards individual itinerary negating aIl familysolidarity.

The imbrication of kinship/job. in consequence has aprimordial domination of the salary status on the

26. Dress covering the body [rom head to [eet completely hiding theperson that wears it.


positions linked to the kinship that it is weakening.Wanted and produced by the trade union leaders in theyears following the war of 1971 across the article on thepriority of recruitment of family members. the kinshipin the factory is. twenty years after. perceived as ahindrance and a real shell to the measure where it isdraining the quarrels and the disturbances that arebeing refiected on every body and are blemishing theimage that they think to have about themselves. This isapparent even to the eyes of the men. The very negativerepresentations that overwhelm the kinship at thefactory are apparent from aIl the narrations. As such. thekinship will be a mistake. a defiance, an inadequacy. in amultinational which is literally adored and one wouldsincerely like to fol1ow its regulations thought to beWestern and framed by persons free from aIlattachments and totally subjected to a sleek andunobtainable modernity made of joyous and lightlymonades. Insistence of the actors to pretend keepingthemselves aloof from aIl appellation of kinship in thejob cadre. as if it meant an infraction and animperfection. shows that the sentiments are to beimmersed in a regrettable deviation in regard to themodels to which they aspire and wish to attach. The lackof kinship as a consequence of its Integration in theprofessional universe is. in facto doubly stigmatizing: inthe one hand. the individuaIs are mistakenly sensitive (0

the shared ethics to which their behaviors do no morecorrespond; on the other hand. they live being madeinferior in a perspective of native hierarchy in the faceof a valued external authority which would be apI totheoretically separate kinship and job. Crux of internaIaccusations through the omnipresent themes of"favoritism" for the kins. of "patronization" and thestakes of the trade unions, the kinship will also be aplace of accusation for the entire factory to a foreignerand a judge. That is why. the attitudes and the practicesof the actors appear to be univocally oriented towards aseparation of kinship to reaffirm the hierarchic order injobs. It relates to disengage Us coupling with work, todrive it back to the exterior of the factory. to confine it

Kinship. work, factions 89

afresh in the right place which has been undulyexploited. without foreseeing the disastrous backlashthat might ensue from it. Involved in a nationalistimpetus after 1971. the two hierarchic fields (kinshipand job) actuaUy caU for, even to the eyes of the laborersthemselves, to be separate, dislocated under pain tomake the factory properly workable. We are going toexamine this across the role of the factions issued fromthese scission in vogue in the kinship groups.

The "political life" at the factory seems to be anastonishing vigor. Annual elections for the office of thetrade union arouse passions. noticeable in the frenziedactivities that extend throughout the year. In 1989, four"developmental associations" were there at the interiorof the factory. This is in continuity with a phenomenonvery common in Bangladesh where about 1200 suchassociations are actually, officially registered. Theseassociations have a very precise form at the exterior asweU as in the factory: monthly subscription for themembers, bank deposits and quite diverse projects,locaUy caUed. of "development". of "cooperation" or of"public utility" (purchasing a bus. a land. a building.helping the "poor", education etc.). These are most oftensupposed to bring, in the future. supplementary earningsto the participants and increase their sphere of socialinfluence. Like in elsewhere, these associations are thesites of political animation, if sorne one listens to thislast term in its original sense: the interest for the city,that is for the "society". is apprehended at the levelwhere one is placed. The employees of the Euphard donot evade this mode of infatuation with their ownmicro-society, which is the factory. The four associationspresent which assemble the officers and the laborers,are, with the exception of one, the "covers" for a veryfiuctuating and conjunctu raI politics according to thestakes of the moment.

The associations do not dissimula te the factionswhom they serve and the factions are also not static. Infact, a very strict and durable personal obedience is notthere on this quite turbulent scene and the individualautonomy are shown across infinitely thought and


elaborate strategies. These can very rapidly change infunction with the newly formed alliances: a man can be amember of several rival associations and there is littlevocation for henchman.. No really original "program" isadvanced by any of those factions. The debates bring outsorne strong points. but no body cares. For example. in1989, there was a Herce discussion on the eventuality ofa two year tenure for the trade union. The leaders andthose who were trying to be in the trade union in thefuture agitated: the office bearers elected the yearbefore, were evidently for a tenure of two years because.they wanted to stay in power for a longer time. Thosewho wanted to replace them were rationally against thisprolongation of the tenure as they wanted to dislodgetheir adversaries. "The tiger" took advantage of thissituation to expIain with strong deductions to the younglaborers the reason for his limiting the tenure of theoffice of the trade union Lo one year in the constitutionof the trade union.

Curiously enough. on the contrary. keeping asidethese inflamed proposaIs on the superficial matters thatdo not obscure the individual ambitions. a certainconsensus predominates conceming the representationsof the "real" problems and of the essential reforms of theenterprise. Thus. no body seems to literally question thenecessity of introducing the elevation of "the merit". Thetrade union office is now promoting this after twentyyears of absolute egalitarianism. lt is easily recognizedthat sorne work less and others more. that the years ofhuge social protection for the laborers have encouragedlethargy. that it must then reinject the stimulationmotivation in the world of the laborers. This is essentialfor the benefit of aIl as weIl as for the enterprise. This ismisconstrued as a custom. ln fact, the directors of aIlboards sometimes smile and say having taken so muchadvantages in twenty years that they do no more knowwhat they could demand. Nevertheless. let us cite twowishes of the trade union office in 1989; for the last fewyears. in case of a death, the enterprise pays to thefamily of a laborer one day's salary of aIl the employees ofthe enterprise, the Director-General and the lowest


rank of laborers inclusive. which cornes to around60.000 Tk. (12.000 F). The trade union demands thatthis salary day be counted to the over-time rate. whichwould almost double the sum: they would also like that .during the course to retirement, a day's salary of aIl theemployees be equally paid to the retiring person. FinaIly.it has in project a school for the children of theemployees. which will be financed by the Euphard andwould have the wife of the Director-General. Jahan. as anhonorary member in the school committee. The lady isweIl known and respected for her "good works" towardseducating the handicapped. This school project is aimedat paving the social ascension of the laborers.

The general agreement has been made easy on suchpropositions which have only divided the men who arenot only very sensitive about their salaries but at thesame time also on the continuous running and theprestige of the factory. The terms for an increase mustbe interpreted under this perspective. This has issuedfrom a totally independent thought of the leaders,anxious about the behavior of the young laborers. Theselatter are increasingly becoming a possible anddangerous factor of creating trouble. With the turbulenceof the "young laborers", we have thus been brought to thestrong factions whose very existence must beunderstood. This is needed because the "ideology" iscertainly not the cause of their emergence and theirdevelopment.

A historie map will now help to pin-point three bigtendencies or forces of pressure. each having variousramifications.

- The first is mainly represented by the "clerks"(office staffs) promoted from "laborer" class or the old"clerks" becoming officers; this group is close to the"management" and is weIl differentiated in the mind ofthe Director-General Jahan. For a long time. he isfighting with the former labor leaders of liberation warorigin; he i5 endowed with two associations where,among others. the chief of personnel. an "ex-clerk" andhis close associates are to be found. Their coalition istransparent. particularly in the collective buying of lands


near the factory where sorne of them have alreadyconstructed their houses. One of these associations wascreated during the crisis of 1982 to counter the "secondtrade union" the ring-leaders .of which were refusing theretrenchments of the laborers. To summarize, this groupis strongly opposed to the major orientations of thetrade union. Sorne of the members were office bearers ofthis trade union in the past and they resigned. Thisgroup, although disowned by a portion of the laborers ofthe production section, has laborers as members in oneof its associations. More over, during each "crisis", ft hadall1es in the production. This group can, in fact, be usedby aIl aspiring for trade union power in the productionand who flght the leaders locally. the production andthose who are flghting agalnst the leaders in position.

- A second, less predominant "force" is composed ofthe oldest labor leaders who are now officers (with theexception of the "tiger") and as such they can directlyparticipate in the trade union activities. However, theyhave their emissaries there. This second "force" hasestablished an association in 1982 to reinforce thepower of the "second trade union". It tried in 1989 tolaunch a new "mulU-functional" association to expand itssphere of influence. Personal rivalry in this small grouphowever, carried a decisive weight. "The Uger"predominated the trade union for a period of flfteenyears , then was withdrawn from aIl functions: hisswindIing wlth money. his malversation weredenounced: it seems that he also ceded in manyoccasion to widespread "sell1ng" of his promises forrecruitment faHing to keep his words. As such he hascreated a number of enemies among the laborers andamong his numerous "dependents", "kins" or not. thelatter numbering about flfteen. This explains hisexpulsion from the office of the trade union. On theother hand, his solitary refusaI to become an officer in1982 was not completely understood by the laborers.Nevertheless, he is always present in the "political"scene of the factory. even if this presence is sometimesnegative than positive. In fact. a dedared opposition tothis historic chief can become a central motive for the

Kinship, work, jactions 93

demonstration of a faction. Let us not forget that, inspite of the hatred and the mistrust that he has arousedin the minds of many a persons, yet he was an activemember of the "second trade union" in 1982. With theexception of the "tiger" and of Mohammed. we will comeback to the latter. the past leaders together, are more orless guiding the trade union office or are trying to do soin a manner similar to underground activities. They havechosen and found out their actual secretary-general fromthe darkness. He is little younger than them and whohad a record of not being associated with the conflicts ofthe pasto With virtuous reputation and "clean hands",this man, refined and intelligent, diplomat and astute.has the skill to listen to the eIders giving at the sametime a clearer, justified and legal image about the tradeunion. In thh; way, he is looking for limiting the use ofphysical force, arms, and the henchmen between theexisting factions. In 1989. he initiated a newconstitution for the trade union replacing the previousone and added many useful accuracies and a number ofprocedural matters. One of these is the imposition ofobligatory respect during any dialogue in the place ofquarrel and gangsterism. The penalty for not abiding thisis the ouster from the trade union. Thissecretary-general lives in front of Arshad's place and thetwo families are closely linked. Arshad admits withlaughter and with pleasure that, the secretary-general infact promotes what he counsels him or the plans thatthe "old" have promoted. Isolated from the members ofhis generation, but more influential than "the tiger" in adifferent manner, Mohammed, the "traitor" of 1982 isanother remarkable personage of this second"tendency". The trick of Mohammed is to succeed inconvincing the young laborers to rejoin and support him.In fact. it is remembered that he has prepared a secretlist for recruiting sorne permanent employees inexchange of retrenchment in 1982. This event has givenrise to third "tendency".

- The third tendency reveals to be slowly rising: theyoung recruits of 1982 (38 in total) who hadmomentarily assembled around Mohammed because they


thought that they were indebted to him for their Job atthe Euphard and thus they had formed their "proper"association. They were guided by the dreadful Rafiuddinwho has occupied himself the office of trade union by "acoup" and which he says with proudness and arrogancethat he had done it in the same way as the Presidents ofthe nation! They now proj ect themselves as anautonomous and uncontrollable force and the whole ofthe old leaders are becoming more and more afraid.Rafiuddin and his associates have started a mercilessfight against aIl their "eIders" without any distinction;they have somehow abandoned their "saver".Mohammed. and are managing their own political"campaigns" during elections without referring toanybody and taking decisions on their own about theircandidates. For this. they also use their own workingsections. Their slogans are clear: powers of the pastleaders must be lowered for they have become too "rich"and have abused the confidence which was entrusted onthem. The gap between the highest and the lowestgrades of the laborers is blamed as an outrageousdisproportion: the highest revenues of the past leadersare denounced as a criminal inequity which voluntarily isconserving "poverty" for the young laborers and isdestined to "ameliorate the rich." Particular demandshave been placed to re-institute the equilibrium; by acurious bias. these demands could be connected to thetheme of enhancement of the merit: the young. in fact,for their own reasons. want to suppress the equality inthe proportional increase of salary. This means to reducethe increase for the higher grades to overvalue the lowergrades. The rise of this "third force". under the bannerof a generation dated by the year of its recruitment as apermanent employee. is highly significative: by theirinstitutionalization through their "developmentcommittee". the juniors break aIl links of dependenceincluding that of kinship. They unite themselves asindividual actors free from aIl "services" which weregiven to them. against them whom they think that theyare the major obstacles for their promotion. The youngthus claim that their "political" opinions are personal

Kinship. work. factions 95

and that their "relatives" in the factory have no right tolook after their "political" affiliations; in "politics" theyfind a capital instrument to put an end of the subjectionwhich appears to them more and more unjustified andwhich is doubling the day to day subordination in the job.Let us listen to Rafiuddin who has defied the orders ofhis father (recruited in the factory in 1968) not to "dopolitics": "Me. l think that in politics there isdemocracy. no one should manipulate anybody. onebrother should not manipulate another brother. eachmust have his personal opinion. But. here every bodytries to use the kinship links". Beyond the underhandbut real manipulation of Mohammed in 1982 in thedirection for the young. one can more precisely guesshere one of the major mechanisms of production of the"factions" in the factory: by rejoining with Mohammed.the juniors have voiced less to a precise man than triedto oust their "recruiting parent". They allied with thepast leaders from whom Mohammed was resolutelyseparated and against whom he was fighting.

This "negative" strategy appears as a constant in theindividual and collective "political" choices: it induces totake into account of the different generations presentand the implication of the rapport of kinship in thesuccession of generations of employees. Roughly threegenerations coexist in the factory: let us designate themas A, Band C. The generation A, comprising the leadersfrom Karachi. can be perceived as divided into two clans:that of Mohammed. Al - always ready to make alliancewith the "clerks"- and that of the "tiger" and hiscolleagues. A2. The latter have become ofTicers and theyget together during grave crisis. The "kins" who wererecruited by this first generation constitute the secondgeneration B. This generation itself has employed its"kins". which again constitute the generation C. Thejuniors of the "committee for the young" are part of thelast generation. The internaI breaches in the groups ofkins systematically trim the "dependents" and the "kins"against each other and they show their dissension byadhering themselves to the antinomie "political" fields:structurally C tries to separate it from B which again


tries hard to get away wUh A. There are then two pathsfor the third generation C, which is trying for Usemancipation. The first, on which attention has alreadybeen given, is that of the "association for the young" andwho consider the man Mohammed, Al as the egerie. Inthe face of this, the unitY between Us own kins B and theoldest leaders. A2 is ephemerally effected-. The second,less remarkable, in the measure where U remainspersonal and does not open up on the construction ofany collective force, is nevertheless the most recent: itexists isolated at the interior even of the "committee ofthe young". where Rafiuddin has already a frantic rivalwho does not hide his intentions. He has chosen thecamp of the "tiger" while Rafiuddin is dragging the old"leader" through the mire; the two young persons,equally exalted and fascinated by the "political" power,are very seriously expecting to become the ring-leadersfor the men with ability of the "tiger". Though Rafiuddinis already an office bearer of the trade union, the secondhas however, become the leader of the Jatyo Party in hisarea. This, he has become against the wishes of hisfather and his eIder brother. He has recruUed both ofthem in the Euphard and both are inclined to theJamat-i-Islami. He is taking for sure the Jatyo Party toindirectly assume his "political carrier" in the Euphard.

Thus, the deliberate support of a leader of the firstgeneration. A2, declared adversary of the "kin recruiter"belonging to the second generation B, and against thepreponderance about which the young laborers, C, areset. It is presented as another solution for individualapproval. This is how we are faced with a vicious circlewhich uses the Inherent dissidence in the fields ofkinship: due to their very nature, these are helpingrefurbishing and reviving permanently the processes ofreproduction of the factions: in this way, the "tiger". forexample. is very strangely going to find himselfcompetent anew for the juniors of the third generation.These juniors are eventually going to see a radical meansto destroy the political pretention of their "recruitingparents" and to abolish the dependence with which theyare linked. This perpetuaI regeneration of factional

Kinship, work. factions 97

fights has again fallen back on the rational logic ofkinship from which it originates: though it is beingconsolidated yet, it is legitimately providing againstbreaking-up of the kinship groups- quite reprehensibleas regards the shared ethics- and which can be publiclypresented in the light of a "political" incompatibility.Thus, such a leader of one of the associations close tothe management admits of becoming increasinglyirritated by the attitude of his brother whom he hasappointed and whom he lodges in his house; this youngbrother enthusiastical1y defends "the tiger"; restrictionfrom his eIder brother will not restrain him: "it is betterto separate ourselves". he says.

It is understood likewise that a very arduoustrajectory of a buckle is attached to the universe of thelaborers in the factory and is transforming it into a fieldof disputes. of litigation and of endless internaI quarrels.Resulting from an independent trade union policyaiming to replace the Bihari laborers by the nativeBengalis. taken, without retreat and in the fury of action.in the immediate proximity of the heros of 1971. theintrusion of kinship in the job world is permanentlygeneratlng the paradoxal counter-coups. Nourished by astatutory differentiation which is made "extreme" by thekinship. the revoIt of the "dependents" is producing aperturbation and an alteration of the rapport of kinship.This, by their complicity with job hierarchies, areconsolidating themselves in the contest of micro-politicswhich. by its nature is always reactivated: their last stakeis to get hold of the power in the trade union which theytake as the place from where the control of theenterprise and of the management is possible. With asimultaneous return. the individual actors emphasize onthis harsh competition to keep them away from theinternaI agencies of the kinship and fol1ow, in an everincreasing and unstoppable autonomization. a course ofstatus for which the "politics" become the emblem.Absorbed in the scenario of infinite altercation in theone hand. and prisoner of an indestructible authoritativefigure on the other.(through the mode of communicationthat historically enchains them during the "exchange"


with the Director-General of the factory) the laborers donot have Ume to elaborate the alternative ideas for theenterprise or yet, make new demands which are placedin the second plan. On the other hand. the breakingaway with the educated officers is the first syrnbolicantagonism of the "class". despite the fact that thestratification and the proper classing in the world of thelaborers are at the empirical level and is the most fertileland for pugilism.

The whole of these processes put forward pictures ofreal and symbolic promotion in sorne seditious mannerwith an unprecedented force in a society where statutoryrigidity is deeply rooted in the mentality. Till now. thereader can think that the benefits of this promotion arein the ~~phard irrespective of the generally shareddi1Terential redistribution. This would be an illusion. Thissocial dynamics has Us exceptions and the local"micro-politics" of the factory are not within the reach ofeverybody: it leaves small or big cadavers in Us path- likethe daily laborers- as we are going to see now.


CHAPTER VI

The Left-overs in the Promotion

"I am a victim of the trade union", "I don't have anypromotion, the Euphard has paralyzed my llfe, now thejuniors are senior to me", "Because of political reasonsmy promotion has been stopped", The trade union isdelaying my promotion, they only promote theircases", "The poULics in the factory is very dirty", "Thetrade union has blocked my promotion"...

This is how many men express themselves. They arequite bitter on their carrier which they compareparticularly with the members of the "Karachi clan", thatis, the leaders now turned officers. Among these men, apart was recruited during 1966, 67, 68 at Karachi andothers at Dhaka. Not aIl of them have the highest gradein the labor hierarchy (section in-charge). After morethan twenty years of service in the same factory sorneare only group leaders, others are just "skilled seniors",sorne are even in yet subordinate positions. This boilingdisparity allows to appreciate better how the promotionis linked to the power of the trade union andconsequently, how the absence of political involvementinfluences the traduction of stagnation in the samestatus. This also leads to throw a fresh look on the pastlabor leaders who have become officers: their fabuloussocial ascent. We will discover much later that, the novelampleness in the locality where they live, is but anappanage of a very restricted small group.

Since its involvement in the war of 1971, it hasbecome a real oligarchy in the factory. The force of thiscoterie is reflected in its defining and imposing thethemes and the factions which will become dominantand majority during the following twenty years. In acertain manner, the history always gives reasons to thesetypes of "parvenus" because these precede and make thehistory. Their capacity to visible rupture during the

100 MultÙlational Company Ùl Bangladesh

events of 1982 where they abandon the security whichthey conquered and made them out-of-Iaw. with anexception also shows that, for them. the factional gameis not a synonym for a loss of conviction contrary to thegenerations that succeed them and where it rivets moreclearly in a strict sense of a personal ascent.

However, by transforming the benefits of the microor macro-"political" investments in the personal success,the past leaders have set up a foot path which hasbecome a Boulevard little by little where all haveprecipitated as easily as this domain of the factorypresents itself as a strict reflection of factionalism thatdominates the global society. However. it is not enoughto throw one self into a lost case of the small world ofcoalitions. of conspiracies and of plots. These make thedaily bread of a number of laborers of the factory forbecoming sure to the fastest "rise" in the hierarchicscale. It is certainly a sin qua non condition and abarrier that he must compulsorily overcome afterremaining for decades in the same grade: one can saythat it is out of the fighting field of the trade union, asaluting point. But again, one must know to select hiscamp so that he does not miss the future promotions. Heis of the choices who do not pardon - like that ofMohammed in 1982 who instigated a categorical anddurable reprobation in his generation. ln twenty years ofhistory. an uncountable number of options could havebeen definitely rejected by the timid. moderate orpassionate "political" pretenders in the mass of "losers":to fight too early against "the tiger". for example. aByingthemselves with the ex-clerks for quite risky ends andbecoming very quickly ready to sacrifice the weakest ofthe "dependents". unites the minority factions in a badmoment. This union was animated by one or the other ofthe "Karachi cliques", etc. ln aB cases. the result is thesame: an Inadequate engagement invokes a painfulfailure: this leaves future marks that becomes difficult toerase... or yet. the shock carries along dishearteninglyand a complete individual withdrawal from the agonizingsphere centering around the trade union.

The vanquished "nourish" an unmeasurable animosity

The lejt-overs in the promotion 101

and propagate their hatred towards the trade union bydiscrediting it verbaUy: the author 1s a privileged auditorand they had aU the ruthless adjectives in their mouth toqualify the loathsome trade union. The representationgives another picture -hidden- of the factory, his versionof exclusion; for these orators, the leaders are evidentlythe worst malefactors, the eventual villains, and thedescription is abandoned putting emphasis on thisopinion. They, however, will lament for their illiteracy:false certificates from primary schools, misspeUing,di1Ticulties in reading Bangla...aliment the hateful tirades.The "regionalist" argument is particularly developed andcherished by the "losers". They see there a very simplemode of explanation for their misfortune. The faction inpower would deprive the dependents of his region andthus fiU with members from other region. These latterare mainly from the laborers, or yet, the participant isone the rare individuals coming from neither of the tworegions. This argument, which would have been thewhole semblance for a perceptible objectivity in othercircumstances, stands less for a serious examinationeven if the analysis of preceding mode of reproduction ofthe factions is left aside. These are. in fact,multi-regional and the "regions" are multi-factional.

Those who consider themselves as "the victims ofthe trade union" have their eyes riveted on their oldlabor coUeagues, promoted to officers. This prestigiousposition, about which the loss of a part of their income isforgotten, is highly envied; the holders of these postsare as detested as when the participants are subjecteddirectly to their orders. The statutory inequality thatsucceeds a past equality and eventually of a comradeship,during when the men fought side by side in 1971, hasthere too, a bruising character which transforms thesubordinates into living ecorché. They remember thediverse promotions that were given to their age groupand count and recount in their head. at least to see inthe coming weeks, the order of "seniority" to find thatthey are also among the oldest and can also becomeofficers. Many of their companions are hierarchicaUysuperior, even if they were also not far from iL


Familiarization and intimate acquaintance with otheris cruel and painful here. Wounded and ill-tempered intheir deep inside the "losers" generally keep themselvessilent in the factory. They have surrendered to the law ofthe group to finish their carrier in a deplorableobscurity. Let us look into one of these men. Tipu.randomly sampled.

Tipu. a man of about fifty. has a family history whichis a bit "complicated" for a Western reader. But itappears rather classic in the context of Bangladeshisociety. His paternal grand father was a matbar. It meansone of those village personalities whose importance andrichness remind of their factional roles as weIl as theirnumber of henchmen whom they can pay to carry outtheir decisions. This man was killed in 1947 during the"partition" by the son of his father's brother. This killercame back to seUle in the village after serving fifteenyears in prison and he is living there forever. Tipu 'spaternal uncle has responsibilities for regional politicsand in consequence easy income too. At the death of hisfather. Tipu and his family were disowned by therelatives from his father's side. They were helped byrelatives from the maternaI side. As such. he had to startworking at a very young age (at about twelve or thirtéenyears). He left for Dhaka alone at fifteen. does sornesmall jobs. is employed in a match factory from wherehe was retrenched at the end of three months. Then helearned motor driving and finally became a chauffeur. Heleaves this post after an incident that called on hispersonality. Serious as weIl as tormented. Tipu. withregular wrinkles in his face and with a remarkablecourteous manner. is in fact. a man who is veryconscious about his dignity and his status; when the wifeof his boss asks him to clean the car which he drives. herefuses this humilîating task reminding that he is the"chauffeur"; his master cornes to know this and sendshim on leave with a payrnent of 100 Takas: Tipu takesonly the amount equivalent to his day's salary. which is75 Takas and leaves by paying his boss the rest 25 Takas.He finds another job and then gets employed in thearmy; during the dutY as a night guard. he makes a


mistake in his schedule and his Punjabi bosses insulthim; he threatens to kill them and a fight foHows:summoned to explain, Tipu accepts his insubordinationand says that he deseIVes death; he will be punished for28 days of detention only. But he decides to quit thearmy. We are in 1967. The relations between theBengalis and the Pakistanis are already tense. Tipu thenstarts a shop in Dhaka with his friend who steals aH theircommon profits and particularly aH his savings from thearmy. He is ruined and finaHy cornes at the door of theEuphard. He happens to meet the production managerand requests him for a job; he was employed in 1968through a completely particular hierarchic channel thatavoids the marked labor personages who have worked inKarachi. When, after three months, aIl his coHeaguesbecome permanent employees. Tipu is not in the list: hecomplains to the manager and got it after sorne times. In1971. Tipu sends back his wife to the village andengages himself in the activities of liberation movementin the old neighborhood of Dhaka. His wife is thedaughter of a rich notable person. Tipu trains the "MuktiBahini". This is how he made use of his training at thearmy. He is in relation with Jahan and with him who isnow the director of the factory: both paid him money forhelping in the resistance. After the war, Tipu succeedsin employing his younger brother as a day laborer in theEuphard; but his brother can not to1erate such a bigstatutory inferiority with his eIder brother and Tipusends him to Saudi Arabia. 1972 is the year when Tipuwas promoted to the grade of a "skilled worker", in1986, he is "senior skiIled". He is earning a little lessthan Tk 6000 to which is added Tk 2000 per monthfrom the rent of a pharmacy which he owns near hishouse. and 10000 Tk sent by his brother from SaudiArabia each month.

How to explain this trampling in his carrier while heis working in the factory since 1968 and while he wasinvolved in the liberation war at the sides of the pastleaders? In fact, sorne ambiguities are seen in theattitudes of Tipu in the face of the two hierarchic polesof the enterprise. These actualize the job organization in


the one hand, and the trade union on the other. Hishesitations and his turning over are visible in hisbehavior towards the production manager, who is anex-professor of a college. Once, when this charming andsoft man, was subjected ta a slap by "the tiger" followinga fierce discussion, Tipu defended his hierarchicsuperior against the old chief of the trade union. Butlittle later. when he was holding the office of the tradeunion, he accused this manager of favoring sorne daylaborers and not others, of no more willing ta recruit themenials; he seeks justice and becomes the solitaryprotector for the weakest. Tipu has the sentiment thatthis manager, ta whom he is apparently confronted withvery harshly, is blocking his advancement. But.elsewhere, his relations with the former leaders appearta be tainted with a strong concurrence which is littlefavorable ta arouse interventions in Us favor by thoseleaders. Only Tipu has passed an examination of thesecondary education in 1972: this degree is shawn as asign of competence and of merit against the officersex-Iaborers of whom the majority will hide that theyhave not frequented the school for only a few years. Tipulives in the same neighborhood as the officers - formerleaders-, he has a big house. He is reproducing there, onthe terrain of the residence, a competition which is lostin the domain of job. He afTirms that, in this way he hasbecome close ta many a noted "rich" families. He hasdeveloped personal friendship which would shock thesusceptibility of the old leaders: they, hierarchicallysuperior in the factory. will not admit that he should betheir equal or eventually surpass them outside thefactory. On the other hand. Tipu demands the respectfor chief of personnel of the factory and puts forwardhis closeness with the doctor of the factory. This doctoris extremely respected and willing ta serve and lives inhis neighborhood: the youngest daughter of Tipu and thedaughter of the doctor go ta the same school, and thedoctor takes the two daughters ta the school everymoming in his car. On the other hand, Tipu had his firstdaughter married in 1989 and the reception that heorganized will reveal that it meant in the symbolic plan


to make at least as much so that it is not more whichthe former leaders turned officers can think of. Theywere present beside the school teachers and the localnotables among whom was the family of the "king ofZingur". This king is the owner of a road and his brotheris an important figure in the committee of the oldestmosque of the locality. This ceremony was held in a verybeautiful "Wedding House" ordinarily rented to themiddle or upper class people. The food was excellentand abundant. The wives of the employees of theEuphard were competing with their splendor in theirlovely saris and their heavy jewelleries on the roundfigures. Everybody admired the fairness of the skin ofthe fiancé letting to guess about a superior parentage.Education and wealth of the father-in-Iaw were thesubject matter of secret discussion. Tipu was gleaming,openly exhibiting to his neighbors and colleagues thathis subordinate status in the factory was a denial made tohim. This show was quite coherent with aIl the habituaIpractices of Tipu, like, for example, offering three mealsper week to two Muezzins and an Imam of the locality ordonating money to a school committee, financialparticipation to the mosque and to the educationalestablishments. These practices are usual in thedominating classes of the society. Let us now listen toTipu who disputes about aIl these contradiction and whocan never catch up his statutory delay in the factorycompared to his past companions. Their past as alaborer has been erased in the eyes of many of theirneighbors because of their tiUe of an "officer":

"[ have a good life and some do not accept mysuccess as [ mix with many a rich and educated persons.They are jealous of me and for that my promotion at theEuphard was s topped. [ am a laborer, my children aregoing to a good school. Mohammed (officer ex-laborer) ,X (the production manager), Y Chis assistant, first"promoted" laborer after the war to avoid the violence ofdissension of the trade union), these three people cannot tolerate that [ be good. They are jealous. [ shouldhave been at least a section chief now. A (past leader,oificer in the production section), for example, must be


under me, and he is not educated (.. .J. Arshad is the firstof the criminals, he has studied up to class 6 (...J. Therewas a group that has always created problems in thetrade union. That is why the management has madethem officers. But me, l should have been the firstolficer if things were just according to the rank. l havedone everything for the Euphard and l have gainednothing. l don't want to work here because those whocommand me do not even know how to write. l am goingto start a business of shrimp culture..."

Beyond his idiosyncrasy, very representative of a bigportion of the laborers, excluded from the sensationalpromotion of their past leaders, Tipu contemplates likemany others on his humiliation. Although Tipu's incomeis much lower than those of the section chiefs, Tipuhowever, knew how to manage, among others, his twosuccessive marriages. This is a quite comfortablesituation that does not contradict with his colleagues,officers in the production section.

In the Euphard as in elsewhere, the exclusion is aquestion of degree and of gradation. With the daylaborers (bad li) , the cœsura, on the other hand, iseffective and it does no more mean a placing in theperiphery of the central motives of social ascension aspreviously, but a radical statutory exclusion: thirty twoday-Iaborers are working in the factory for Cive days aweek of whom fourteen are in the different depots of theEuphard. These "day-Iaborers" are in fact "temporary".This is to avoid their regular employment as permanentemployee after a continuous work for ninety days. In thecloak of sadness, eyes always lowered down and withunclean blue marine clothes distinguished from thepermanent laborers by impeccable white uniforms, the"day-Iaborers" are almost no more noticeable even at theend of a few month's work in the Euphard with their sobig discretion and unobtrusiveness. These men eam 40Tk (8 F) per day for the same work of their permanentcolleagues. Their misery is legally total though it hasnever been put to practice. A good number was recruitedin the years 1977-1978. With the exception of their foodat the canteen, they have no other advantages (bonus,

The left-overs in the promotion 107

loans... ). Neither do they have the rights of a pennanentemployee. nor even that for becoming a member of thetrade union. They are taken as "out of class" and "out ofsociety" by the office bearers of the trade union. They.however. maintain a relatively welcoming relationship.quite distant and semi-patronal towards them. Theymanage to conserve their five days a week job, that is tosay. 1 500 Tk [300 F} per month. These out of countsare out of the statutory microcosm where the pennanentemployees frolic. A wall separates them: outside thehierarchy. without avowable position. the day laborershave become the invisible poor guys little by little to theinstitutional actors of the factory. They are obnubilatedby their personal destiny and their small internaIdifferentiation. To everybody. the day laborers thus donot exist in the measures where they should havedisappeared if the history would follow its "nonnal"course; their presence in the precinct of the Euphardsuch an antilogy - considering the collective thoughtsthat have constituted this isolation of social dream thanthe factory - what does it become to disappear in thetravelling with a system that can not include them in itsown rationality.

The day laborers live around the factory in variouslocality of the shanty town. in huts or in a bit higherlevel in the small barracks constructed on Governmentlands. These are bought or rented at very modest prices.One of the shanty towns is situated at the right side ofthe road leading to the factory; it over looks a veryunhealthy lake which is the only source of water. Thefamilies are obliged to beg for potable water in theneighboring houses.

In the one hand. it needs to be known that the daylaborers are none than the "kins" of the pennanentemployees. They are the unfortunate "dependents"whom their recruiters have forgotten or neglected inthe strategic moments; in this case, cumbersomewitness of an already problematic kinship. aIl are goingas if they were on the bank of a river contemplating onits ever increasing spates that threatens to engulf them.On the other hand. they find that their happy

lOS Multinational Company in Bangladesh

"guardians", care-free and amnesic. are moving aroundwith their eyes turned away.

This situation came out principally during theeconomic difficulties of the Euphard since 1982 duringwhen aIl mechanisms of reproduction in the factorywere broken in principle as weIl as in their realization: itwas reasonable to consider in this moment that the onehundred and ten day-Iaborers could have beenprogressively absorbed in the enterprise from whom itbenefits. These are the fruits of shared efforts and didnot cease to increase to the point that it becamenecessary to employ the day laborers in an increasingnumber. The victory of the trade union in having thirtyeight supplementary permanent posts in 1982, hadunfortunately reversed the expulsion of the "temporary"ones who, considering their status, were not assimilatedin other multinationals as permanent employees. Sincethen, the day-Iaborers seem to have become the tool fora second plan of the office bearers of the trade union. Asfunction of the possibility of an open restraint by theconjunctural variations of their power, they employ andretrench without any valid reason. Now, everybody in thefactory think that there will not be any permanentrecruitment for a long time to come; the President ofBangladesh, H.M.Ershad, seems to be becoming strongerday in day out and the Drug Policy is one of his majornational as weIl as international cards. In this context,the Euphard as a multinational can only expect tomaintain itself, but certainly can not foresee a growth.

These well-balanced reasoning of the laborers of theEuphard leaves little margin for maneuvering in the faceof these perpetuaI "strangers" who are the day-Iaborers;the apparent difference of the permanent employeesproceed with a constant empiric of insolubility. Fromthen on, already weIl impaired by the internaI statutoryinequality of the factory, the kinship is loosening till itstiring and entire exhaustion, unmeasurably distendingthe processes analyzed in the kinship of the permanentlaborers: the "poor kins" keep away with the ideas inmind that they don't want to be more, neither the "kins"nor the "poor". They can not be assimilated in those


"poor" to whom sorne pays a few coins at the exit fromthe Friday prayer or who claim their share of thesacrificial meat on the moming of the Eid day by tappingat the grills of the houses. The "poor relatives" whoseadversity worsens by extension of kinship. symbolical1ydo not have any place in the portioned universe wherethe employees of the Euphard move around: the schismof kinship is consumed. The best prove could be that thedisconnection of the day to day relations is not"repaired" during Eid . The practice is that during thisfestival the families reunite. The permanent employeesenjoy the money from their specific "bonus" andholidays: they "sacrifice" animaIs in the village or in thecity; this is an opportunity to show off their socialsuccesses by the price of the sacrificial animal and thenumber of invitees. On the other bank of the river whichseparates them as a morbid dream. the day-Iaborers.nestling in their shaky, damp and sufTocating huts, a fewhundreds of meter from the factory. have nothing excepttheir anxiety which is at its acme. In fact. they have towait for ten to twelve days without salary, because thefactory remains closed like most of the pubUe andprivate establishments. Without exception, they are notinvited at the places of their "permanent" kins or their"guardians". A dreadful silence fills this date withoutsacrifice, without meat, without money, without "kin",without "guardians". The empty statute is expanding andtaking a multiform dimension.

The interviews in this month of June, 1989. aredillicult and humanly exacting. Being oppressed, sornemen could not hold back their tears, others, with moreand more choked voices, finished by becoming silent,tom by the look of their distresses.

Plunged in such a tragedy, the individualsdesperately are clinging together towards and against al1with the idea that a relation, whatever it is, ismaintained and that must be with their "recruiters","kins" or "guardians". This vertical relationship. a uniquevector of a hypothetical integration in the factory, is theproducer of a personalized, disproportionatedependence having no common measure with the reality


of an ever increasing fragile and inconsistent link.Consequently, the horizontal relationships are absentamong the day laborers. This has been cramped at thisimaginary point that the image of their "guardians" areraising before them in an uncertain horizon. However, atthe same time, the day-laborers are rational about theirdamned destinies and without fear and withouthesitation generaIly accuse aIl those who surround themto have them so egoisticaIly left: trade union andadministration, "kins" and "guardians", permanentemployees, aIl together. Declaring to demand nothing toanyone to avoid an already profound decline, they arere-establishing the fronts of their banishment and bythis fictitious reappropriation of their social exile, theyare inventing the honor for a status which, they weredenied purposefuIly.

Though Babul, nearing fi fty, is not the mostunfortunate of these men. he however, fasts during nightto ease the expenditure of his family:

"ft is my younger brother who brought me here in1984, he is a skilled worker. The factory needs theservice of cleaners, not of gardeners. and we have beenmade to clean only. We get 5 Tk. (lF) per hour. Thepermanent cleaners eam 150 TIc. per day and we eam40 TIc. for 8 hours even when we are working as thecleaners.. l had three kanis27 of land but for the last twoyears we did not have any harvest because of govemmentproject that failed: the experimental barrage has broken,we have lost aU the harvest, the govemment wanted tohelp us io have two harvests in the place of one. but thaidid not work. Any way, l have two sources of income. Myfamily is in the village. my three sons, two daughters,and l go there during the week-ends. l work on my land.My children are growing older, in 1984, l could still givethem some food but no education. l then decided to havea second source of income. l asked my younger brotherand "the tiger"28 for a job, l thought that l will get apermanent job. But. l was not lucky. l still expect tobecome permanent. l would like to do something for my

27. 1 kani =about 25 ares28. Babul and "the tiger" are from the same area.


children. l would Like that they get their education. lhope l would become successful.

My mother is dead and my father has remarried. ltook charge for the care of aU my brothers, but myyounger brother who is in the Euphard has alwaysthought of himse/j only; he came to the factory in 1972and now he owns a five-storey building, he has neverhelped us. Everything went aU right in the village before;now, everything goes bad and l can not borrow. Before, lused to sacrifice animals29, now no. My Little brother. hegoes to the village only for elections, not for the Eid, hedoes not take care of us in the family, he is going tosacrifice animal here alone with his neighbors. We havelost aU our harvests this year, that's why to makeeconomy I no longer take my meals in the night. l sendeverything to the village. At first, in 1984, I used to Livein my brother's place. He did not have the building tillthen. But later, he constructed his house and he has notasked me to come back. I Live in a "bustee"30 and I pay150 Tk. {30 FJ to the landlord for a hut.

"The tiger" is also Like my guardian, because he is theguardian of my Little brother. But, I don't want to askanything from anybody, everybody knows my conditionbut none helps me. ft is too humiliating to ask foranything. The permanent laborers have Eid bonus of 1500 to 2 000 Tk. {300 to 400 FJ, they can help me, theydon't do it, then it is better not ta ask them. I had toborrow 500 Tk (lOO F) from the Euphard because, l amnot going to work for the last few days. Nonetheless, myfather was "madhya bittya" {middle class villagerJ and hehad to fight himse/j with his sisters for the land. Then,he lost much because of the land.

l am always anxious about my children who are everasking for so many things and l dare not teU them that lcan not give. Everything is going so badly.

l have a cousin who is also permanent in X, in adepot of Euphard. He is permanent for the last sixyears.

My only aspiration is to give my children good29. Ritual sacrifice of Eid.30. Hut in a shanty town.


education so that they can lead a decent life. They are inpublic schools, my daughter is in a secondary school, [am to pay 22 Tk. per month and she is faring moderatelygood. The instructor did not help my children much:had he cooperated, they would have fared better in theclass. But the problem is that [ can not pay for particularcourses for my daughter, she understood il. [ would likethat she becomes a doctor. My only wish is to guide mychildren. [ don't want any property, any cows. [ want agoOO life for my children, that's aH. But everything is sogrim in front of me, it is Eid, and [ can give nothing tomyfamily. Because, we don't have any salary when we arenot working- everybody in the factory are going to havemoney for the ten days of Eidfestival excepting us."

The narrations of the day laborers appear almostnothing eloquent on the exclusion in the day to daycontiguity than sorne explicative comments; this is whylet us now turn to Abid who is working in the Euphardfrom 1975:

"[ already have two guardians here. they are my twocousins {sons of father's brothers} and thesecretary-general of the trade union is my boss, he givesme order {the latter is statutorily in the personneldepartment where Abid is a gardener}, he can make mepermanent. but he is not doing anything. At thebeginning, [ used to live with my cousin for a year. buthe did not want that [ stay with him, we had lot ofproblems in the family, he asked me to quit. then [made a hut side by his house. [ no more go to his place.None of my two cousins do help me. They are, however,officers, they were laborers before {both are at the Dhakaoffice of the enterprise} and the fathers of three of uswere almost similar, they had the same situation, and mycousin has now two mansions. [ can even say that myfather had more lands, but [ had to stop schooling afterthe death of my father. [ want my children to haveeducation. We, who are not permanent. only think ofdeath, because, the youngest one among us has alsobecome permanent. and we have been working for sucha long time and we have not become pennanent. Why?What to do?


The juniors had luck, and us, we remained in thesame place. l still hope. but.. We work as much as thepennanent and we are paid less, making us pennanentwill thus be a loss for the enterprise! Ii is the interest ofthe Company to keep us as the day-laborers. Why doesthe GS (secretary general of the trade union) not helpus? We went to meet him. We had more 'jacililies"before: shoes and medicines, and now il is jinished.

We are in a trap. Had we been pennanent we wouldbe in the trade union and we could make demands. Ii isthen a trap, none wants that we make demands, and wecan not quit the company. My cousin was thevice-president of the trade union, he could have mademe permanent, but he did not want- because he did notwant that we have the same status. Ii is the same wilhmy other cousin. He could heip me, but he did not do itbecause he wanted that l remain inferior to him... Ifnothing happens in two to three years, l will go back tothe village. Ii is Eid, l cannot make sacrifice, our livesare hard... l will show my respect to my cousins even if ilis not reciprocated, l will do my duty, bue when they seeme, they simply ask me how is life, thafs aH."

The day laborers. the most inferior fraction of thepopulation of the factory. who are being pushed out ofthe defined limils of ils universe. pertinently bring intolight the fact that how many were given selectivepromotion in the Euphard. Besides. their example allowsto relate the founding myths of the group and inparticular those of the trade union for which theliberation from Pakistani oppression was conceived asthe portent of a personal ascent, unimaginable before.This is what we are going to discover now by going out ofthe factory and talking wilh sorne employees in their10caliUes.


CHAPTER VII

Integration into the Middle Class

Instead of summarily moving around the differentlocalitïes and lo invite superCicial question for theschematic reasoning apt to nourish the simple leitmotivof the production in the area of the inhabitants. lheposition acquired in the production, we have chosenhere to keep us centered on a single localily where theemployees of the Euphard live.

This locality, which will be called Takpur, wasretained first of aIl because, about thirty Cive families ofthe employees of the Euphard are living here and it wasopen to bring in new e1ements to the interpretation ofthe social rapport in vogue in the microcosm of thefactory. Takpur is in fact, a locality traditionally reservedfor the middle class: ventilated, having big earthenroads, along which very big mansions are seen side byside, more modest bul completely acceptable to amiddle class officer or even to a upper class officerwithout personal fortunes Takpur is situated at adistance of a dozen of minutes from the factory.Businessmen. industrialists. employees of public sectorcompanies, university professors. doctors etc., brieny, avery diversified "local bourgeoisie" live there. This is themost valued locality in the periphery of Dhaka and itsgeneral profile can immediately place it after the firstranking residential neighborhoods at the center ofDhaka. Dhanmondi, Gulshan. Banani and Baridhara inorder of their ancientness. Like Dhanmondi, Takpur wasalso a locality with Pakistani majority before theliberation war: its architecture thus resembles that ofthe previous colonists who were in the look for makingcomfortable abodes and particularly isolated from theBengali population crammed in the narrow andunhealthy roads due to their over-population and itscontinuous traffic j am. The typical example of such a

Integration into the middle dass 115

scenario is the "old Dhaka". Social and spatialsegregation which is currently in vogue in Bangladeshwill not normally allow now to find any laborer in alocality like that of Takpur. There is no residencein-between the two to three bed-roomed concretebuildings in one side and the small shabby huts wherethe servants of the former live somehow. Now, we findthat Cive officers from the production section of theEuphard are proprietors there of very big mansions orapartments. They include sorne ex-laborers and thedeputy manager. One of them is Arshad who now rentsout the four stories that he constructed over his house tosorne public sector employees. sorne contractors(manpower merchant and owner of a construction firm)and sorne business-men. The residence of the factorydoctor, who represents the middle class educatedgroup, is not at aIl remarkable in the midst of those ofhis patients, originally laborers. So far the hired house ofone of the educated officers of the laboratory isconcerned, it is also like the one which is rented out bythe unique colleague of his department. The latter is alsoan ex-laborer. There are eight families in Takpur whoare strictly from the labor category. They are also ownersof sorne mansions. Three of them are the office bearersof the trade union; three of the famUies are tenants. Five'Junior" laborers have at last been lodged in the buildingsbelonging to the two mosques of the locality for a verymodest payment.

This presence of "laborers". large in Takpur. isgenerally an irregular case. Extended at the exterior ofthe factory in the field of habitation, the differentialascent of the labor group of the Euphard appears doublyheretical in the face of the fundamental laws of overallstratification. In this angle, Takpur is a sort of doublemirror of the asymptotic tendencies of the specificmicrostructure of the factory which is in perpetuaIconfrontation with the hierarchic norms constitutive ofthe society. There lies its timely interest. Nevertheless.even if the laborers find themselves as protected behindthe walls of the factory as in a strong place. thanks tothe actions of the trade union, they are rather


confronted with a merciless statutory logic once theyare out of the factory.

How to explain the installation of the families of theEuphard in a locality which was forbidden for them asper the dominant rationalities? What is their individualand collective position now-a-days in this totallyparticular social context? To answer these questions, wehave to come back to the liberation war of Bangladesh.This is the founding moment of such a micro-history ,the detours of which can not be stopped to retrace, norcan they be missed but to be mentioned strongly.

In 1971, our men are young and most of them arebachelors or yet. their wives are still in the village. Thewar becomes very dilTicult forcing the Pakistanis to Oeeabandoning behind themall those they could not takewith them. The "resistant forces" of the Euphard move insmall groups to the vacant houses, thus laying the firststone of a symbolic and real appropriation. This is theexact replica of that for which the Euphard was the object.Our "heroes" leave their squatter collective house afterthe war to setUe themselves individually in other houses:there are a number of vacant houses and in sorne way theywere in difficulties to select one. This is how they tookover the wealth left by their former "masters" of theWest. They are not the only one to act like that. Almosteverywhere, people from lower middle class , small publicservants, for exarnple, did the same. These practices,however. are condemned by the shared moral in thelowest faction of the society as well as the highest class.

The eIder brother of Arshad, employed by the latterin the factory after the war. tries in vain, for example. todissuade Arshad to incest in an "abandoned house", as itis still called locally. This man, very religious. and whonow lives in a small hired room, thinks in facto that themomentary weakness of an individual should never betaken advantage of, even if he is an oppressor and even ifsorne one is in need of it. He is not the only one in thefactory to think like that. His counsels were not given anyimportance in this circumstance. However, this waslistened during the "crisis of the two trade unions" in·1982 during which he exerted to bring Arshad in the

Integration into the middle class 117

"good path", Le., unconditional respect to the superiors.At the other extreme, in the educated families of theofficers, the appalled mothers of the young freedomfighters beg their sons to retum the ornaments and thecars to the owners which they have brought triumphantlyin their houses as the war trophies. AlI over the country,the booties of the deposed ex-dominant are beingextorted. This is in concordance with quite comparablemodalities of the phenomena seen in other countriesconquering their independence - like that in Algeria in1961. Similarly, the new Bangladeshi State, like theAlgerian counterpart. will become legal proprietor of the"abandoned houses". Since then, different figure casesare found that pertinently refiects the employees of theEuphard at Takpur.

The reader will not be surprised to kno\y that since1972, they have also fomled a "development association"for the locality. The aim of it is more or less to assurethem legal ownership of the houses that they "occupied".Six members of the association of which three are fromthe Euphard: Arshad, Mohammed and another officer,ex-Iaborer, dismissed several years ago for stealing andreselling of medicines, decided to buy directly from thePakistanis their houses and becorne the legal proprietor.By doing this, they provoked an increasing hostility fromother participants of the association. They refused to paythe money to the Pakistanis against whom they are stillfighting. The association divided consecutively into tworival groups: majorHy of the laborers of the factoryadhered to the second group, the general secretary ofthe trade union and Hs vice-president were amongthem. Arshad and Mohammed, fomler leaders of thecommittee and owners, were forced to leave theassociation but were not at the end of theirpunishments: the other faction decided to bring the sixnew proprietors to justice, and after several months ofproceedings that was costly for both the sides, thegovernment finally gave verdict. Peace did not comeback as before in the association where the laborers andthe officers of the Euphard are going along since theinception. The officers pay a rent to the Govemment


which is one tenth of that paid by the laborers; theinequality has brought in a new scission of theassociation where two groups have fonned centeringthis differential treatrnent. Officially, none of thernembers of these two factions, is yet full owner. This isbecause of the fact that the government regulations arevery elaborate and those have not yet been decided till1989. The chiefs of the two factions live in the sameroad- the general secretary of the trade union in oneside and a rnid-ranking civil servant on the other side ofthe road. The latter is a debonair and husband of achanning woman who is weIl known in the culturalsphere. The two chiefs now seern to maintain acongenial relation. It is possible that they have becornecloser since a new developmental association wascreated several years back. The last is run by therepresentatives of a very high class in the society. Theirobjectives are not clear. To give a higher post inadministration to one of the rarest wornen of the countryin the name of feminisrn seerns to be a lure for a politicalcareer of an MP in an yet undefined camp. Thevice-president of the trade union of the Euphard, anAwami League leader, to whom we will refer back soon,is present in both the associations. The chief of the"public sector faction" of the first association is also apayee to the second association.

Intricate personal strategies are the fabric at thebottom of the factious imbroglios that are agitating thetwo associations for the "social development" of Takpur.Beyond the expressed or unavowable aims that they fixby themselves, these associations were and are alwaysfor the laborers of the Euphard having preponderantstructures to integrate into the rniddle class of thelocality. By this proxirnity the associations introducesrnall as weIl as big entrepreneurs between the laborersand the employees of the public sector in particular.

In fact, it must be measured at what point irrespective of their grades and their income, very highin the superior fringe cornpared to the public servants31

31. ln 1989. a university profcssor cams around 5000 Tk. at the endof his carcer.


- the employees of the Euphard take themselves to bemarked by a profound illegitimacy in their endeavor.otherwise objectively succeeded in getting themselvesintegrated in the microcosm of the locality. Bangladeshis in fact, one of those societies where knowledgeinitiates a dominant and autonomous hierarchic link.Religious knowledge and knowledge on "contemporary"affairs mutually reinforce the hierarchic weightage toaccredit the scholarship. The holy Quoran is the firstbook that offers a knowledge about the reality and thetruth on which Islam wants fidelity. A major portion ofthe employees of the Euphard (laborers or ex-Iaborerstumed officers) are deprived of the secular educationand thus. are enclosed in the lowest hierarchic rank ofknowledge in which they are immersed. Lacking thepower exhibited by the rising educated ones. theparticipants thus very often look for a "Pir" (Muslimsaints) or an "Imam" in their ancestry to compensate thelack in their genealogy of an educated lineage in themodern sense of the term. This indomitable sentimentof an inferiority, linked to the impossible recovery ofignorance. is at the origin of an immense importancewhich they give to education for their children. Theyexpect that their children can get access to the jobsconnected to the high degrees of learning. like amedical or an engineering degree. This sentiments alsoexplains partially their activities in the development ofthe college at Takpur which has a good reputation now.This college was only a private primary school at thestart and it is a weIl managed establishment forsecondary and higher secondary studies. The collegehas been recognized and subsidized by the govemment.Few years after the war. 10.000 Takas (2.000 F) wereoiTered by the Euphard in response to demands by themembers of the trade union who made their owncollections from among the laborers. Besides. differentleaders have personally and in small groups contributedto the creation of a private school in the locality by theparents of the children. For example. Arshad donated10.000 Takas. Some among them were or are in thecommittee of a third school in which they have


cooperated since its inception.This zeal for scholarly education equaIly responds to

the statutory investment in which our employees areexamples in Takpur: they must produce their status inthe locality which they have usurped by force in a certainmanner and which, in the hierarchic ideals to whichthey participate, will deny themaIl place. Afierce willfor social integration. symbolic as well as real, guides theemployees of the production section of the Euphard wholose in this occasion aIl critical spirits on the process ofremaking of the society which they try to reproduce fortheir personal accounts with assiduity. Always weIldressed, they have an alI-out aspiration to be in a notedposition to which sorne of them seem to have comeacross. According to the model of sobriety, getting welldressed is to be elegant and distinctive which will tendto be the apanage of the oldest generations of the civilservants and for this, the public service was a missionfor elected persons in this far away part of Bengal. Acomplete vagueness covers their tumultuous career inthe factory and their neighbors do not suspect them ataIl that they were laborers: it is thought that, aroundthem they. on the contrary, fulfil "proper" functions.Average or even high in a prestigious multinational, theyoung laborers are very much attractive in thematrimonial market.

Another phenomenon in which the utterancebetween knowledge and status is deceiving in a divertedway must be mentioned. A number of employees of theEuphard have one or even a number of pharmacies inTakpur. These are either approved or not by theenterprise, but in aIl cases, these pharmacies arerentable. In the one hand. this business is associated intheir minds as a professional specialization in which thebusiness will go on, while on the other, a UUe of "Gramdoctor" which many of the laborers now have. afterundergoing training programs financed by the Euphardfor the first group. Literally, the term "Gram doctor"means a village doctor, but this tiUe is recognized by theGovernment since the last few years as a diploma formedical competency and knowledge. This recognition


was given after the fight that the association started forthe "Gram doctors". The "Gram doctors" are many inBangladesh and usually have their doctor's chambers inthe rural areas. where they remain absent, as well as inthe urban areas where the visiting fees for the "MBBSdoctors" (medical degree holders) are quite high. At thebeginning. the idea of becoming a "Gram doctor" wasaccepted by the laborers of the Euphard from theiranxieties to assure an income after their retirement; inthe movement of national dynamics. this idea wasgradually transformed into a statutory demand. Thegeneral secretary of the trade union. himself a "Gramdoctor". and his wife is from a well-to-do entrepreneurfamily and has worked as an instructor before hermarriage. is also the vice-president of the nationalassociation for the "Gram doctors". He says that.considering that the "Gram doctors" are assimilable tothe bare footed Chinese and Russian doctors. he has satseveral times in negotiation tables of the Governmentalong with the profit swashbucklers of the multinationalsand the ministerial members of the commitee for DrugPolicy. He claims, for example. the same status as of thequalified doctors who obtain their degrees after several

years of university studies. That is, he maintains a socialdignity for the "Gram doctors". Consequently. the title of"Gram doctor" has sorne positive drawbacks on hisposition inside the locality which he has just reinforcedby raising the hierarchic scale of knowledge.

Anxious parents for the future of their children.ardent defenders of the schools of their o[[springs.pharmacists. and keen "Gram doctors". relentlessassociative leaders. our employees of the Euphard don'tgive a try for integrating themselves in Takpur on themodality of raproachment of the dominating localfractions to whom they try to afTirm their solidarity. Onthe field of residence. our leaders are somewhat wiser.They are making pace with their subordinates there.While they confront with the educated officers at thefactory- whom they inadvertently wish to dismiss andreplace- they. on the other hand at Takpur, havechanged their tactics by following the same goal for

122 Muliinational Company in Bangladesh

statutory ascent; "imitating the rich" could be theirslogan. as says one of them, the vice-president of thetrade union who is only a "senior skilled": "To maintainmy status, not to lower il, il is necessary that 1 behavelike the rich."

This consensual mimicry transmutes our passionateparticipants into singular confonnist in their localitywhere they are preoccupied to surmount a respectableand attentive place which will never surprise theirneighbors. An underlying discrimination which theemployees of the Euphard always doubt will easily leadthem to make something more than what can be caIled"the rich". whether they are "rich in knowledge" or "richin good mate rials". Their ampleness of properUes goesto one. two or three houses and sorne lands which theyhave succeeded to acquire aner twenty years of toil inthe factory. The outbidding is particularly exhibited inthe donations that are in vogue in Bangladesh among thepeople in the dominant class: they aim at reproducingthe conviction of a great generosity of the elltes in theminds of the less fortunate fraction of the society andthereby neutralize aIl competition for a social hierarchyof a monstrous economic inequallty. The employees ofthe Euphard will thus try to give "more" than their richneighbors in aIl occasions and there are always many aoccasions. The regular donations to the mosques in theform of food offered to religious persons. orexceptionaIly. during works. religious festivals .... are nodoubt the most ritualistic and the most susceptible tocreate respect of their initiator. There exists fourmosques. one of which has a madrasah (Quoranicschoo1) in Takpur now and the employees "give" toassure their social dutY in the eyes of others. Onen theyare two, three or even four. As in each of those mosques.sorne of the employees of the Euphard invest personaIly,it is true then that, there remains little chance of theabsence of donations goes unnoticed. Mohammed is inthe commiUee of the oldest of those mosques; thedeputy manager of the production department isdillgently engaged with the small and recent mosquewhich is situated in front of his house. The businessmen


of an adj acent market have participated much in theestablishment of this mosque. The doctor of the factoryconsecrates himself to the third mosque and themadrasah that is with the mosque. Three "dependents".laborers of the Euphard. have been placed in the lodgingof the fourth mosque by their corresponding "guardians".viz., Mohammed. Morsheed and a third man (as we havesaid, implicated in the affairs of drug pilferage and nowdismissedl. This shared care for the mosques does. inno way. as we have already underscored. correspond toa particularly developed piety. Majority of the employees- excepting the deputy manager of the productiondepartment who goes at times to the "Tabligh"32 mosqueat the center of Dhaka- are convinced but not pracUsingbelievers. They customarily follow the Friday prayer asweIl as the fasting of Ramadan like almost aIl theMuslims of Bangladesh. but their religious observancesdo not surpass their general practices. Onlya few of thelaborers are the disciples of a "pir". The mosque in thefactory was an enterprise of collective statutory dignity.The personal contributions to the mosques in Takpur.which are essential acts as elsewhere in Bangladesh. arein the construction of individual status of the employeesof the Euphard. Their sharp conscience is to be sociallyhandicapped because of their origin that pushes them tosubmit to a scrupulous orthodoxy of the social gestesthat encompasses the religion.

AlI opportunities to show their capacities of devotionto the "social cause" are. besides the donations and themosque. systematically grabbed by the employees of theEuphard at Takpur: they were seen feverishlyparticipating with the aid organizations and collectingfunds during the flood of 1988 and during this operationthey couId observe that sorne "very rich" inhabitants ofthe locality showed their Indifference to the mostunfortunate ones ... Costly gifts during the marriages ofthe colleagues or of the neighbors. and in aIl ceremonieswhere gifts are given. bear witness of the alignment oftheir behavior to them who are "on the upper crust" and

32. International lslamic Movcmcnt. See the following chapter.


with whom they strain to secure a lasting alliance.The conservation of the value of the locality ensures

the "security" and consequently, is vigilantly lookedafter. In fact, security in the big cities of Bangladesh isan obsession of the middle class who can not afford tobuy a car after paying 300% custom taxes and areobliged to move around in rickshaws or motorizedtri-cycles and are at the mercy of armed gangs. Theinsecurity in their minds affects the women in the firstplace. Minimum contact with them soils their honor.Similar is the case with the men. In Takpur, each canbe proud of the fact that the security is there and thatthe young girls can freely go to their schools on foot orcan move in small groups after their classes. Theemployees of the Euphard insist on the heavy subscrtption for the maintenance of security, sort of a priv"atemilitia ready to apprehend the dacoits (bandits) and tokeep watch on the road safety, specially from the dusk.

Tracing their attitudes on the models of theImmediate superior class in the midst of which they areexerttng themselves to become integrated as much aspossible- through the meetings of the associations, ofthe mosque committees and of the school committeeswhich are the favored places for the notables- theemployees of the Euphard consider, in their race forstatus. that they are not allowed to make the minimum"fault". Two families live in Takpur where they are theproprietors of their houses, one having a particularlyimposing allure. Two members of these families are thedismissed employees of the multinational (for stealingand reselling of the medicines). The distancemaintained with these two families is totally remarkable.These two families have seriously broken the norms ofhonesty which have sacrilized the imaginary exchangebetween the trade union and the Director-General. Theemployees of the Euphard wanted to choke and coverthis quite annoying deviance in Takpur. this comprtsed,it seems, sometimes even their wives. A discrete andgenuine ostracism thus surrounds these two families.One of the dismissed members is now in the USA andthe other has just retumed from that country.


Producing and confirrning a status. the bases ofwhich send back to a collectivity of job. is a task which isnot always easy. This is more prominent in theresidential area. The proximity of the colleagues- theyare the only one to know about the more or lesstortuous events that caused a sensational promotion- isawkward and even provoking: such a less confidence canbe absoluLe than the appurtenance to sorne opposingfactions in the factory and could eventually arouse themost deceitfulness in an instant in the locality itself. Wehave seen much in the factory as weIl as in the localitythat the men don't hesitate to make lawsuits in thecourt. The reservations that one has against the otherfamilies of the Euphard at Takpur. on this point of view.is striking. With the exception of the close links thatexists between Arshad and the general secretary of thetrade union- whose houses face one another and whosechildren as weIl as their mothers always socialize witheach other- the families seem to have reduced theirrelations to the minimum. The determination that makethe actors to integrate themselves in the society of theneighborhood induce them to look for. with priority.the company of their immediate neighbors rather thanthat of their colleagues. Consequently. following a similarobjective of assimilation. they are in statutorycompetition with one another; in this perspective. theincorporation to the residential collectivity is anindividual venture. different from the group logic whichis in vogue in the factory: this ascensional ventureinvolves detachment from their pairs to the profit of anengagement in the small circles contigu<3us to the moststabilizing rapport by the exteriority and the socialsuperiority which they adorn in the eyes of theemployees of the Euphard. Undoubtedly. one must lookinto the necessity of this logic of making distancebetween the families of the employees in a neighborhoodendowed with a superior image. the reasons for refusaIby the trade union of the offer made by the DirectorGeneral. about ten years ago. to finance a collectiveteaching besides the normal schooling for the childrenof the employees. The families preferred to pay


themselves individually for the particular courses ratherthan to be publicly regrouped through the interrnediaryof their children on the terrain of the residential area.

Let us come back to Mohammed to concretelyapprehend a relational type of strategy among those thatis offered to the employees of the Euphard. to make anattempt to transfer in a coherent way on the terrain ofthe residence. their status acquired under the veryparticular conditions of the factory. Since 1972.Mohammed is in the committee of the oldest mosque ofTakpur where the brother of the "King of Zingur"(cf.chapter III) is the "Motwali". that is to say. he is incharge of the properties of the mosque and is given up byhis family. Moharmned. like aIl members of this family. isvery close to this "Motwali". He did not hesitate to makethe anthropologist an unexpected visit to this family.

It is to remind that this family, through politics.economics and religion, continues to hold under itsdomination the population of this area, which bearswitness to the respect reserved for aIl the powerful.Mohammed and his wife have sorne intimacy with thisfamily which they maintain assiduously. Loyal to the twobrothers (the "Mot\yali" of the mosque and the "King ofZingur"l, Mohammed is maintaining essentialpolitico-religious relays with these two alliances which isalso assuring him an important prestige. Let us listen towhat is said about this family:

"They do nolhing, lhey have lands, sorne buildings,loi of money, sorne property (...) l am very close withlhis family since 1968. l left for India and other placeswilh my eider brother; lilis eider bralher is now a Hajji(il means lIwl he has made pilgrimage lo Mecca). Theydon'l have any profession as lhey are rich and everythinghere ,belongs lo lhem. They have an office room fortalking lo lhe people and for passing their lime. Theydiscuss lhere near the mosque. They also have a tenstorey building near lhe mosque which is rented oui lo abank and to a lexlile factory. They are also planning toslart a hote/. They are the Matbars, they have inheriledthese people for a long time. One day in 1968, a friend ofmine and l myselj have seen lhe eider brather ("King of

Integration inlo lhe rniddle class 127

Zingur"J. He was like a king ofjungle, he was black withrevolvers and black spectacles. We were afraid of him.We did not dare come in front of him. We wereintroduced to him later by someone. We became friends.l was the principal witness in his daughter's marriage.She calls me as the 'first witness" and that daughter nowhas a son, and for the birth of this son they have spentone lakh Takas (25,OOOFJ, they have arranged a bigfestival. They are very rich and all of them have revolversand cars. And me, l am poor compared to them".

Having a command of solid support of this family towhich he consecrates a boundless admiration,Mohammed is encircled in his mosque committee withother personages who are interesting to his eyesalthough less inclined on the concrete exercise oftyranny than the "King of Zingur"! Along withMohammed. two ex-police officiaIs. a retired colonel, anengineer working in the Nuclear Institute at Dhaka. anex-manager of a banking sector. a retired engineer. amid-level civil servant present in the school committeeand in the developmental association of Takpur. are incharge of the smooth running of the mosque. Theserespectable men. who consecrate themselves to the"religious affairs" in their social dimension. constitute asmall local elite class to which Mohammed amalgamateshimself through the intermediary of the mosquecommittee where he is holding a post. Commanding anexcellent reputation from every body. Mohammed seemsto be in perfect hannony with this microsociety whichhas accepted him as one of its own; he thus says withproudness: "Our children go to the same schools and tothe same universilies and we eam in the Euphard morethan the government employees, so l really don't haveany problem here..."

The vice-president of the trade union. a "seniorskilled' in the factory. offers another picture: the"politics" dominates his ascentional itinerary in aneconomic context which is less easier than that ofMohammed or of his other officer colleagues. Originatingfrom a family that has lost its lands due to erosion. Amin.about fortY five. having a robust figure and with a little bit


of inclination towards leftist politics, have inherited asort of "political passion": his father was an activist of aleft radical group during the Pakistani regime, and sincethe formation of the Awami League that proclaimed theindependence, he joined that party. Amin- who hasnamed his first son "revolution" born during the war- isdeeply involved in the universe of more or less distinctmicro-politics. After an iterrupted trade unionistcareer, where he occupied almost all the posts, hebecame the vice-president of the trade union in 1989.He represents the Awami League in the large area whereTakpur is situated. the trade union federation of thisparty and an association of the "resistant force"; in hisproper village he is the president of the local AwamiLeague.

Amin classes himself among the "poor" of theneighborhood and makes enorrnous psychological andfinancial efforts to join them whom he calls "the rich",all the way guarding the sentiment that to come to thesame status through the cUITent system is impossible."Not to be despised, not to lose my status, not to beplaced low" is almost an obsession with Amin. Hispolitical convictions have helped him to indulge in anesteem position in the neighborhood by obscuring therisks of his inferior economic situation. His variouspolitical activities have led him to participate in thecommittee of a non-governmental organization,financed by different foreign structures to set up adispensary and promote contraception. This dispensaryalways empty- is situated in Takpur where the moststrange rumors about its accounts are in circulation:diversion of the fund, prostitution, drug trafficking, etc.In the committee, along with Amin, there is an AwamiLeague leader, a woman activist civil servant who is alsoin the second "developmental association" of theneighborhood, the husband and the two brothers of thiswoman, and the son of a "dismissed" civil servant, Le..forgotten during a restructuring, and as such, withoutsalary for several years (his wife was a municipalcommissioner few years back). The three young personscited, aged between twenty [ive and thirty five years, are


very close: their families knew each other when theirfathers were working in Karachi: the father-in-law ofthe oldest one, brother of this woman, who is thedeputy director of an administrative service, also livesin the neighborhood and belongs to this old generationof the distinguished civil servants having excellentEnglish accent with perfect education.

Why to linger over this doubtful NGO where Aminbelongs is that the anthropologist met the members ofthe committee not at aIl casting a strange look on thefraudulent financial practices in which he is notinvolved? This pseudo "nursing center" making "thepoor" its target, an objective to which Amin adheres assincerely as a symbolic mode for statutory affirmation, isin fact, one of the hidden poles of the neighborhood: theharsh frontal ethics easily fit there to the daily politicaluses. Let us take up the story of three young persons tounderstand how, in Bangladesh, a "gang" is formedwhich, under circumstances fights as vocation againstthe henchmen of the family of the "King of Zingur", and,if necessity arises are also utilizable (that is to saypurchasable) by aIl, including Amin.

The three young persons are from respectableeducated families. Their mothers or the sisters areexceptionally active pro[essionally and / or politicaIly.Contrarily to their parents' aspirations and to a markedsocial destination. none of them has finished theireducation for various reasons: Afzal, son of the electedmunicipal commissioner and of the civil servant andviciously neglected by his executives- several newspaperarticles were published on his case- was a supporter ofthe students' wing of the Awami League. and was rapidlyforbidden after the death of the founder of the Nation,Sheikh Mujib; haunted by the police, the fugitive camedoser to Massoum whom he knew from his adolescence.Massoum, whose father is dead and mother is very old.was partly brought up like his young brother Milan,under the guidance of their eIder sister who holds animportant post in an administration. At the start,Massoum oriented himself to the difficuIt career of acinema actor; his wife. from whom he has a son, and


who lives about a hundred meters away from his house.in her retired brother-in-Iaw's place. has left for theUSA to take up her studies where she stayed back. Maybe because of professional and personal frustrations.Massoum became more and more attracted towards harddrugs and he dragged his young brother Milan andothers in this path.

Massoum. the oldest one. Milan and Afzal. in rupturefrom the models of their families- nevertheless.continue to inhabit in the families- and increasinglybecoming deviated. completely tumed themselves veryquickly towards "the politics" and have made it theirmode of lue as well as the source of income: they haverapidly formed a gang that has in its disposaI 200henchmen and are deciding to permanently counter theextortions of the "King of Zingur". This moral mission isnevertheless little lucrative and they lend themselves toa number of demands of one or the other political actorsof this area. Parallelly. according to a very habituaIthinking in the country. their families. afraid andfearful. try to their utmost to conceal from theirsUIToundings the common behavior of marginalizationand of the small banditism of their progenies. InTakpur. they are the wives of such families who areaccused of sheltering their sons and their brothers:working outside and no longer consecrating themselvesto their home. these women are to be held culpable. Inthis ethical-political logic. the NGO seems to be like asort of "global solution" in the neighborhood: bybecoming members of the dispensary committee and atthe same time remunerated employees. the three youngboys and sorne of their accomplices seemed to haveoffered the spectacle to their "families" and to theirneighbors of "tidying" themselves. In this perspective.the NGO is an enterprise for social rehabilitation andIntegration directed towards its own internaI partnersand initiated by a fraction of the upper middle classincapable of controlling its descendants. Besides. thisNGO being also in the hands of an Awami League leaderwho draws part of his funds from there. is allowing acompletely indispensable secret political breeding


ground by maintaining the three young persans whoseallegiance 1s only ta the Awami League. The leaders ofthe Euphard know that the gang of Massoum is alwaysavailable and "manipulatable" in aIl directions. As forAmin, misled in this tricky situation, where he couldhave nevertheless, "placed" three of his "kins" asemployees, he does not take aIl advantages from it,symbolic and real, ta which he counted on: even if noone suspects him of personal malversation, he ishowever, never pleased ta have been involved in asituation of this type the denunciation of which hasresulted in the retrenching of about fifteen employeesand held up of part of the external funds of the NGO.The scabrous gossips that are affecting the other part ofthe NGO, and which are linked ta the previouspresence of a director who seemed ta be very stronglyseducing and herself seductor, mistress of the husbandof the eIder sister of Massoum then of Afzal and ofothers, particularly disturbs Amin, who was thought tahave been approached by sorne representatives of themorally conformed educated upper class.

This more or less happy experience of Amin tryingta edify on the residential area the political signs of hisstatutory elevation, is on the other hand, representativeof socio-political field in which the actors move around:the "politics" in its different facets appears ta beunevading in the factory as in the neighborhood, in themeasure where he concretely participates in theedification of the social structures. Those "politics offorce" antinomic of the "politics of the ideas", areomnipresent and offer as a necessary, rapid butdangerous ascensional path. Mohammed and Amin eachhas shawn us his way of doing this.

The women generally constitute an exception inthese factional and professional residential "politics",although at the higher national level, the two oppositionparties are led by the women. How the wives of ouremployees at the Euphard, held outside the politics,participate in the social construction of their families?This is what we are going ta examine now.


CHAPTER VIII

Feminine Ethics of Conformity

The Bangladeshi society, like aH other societies but on aspecifie mode and may be more sharp, reserves a quitedifficult mission for the women: they are to publiclyrepresent the family status to which they belong by theirbehaviors and their vestimentary aspect. The familyrefers first to that of their fathers and then to that oftheir husbands, and this is more the less as a symbolicobject. By this statutory objectivism they simplyparticipate in the process of hierarchic construction ofthe society: the social class of their families is appraisedby the attention given to them. This heavy responsibilityaHows to understand that the women lend a particularattention to their appearance and chose with a greatattention, the exterior signs of status which they arecompelled to personify and for which the men are theonly legitimate producers.

This differential positions of the men and the womenin the production of the constitutive status of the societyimplies that there were inevitably the hiatus in theideas the two sexes have. status that they conjointlystrive to elaborate. These hiatus come out in thecontrasted and separated social places where the actorsare enclosed because of their sex. The employees of theEuphard and their wives at Takpur, like others, put intoscene a disjointed functioning: while the men talk, as wehave previously seen, to "imitate the rich", the womensay that "they do not mix with the rich". However, themen and the women understand each other to affirmtheir appurtenance to the middle class. But, the men.refuse a priori to limit the level of superiority of thesocial partners with whom they try to set up theircloseness. On the contrary, the women precisely drawthe borders of the social regions in which they considerthey can move around: "We. who belong to the middle

Feminine ethics of conformity 133

class (Modhya BittyaJ,we can not maintain our status. Wecan neither go up nor go down. We must follow therules, otherwise we are criticized", explains, forexample, the wife of Arshad. She cornes from a verywell-to-do family having many landed properties. Theseview points, most evidently have their sources in therestrictions that characterize the position of the womenin comparison to those of the men free to go in aBdirections in the public and political spheres. However,rather than to pin point on this banal dichotomy, let uslook precisely into the statutory logic of the women intwo concrete and intricate domains: that of the Purdah,that is to say the regulations for sexual segregation andthat of the dresses in which the relationship with the"rich" becomes explicit.

"Purdah" generaBy designates the principles ofreclusion of the women that enormously vary accordingta the social, regional. urban or village milieu. Theconservatism and the maximalist application of Purdahare not the appanage of a social strata now and it can befound ta be disseminated in aB social classes. In Gulshan,a smart neighborhood par excellence of Dhaka. it can beseen for example, a girls' school where the studentsmust caver themselves with Burqua: this school is acontradiction for the vestimentary choice inspired bythe Europeans of a portion of the elites who live in theneighborhood. The Purdah is, of course, stricter in thevillages where it is difficult to escape the very strongsocial inscriptions and the constraints which are inpractice there. The wives of the employees of theEuphard rarely observe the Purdah in Dhaka, that is tasay, for example, not ta come in front of the outsiders,or yet, put on a Burqua. a sort of long "apron" hiding thebody from the head ta the foot, while going out. On theother hand, a number of them have admitted that theyare obliged ta put on the Burqua in theirparents-in-Iaw's places in the villages: when theirparents-in-Iaw come ta visit them in Dhaka, they alsotake care not ta outrage them and adopt a behavior ofquasi-reclusion breaking away from their usual habits.Thus, before the father-in-Iaw, one of them keeps


herself away from going in front of the vegetable andfruit vendors who pass everyday in front of their houses,as if she always does it. Majority of them define thePurdah rather in an original manner, as an internaI andpersonal axiology and not as a series of obligations fixingthe behaviors objectively and externaIly: the Purdah willthus raise the individual conscience in front of God. andnot the immovable social norms as it has been dictatedby Gad. The practices and the conceptions of the wivesof the employees of the Euphard as regards the Purdahthen tend ta be rather flexible and advanced. Theyrespond ta it because of a certain "progressism" of theirhusbands. who, after having fought for their "rights",consecrate themselves ta establish the foundation oftheir status. This absence of rigidity can neverthelesslead ta make the wives pair with an entry into a womenTabligh group that meets once a week in theneighborhood. It is known that. the Tablighs, present aIlover the world. are a traditionalist organizationadvocating a fundamentaHst Islam ta the universalistvocation. In Takpur. about thirty women go ta theweekly sessions where quasi- transcendaI prayers andexplanations of the alternative religious texts arealternated. There. the return ta a draconian Purdah asweIl as the interdiction ta see television etc. arepreached. This however, does not at aIl refrain the wifeof the mid-Ievel officer in whose house the small groupmeets, ta see an American film in the VeR with herdaughter and sorne of her neighbors.

The wife of the president of the trade union, littlesuspected of fundamentalism. and whose very"modernist" husband likes to talk about Marx, also goesta the Tabligh with a simple scarf casually put on herhair; she is often accompanied by the wife of a "groupchief' of the Euphard and two of her doser neighbors.the prestigious positions of their husbands areunderscored: "professor" and "engineer".

What is the significance of this insertion into aTabligh group for the wives who are less indinedtowards puritanism and devotion than their husbands?

Let us point out in the first instance that this weIl

Feminine ethics of confonnity 135

frequented Tabligh group has been retained by thewomen in opposition to the rival tentative to formanother Tabligh group having political allegiance to theJamaat-i-Islami Party; this second Tabligh group couldassemble three to four women only among which werethe wife of an engineer of Atomic Energy Center, thedaughter of a University professor and her rnother. Thereligious and political integrism that the leaders of thisgroup hammer. calling for the death of Rushdie, for thedutY of the Muslims to the "Revolution" and for rallyingbehind the Jamaat-i-Islami Party. have kept the womenof the neighborhood alooL Among them the wives of theemployees of the Euphard are also included; thehusbands of those women are in general, extremelyfearful against aIl "political recoupment" of the regionand they themselves say it. They have kept watch ontheir wives against this group for whom Islam was apolitical alibi.

Let us revert to the first Tabligh group who, on theother hand, has a real success in Takpur: it attractspeople because it is bringing knuwledge to the womenwho had only a limited access lothe schoo1 poucatîon.This however. does not prejudges their social origin inthe measure where. among the Bengali Muslims.educating the girls came very late and is not alwaysperceived as necessary as for the boys; during the earliertirnes, only the Quoranic education was accepted for thegirls. Religion and "modern" knowledge are notdistinguished and are identified with "knowing" aboutwhich we have already underscored the symbolic andimaginary importance in the hierdrchir production ofthe society. The two wives of the employees of theEuphard, in their own ways, are thus folluwmg the socialascension of their husbands: by acceding to the"education" and to the verity by the de tour of theprofound apprehension of the Quoran. they are rising tothe level of the rniddle class "knowledgeable" whom theysurround: professors, engineers. etc. and they wouldexpect to become closer to them as their husbands.

There is thus, no difference. for example, betweenthe Tabligh, reserved for the women. and the trade


union, the masculine territory in the factory: the youngcouple of the president of the trade union of theEuphard shows a great coherence in the elaboration oftheir statutory promotion. Tenant of a weIl caredapartment which will show the taste of an educatedpetit-bourgeoisie. this couple is putting up Us aspirationfor "distinction" in aIl domains. On the contrary. the wifeof the general secretary of the trade union does not findany reason to go to the Tabligh: a fonner instructor.eldest daughter of a rich family having importantresources. this woman of a strong personality. who hastaught in different schools. thinks that she is capable ofinterpreting herself the Quoranic knowledge: she judgesthat she does not need any help. This is a way to affirmher education and her social status. The generalsecretary of the trade union is the only one among thelaborers or the ex-laborers tumed officers to have a car.This was offered by his brother-in-law. As Mohammedsays very ironically about him. this man "expends aIl hismoney to maintain his status". Doubly promoted by hisin-law family and his "political carrier" in the factory,the secretary-general of the trade union agrees with hiswife to consider that Tabligh is useless for them. Thoughhe continuously threatens his six to seven years' old son,who is very restless. that he will be forced to becomelaborer if he does not remain disciplined in the school.it appears however, that they are particularly obsessedby the education of his children and, in opposition to theconscious of sexist prejudices. he is grooming hisdaughter to become an aeroplane pilot. His wife, on herpart. strongly blames the in-law family of one of hersisters who live in London, practically enclosed in herapartment and never getting the pennission to followthe English language courses.

The religion, on the other hand. furnishes littleinstruction to the women for the tools to make atotalizing deciphering of the world and particularly thesocial hierarchies. The assiduous Tabligh women sharethe opinion which preferentially interests the middleclass. In this perception. two types of relationshipscould be read. one towards the up and the other


towards the down of the social scale.- By assimilating the Tabligh in the middle c1ass,

besides being symbolically integrating oneself so muchso as a speaker in this faction of the society. onesubsequenlly attaches in the first place, his dominationon the "poor" for whom the religious knowledge mustbe brought: in this way, sorne of the domestic servants ofthe neighborhood, residing in the huts, have beeninducted to the Tabligh.

- On the other hand, the social distance thatseparates the "rich" (Bodo loak) is being legitimized inreligious terms. The isolation, the houghty distancing,the refusaI to mix with common people. are in fact, themost current reproach which is addressed to thesuperior c1ass. Now, although the Tabligh does notplease the "rich", what those women ascertain. is thatthey are as "far from God" as "from the society and fromus": this is because of the fact that "the money has giventhem the paradise on the earth. they have forgottenGod and the human beings" or yet, "as they haveeducation and money. they don't have any need for theTabligh".

Compared to their husbands, the wives of theemployees of the Euphard in Takpur, in facto express arather very critical discussion on the "rich" from whomthey say that they are "cut off'. What reproach themwhile their husbands frequent people like the "King ofZingur"?

One women in the neighborhood is particularly thetarget of the satiric representations of the "rich"; herefforts towards her neighbors have failed, she is beingirreperably kept out and regrets it while her behavior isstigmatized as a typical arrogance of the "rich" by peoplearound her. This woman is known by the degree of herhusband, a C.A. This degree is very much valued inBangladesh and considered as a high level of study; thenthey add that her husband "works for X", who pretendsto be "the richest man of the country", who has bought,among others, several landed properties around Takpur.He is building apartments on those lands and are sellingthem; X has made many a donations to the schools and


to the mosques in Takpur. The wife of the C.A. is thussupposed to be very "rich": her big house and particularlythe cars parked in her garden gives testimony to it. Her"wealth". nevertheless, is a provocation, because she isassociated with a mode of education for the girls inTakpur which constitutes for the women of Takpur, whoclaim to belong to the middle class. a real aggression:the daughter of a high official, "the wife of the C.A." hasfour daughters whom she is raising with certainliberalism, parttcularly in the vestimentary domain.

In fact, a passerby can see on the veranda foursplendid young girls often attired in 'Western dresses",they also wear skirts and pants. This vestimentarymodernism is feared as a "liberty" which only the richcan aITord in the face of God in the one hand and in thesociety on the other. To belong to the middle class ortrying to belong to it, makes this type of libertyforbidden. This is only fundamental because it touches,one can say so, the symbolic attire of the status. Even themost candid of the wives of the employees of theEuphard totally disapprove the wearing of the bideshi(literally: foreign) dresses in which they guess theabolition of the rules of sexual segregation and adangerous mixing among the young men and young girls.They think that, such dresses, for them or for theirdaughters, will expose them to the vituperations of theirneighbors and loss of a fragile status which they mustmaintain.

In the neighborhood, the litUe girls up to theirpuberty are often dressed in frocks and skirts: in theirhouses, their mothers wear long dressing gowns: to goout, the women wear beautiful saris with attractivecolors whose innumerable make and texture areindicative of the price and thus of the status of theirfamily. A big vestimenÜlry conformity reigns in Takpur,to which the "daughters of the C.A." are no doubt theonly exceptions. The brothers or the brothers-in-Iaw ofthe employees of the Euphard, migrated to Germany orto England. often bring, as gifts, the "European" dressesfor the female members of the family; these are deftlyput away or given to the "poor" who will also transform

Feminine ethics of conformity 139

them, for not downgrading their status... It is out ofquestion to use them.

The wives are unfailing on the significance ofdresses. Their orthodoxy in this domain responds to theconstraints of a double statutory precariousness: that isto actualize. on the symbolic plan and in position ofdependence, an unachieved process of social ascent. Fora better understanding, their respect for theconventions must be confronted with the range ofattires which are being offered now-a-days to theBangladeshi women. A quick examination brings to lightthat, always comered between the national and ethnicidentity and the social status, the options are delicate solong as they are revealing.

* Though Sari is the most common and classic of thedresses [or the "poor" as weIl as for the "rich", though itis favored by city dwellers as weIl as the villagers for aIloccasions, yet it is not neutral: it can be denounced bysorne from the radical group as "Hindu".

* The "Salwar-Kamiz", trouser that is covered by along shirt is being more and more wom by young girls oryoung unmarried women of the middle and lower classin Dhaka and is considered inconvenient for marriedwomen with exception of the upper class. Placedin-between what will be the "modemity" in the negativesense and the "tradition", apparently always respected,the Salwar-Kamiz is very common in the University; it isconvenient then to adorn with a Dopatta, a very elegantand assorted with the Salwar-Kamiz muslin scarf,covering the bust. The Dopatta is a mark for Purdah; itis quite exceptional that a woman will not have aDopatta; the Salwar-Kamiz, although it is becomingincreasingly popular, except in the rural milieu and inthe lowest social class where it appears to be"revolutionary", has its ambiguity too: that would be a"Muslim" even an "Islamic" dress. but this will remindthe Pakistani domination over East Bengal.

* The Burqua would be the latest "mode" in Dhaka inthe proper sense. Markets overflow with nylon or cottonBurquas. A dress that aims at exhibiting the religiousbelief and austerity of the person who wears it. the

140 Multinational Company Ù1 Bangladesh

Burqua is often seen as a "hypocrisy"; in Takpur. thewives of the employees of the Euphard say in their ownway that "the outfit does not make the monk": it is notenough to be covered with a Burqua. one must have thesoul truly pure in front of God. The better of theTablighs would be the Burqua covering a Salwar-Kamiz,double guarantee in sorne sort of Islamism.

• As we have had a faint glimpse previously about it,the "modem", "western" or yet "bideshi" dress, skirts,or trousers and shirts. frocks showing the legs,stigmatize the license of the "rich", a very ambivalentemancipation with respect to the social nonns, and thatit is shared with the poorest, they are also free to reactas they hear it.

In this perspective, only the middle class womenwill be compelled to the vestimentary dogmatism,symptomatic of their uncertain place as regards thesocial possession of the material and immaterial wealth.The president of the trade union has thus recentlyoffered his wife a Salwar-Kamiz; the wife is refusing towear it because she says that her brother-in-law wholives with the couple is a Hajji (has performedpllgrimage to Mecca). This hermeneutic lady whoembraces the social differentiation appears to becharacteristic of the feminine visions, prisoners of thedomestic sphere that only attains the far reachingechoes of the society and of the religion. Let us notforget, in facto that the Bangladeshi mosques, ingeneral, have no reserved spaces for women as a resultof which they are forced to say their prayers alone intheir domiciles.

Parallely, the employees of the Euphard are brought,for the reasons of the fights to which they haveparticipated, to demonstrate as necessarily a greaterindependence of ideas as their wives; for example.Mohammed asks his wife to give up the Burqua whichshe liked to wear. It is usually the men who insist thattheir young wives continue their studies after themarriage; it is yet them, who will push their daughtersto continue higher studies. Seeing that the societychanges rapidly every day, and the social strata readjust


their model of momlity. they do not want to be late andbring to their homes the germs of transformation whichthe wives, having seen their confinement, would beincapable to dare to imagine even.

Permanently settIed in Takpur, the families of theemployees of the Euphard thus seem to be partIyspousing the changes in the social strata to which theyare attached. More inconsistent in Bangladesh than inthe neighboring lndia where it has considerably beendeveloped, the middle dass of Takpur brings together,as elsewhere, very heterogenous elements. In controlof the factory in 1971 by occupying the "abandonedhouses", the former laborers of the Euphard have. intwenty years, for the most "political" fraction amongthem and also the most capable with respect to socialpromotion, finally become little sure about themselves.Not ready to abandon their pharmacies and theirhouses, there are a few to seriously envisage a return totheir villages after their retirement. Being accustomedto a greater autonomy, their wives will also not desire itfor the fear that the doseness of the parents or theparents-in-Iaw will immediately destroy this autonomy.As for their children, not having intimately known arural life. they are not ready to go there even for a shortvisit. Education of the children makes the familiesobliged to stay back for yet longer time in Takpur. a fewhundred meters apart from each other, not caring fortheir personal successes or failures but for those of theirprogenies.


CHAPTER IX

Dhaka/New York/Dhaka: themisuflderstandings

"An American from New York came after the Liberation:he stayed for one year with the director sitting besidehim. This was an experience for him before his futuretraining in New York. Now, he has a very high post. Thisman was very unsophisticated, he was not accepted bythe laborers. The oificers, considered as a part of theadministration, could not voice their sentiments. Oneday, he visited the factory and found a laborer not to bein his working place, he told him: "You go there and infront of aH these persons you bow down and get uphundred times". This was quite insulting and was notcivilized eilher. No civilized person can do somethinglike that. As a result, the laborers obstructed him tocome to the factory ... Then, he had to rectify hisbehavior. After that, he has even played with the laborerson the sports day. He was not rough with the oificersbecause we do our work. Anyway, we used to keep thethings for us.

Former manager of the quality control laboratory."He (S.E., the American technicianJ was very tough andthe "tiger" was in the trade union. He wanted to oust the"tiger" from the trade union. But for us, we gave him apresentation, it was a white horse, because, for him tosay: "you can not do whatever you want to do here". Hewanted to weaken the trade union. For him the whitehorse, to say was: you are the white horse and you mustleave the factory. He wanted to come to our meetings ofthe trade union, which he said was not good and as aresult, he tried to avoid our demands, forced us to writeour demands and to resolve them one by one. Him, healways used to skip from one thing to another, that wasnot good. that has bumt us aH..."

The misunderstandings 143

Production officer. fonner laborer."We don't need foreigners in the factory (...) One daythere was a clash between him (the Americantechnician) and the "tiger .... Jahan Sahib (theDirector-General) was in Makkah. and he wanted tooust the "tiger". There was a working problem betweenthe "tiger" and A (the actual production manager). A wasin the development division. he had asked ajunior to dosomething precisely. Then. that junior complained tothe "tiger". then A was angry wilh the "tiger" and him(the American technician). he wanted to oust the "tiger".AH of us protested. we the laborers are against that. Wehave delayed the delivery of the letter which he wrote tomake il public. The "tiger" did not receive the letter.And when Jahan Saheb returned. he canceHed theletter. and him (the American technician). he could saynothing as he was under the orders of Jahan. WhenJahan retumed. I was at the airport and he oifered me acigarette. I refused. I was with him in the airportlounge. I told him that if he does not cancel the letter.we will stop working. AH the directors and also theAmerican were at the airport to welcome Jahan. But onlyone manger was at one with him (the American) to oust"the tiger". Had the ..tiger" been ousted. we would havegone for strike. But. Jahan did not accept to oust the"tiger". he has a big heart and he mixes with everybody.he talks to the people. he is so close to us... ft is notlike the foreigners. they do not want to go down. theystay with the oificers. Jahan. he always sils with us todecide with us... "

Mohammed, production officer, fonner laborer.He came to explain several hours before: "The tiger" andme. we had always been in different factions. I am theonly one to have faught with him and have won once".

These three descriptions point to the same man, anAmerican expatriate, sent to Dhaka after the war of 1971by the New York head office of the Euphard. Theincident for which he is implicated was grave enough toprovoke a strike in a context of exemplary hierarchiccommunication which has always excluded this solution.


Il indicates that the regular presence of the foreignexperts in the factory was not necessarily easier; it leadsto ask oneself on their absence for long times. This isthe sign of management model subtly thought by themultinational so that it will let the reader believe. bycertain aspects. the knowledge about the presentsituation of the factory and of the personality of thosemen. Or, on the contrary, does it indicate a progressive.pragmatic retreat and wanted by the Americanauthority? More globaIly. the social reality of the factoryat Dhaka calls on the observer on the nature of the linksthat it maintains with the New York head office.

Before replying to these questions, central for theInterpretations lof the social rapport at stake in theBangladeshi branch, we had to go to New York to meetthe concerned person of the Euphard responsible forthe "Asia" sector on whom depends the factory atDhaka. The analysis of their deliberations enjoins toacutely conceive how much. in a general way. theenterprise. because of the substantialization ofhierarchic places that characterizes as an organization.is producer of perceptions. the unfathomable differenceof which sends back to the diversity of the internaIpositions of the actors.

The interviews in New York allow to precise in thefirst place that the non-existence of the Americanexperts in the Dhaka branch does not respond toanything of a management ideology particular to themultinational which would chose under aIlcircumstances the control of the local delegation.American experts are present in a number of branchesof the Euphard in the third world countries. TheBangladeshi situation is thus specific: sorne mutual"incomprehension" would have surfaced. The way ofgiving orders to the natives would have been badlyreceived by the latter. Difficulties of the expatriates toadapt would also cause problems. Briefly. at New York, itseemed easier and more preferable in aIl points not tomaintain, by force and in a continuous manner, a foreignauthority in the country. This solution, nevertheless.could have been envisaged only because the Bangladeshi


Director-General has asserted himself to be capable.Jahan was found as an Ideal mediator by his Americancounterparts in this conjuncture of cultural distancewhich could have entrained unforgivable confusions fromhere and there. In New York. the "logic" of Jahan isunderscored. His rigorous "rationality" is astonishing tothem and this emerges as a faculty which is exceptionaland unexpected in this absurd and Incoherent culturaluniverse which is nothing but Bangladesh. His greathonesty will also come out as a rare quality in this part ofthe planet devoured by corruption and theft: at the headoffice of the Euphard. no one ceases to praise this manwho. although issued from a far off place consideredbackward and savage. knows to have. in an internationalmeeting. the same intellectual attire and has theappearance of a Western as weIl. In consequence. he hasgot the absolu te confidence to the point that it isquestioned who could replace him. and to cast doubt onthe personages whom Jahan has recommended as hissuccessors.

Sorne decisions of Jahan. however. remained almostImpenetrable. Thus. the promotion of the tradeunionists in 1982 seemed totally incongruous to thehead office of the Euphard. Although. in this domain. theelementary foundations of the consensus of the companyis hurt. yet the Bangladeshi director was allowed to do it.The "philosophy" of the Euphard as it is surnrnarized in afew words to the anthropologist. put into effect theemphasis in a very casual way on the individual. Theenterprise is only the organization for individual rapportwhere the personal face to face must be awarded. Theinstitution of the trade union is the exact antithesis ofthis philosophy because. the solicitation of the tradeunion is categorical and surpasses the sum of theindividualities. The eradication of the syndicatemembers. their disappearance is thus simultaneouslyIdeal and universal objective. The trade unionism. on theother hand. is the vanguard of a dangerous and "hateful"communism. The responsible for the Asia sector admitsthat he is not always at ease to harness himself in thisnoble mission; for example. a factory was set up at a two


hours' distance from Calcutta to avoid polittcalagitations, but without total success, the inflamed tradeunionists and the "communists" of Indian Bengal havingfound the means for pressing their demands.

On the light of these messages, ft seems clear thatthe idea of the New York people on the factory in Dhakais separated by a gulf of commonplace social relationsthat shape its objective scenery, In Dhaka, people areconscious about this gulf as it 1llustrates the confidentialreflections of the director personnel. During a very longinterview, the latter brought to the notice of theanthropologist what he presented as his convictions andalso his doubts. Satisfying the employees to theirmaximum, making them benefitted from the socialservices which is very rare in Bangladesh, would havebeen the major preoccupation of this man whounderscores: "The laborer and me, we go to the samehospital", Advocating the values of equality. he allowshimself to use the words and declare: "My enterprise issocialist", Nevertheless, during the investigation, heanxiously asked the anthropologist supposed to haveunderstood the universe of the factory. if she would notjudge that "we might have done too much for thelaborers". He left the Euphard and seemed reallytormented by the situation of the enterprise. explainingthat presently it will be impossible to "give so much tothe laborers",

We would leave the reader respond to this questionas he desires it or simply meditates on these talks.

The rapport that was fixed to the Bangladeshi branchof the multinational instead, accommodates theseprofound misappreciations and misunderstandings in arelatively better way. In fact, this rapport has twoessential links that assure its head office: in theempirical plan, according to aB possibilities, atransparency of the accounts and of the profits, Inanother level. the Bangladeshi Director-Generalconcentrates on his person a logic of totalizingcommunication from which one can now measure theextent of the efficiency. This is deployed in twodirections: downwards to Dhaka, he is the operator of a


symbolic exchange with his subordinates. upwards inNew York, he is the unique representative and isunapproachable for a transfer of ideas and wealthtowards which his critics think that he completelyadheres to. Thus. he poses as the central actor on whoman impossible dialogue crystallizes and because of whichinnumerable ruptures that stake out the distancebetween New York to Dhaka are found to be disposed off.He is the pivot and the motor of a structural continuitybetween two spaces which are irreparably divided by thealteration of the images of which they are mutually thepretext.


Conclusion

Through the pages. the reader has been dragged intothe adventure which is picturesque as weIl as paradoxalfor the branch of a big multinational in thisoverpopulated small country- situated in a corner of theearth- which is Bangladesh. Called to participate in theintimate feelings and in the profound ideas of the actorsof the enterprise, one can muse as to what significancecan be given, at the end. to the analyses proposed to thisvery singular example which is nothing but the factory atDhaka. It is important then to come back to sornecentral points which allow to replace. in a comparativeperspective. this enterprise in the midst of a largercontext. The branch studied certainly constitutes aspecifie case, in a very remarkable historie dimension.but. on the scientific plan U wouId be less fmUful tokeep it confined in this specificity. It will appearnotably perilous to try to make exotic subjects ofspectacular scene out of those employees: they do notconformly react to the expectation of an average Westerncitizen, but they are moved by a rationality that developsfrom their place as an employee of a multinational andfrom the very strong consciousness they have despUethe fact that this consciousness obeys a proper logic.

The factory at Dhaka is juridically a branch of one ofthe strongest groups of multinationals of the worldhaving different other industrial establishments inFrance. This factory is rather running weIl for more thanthe last twenty years and Us dynamic objective has notbecome the cause or has troubled in its course by majorpolitical events. Now. we have observed that ft was theplace of a clandestine trade unionist joint managementin opposition to the mIes of conduct preconceived bythe American head office. It is certain that the tradeunion of the Euphard is not "politicized" like those ofthe European trade unions, but ft is not either a "tradeunion house" in the sense that it is known in Europe

Conclusion 149

where instances on trade union exist that serve forrelays to the management. This is a tarde union of anenterprise possessing an autonomy of real strategy andan ideologic inspiration deeply anchored in the Bengaliconjuncture. This trade union is supported by a form of"class nationalism": it has started the social promotion ofa stratum of actors linking their statutory inferiority tothe hierarchy of the society, to the foreign dominationthat this society is submitted to. The hierarchic contestof 1971 follows two directions. confounded in thethoughts: for the labor leaders. it means not only toliberate the country from the Pakistani oppression. butalso. at the same time, to restrict their educatedcountrymen to reproduce an identical hierarchicstructure in the factory where they will substitute their"foreign" predecessors without transition.

Meanwhile, the intrinsic elitism of this trade unionis one of its important characteristics by which it differsfrom the trade union Ideals. The reader is accustomed toit: the menials are excluded from the trade union who,in this domain, are placed in continuity with the dividedcategory of the statutory segmentation present in thelocal society.

The absence of its Juridic representation in themanagement structure of the factory. on the other hand,prohibits the comparison of the trade union of theEuphard with the French or German realities of legaltrade union participation in the afIairs of the enterprise.The Bangladeshi trade union is exclusively orientedtowards the rights of the personnel of the relevant laborcategory: the joint management is thus. by a precariousdefinition, is in the hands of sorne particular men,enchained by their historie relations developed in thecadre of the independentist struggle.

On the other hand. this trade union reflects thefactional fights in vogue in the overall society: it is noteasy to free oneself from it and to initiate another type ofsocial movement which would become a driving force fortransformation. It remains a prisoner of the dominantform of political and economic rapport among thefactions in Bangladesh.


The preeminence of the national sentiment in theminds of the trade union leaders becomes apparentparticularly in the comprehensive attitude which theyshow vis-a-vis the Drug policy. While this politicalregulation attacks with full whip the multinationalenterprise where they work, the employees. because oftheir Irrepressible nationalism. overcome theconstraints of their service condition to foresee a biggerthought and which is not wtthout coherence: whywouldn't they foresee for them the control of medicines.the prescription of those which are useless and thatlimits the benefit of the multinationals from thecountries of North.

The trade union monopoly which was established inthe factory at Dhaka could, on the other hand. bejudiciously compared with the ascendancy of the CGT inFrance in the public or even in the privateestablishments. The conditions for the emergence ofsuch a trade union power might commonly have theperiods of political ruptures, following the war wherenationalism was crucial. France of 1945 and Bangladeshof 1971 see the social and/or socializing ambitionstriumph that offer to the dominant strata of the sqcietyan occasion to pull themselves up in their workingplaces to the vanguard of an economic and politicalmutation.

To summarize these different remarks. one mustconceive that the singularity of the enterprise studied inDhaka shows less of an opaque structural idiosyncrasyand of the unfathomable depths than of a specific figureof articulation of three central poles that traverse aIl thesocieties: the nationalism, the trade unionism and thepolitics are seen there conjoined according to a specificarrangement depending on the local conjuncture. In thisperspective. the example of Dhaka is as richer withteachings that it becomes closer to us by the categoricalreferences on which it sends us back to ourselves.

Thus. the factory of Dhaka can be confronted withJust cause to the Ideologies. now in vogue. of themanagement: this in fact. enunciates a totalizing and/ortotalitarian dream of transformation of the enterprise in

Conclusion 151

symbolic unity in which the ensemble of the partnerswill simply participate in a system of unique identicaland/ or identitary communication. Immersion of thereader in the Bangladeshi branch. contrarily shows theutopie character of such planifications. The collectiveimaginaries are not prepared, or yet, these are destinedto remain at the out of the realities on which theypretend to intervene. By penetrating into each of thefactions in the factory of Dhaka and by taking intoaccount its different links, it was possible to evaluate theweight of the heirarchic positions in the socialconstruction of the representations of the actors andthe edification of their logic of communication. ReversaIof the view point. the contrast perceptions opening onthe production of the microgroups instruct of thedifficulty of subordinating all the actors to a singleprocess of unification of the enterprise: the implicationsare always moving and also. by definition. exclusive. Thisis not at all contradictory with the setting up of aefficient hierarchic mode of communication as it hasbeen put to evidence in the factory at Dhaka. Thepassage from one continent to another increase thecomplexity of project of unification that traverses overall enterprises. Between New York and Dhaka. forexample, the cultural difference is immediately held notonly in its simplest [orm but also in the most heirarchicway to obscure the spirits and to avoid confrontation: inNew York, the "values" that the company will attain toimplant in the poor mentalities of the miserable Bengalilaborers are thus congratulated.

Economie matrix where the macro-politicaldeterminaUons are communicated. the enterprisethus. presents itself simultaneously as a place forsymbolic production so much so that it institutes thehierarchic structures. So, the attempts of the chiefs ofthe enterprise to vacate the "poliUcs" would be but anillusion. It is in this hierarchic and political confluencethat the enterprise interests the anthropologist. whoconcomitantly expects to ofTer to the latter another lookon its reality.

Finally, the validtty of the Western concepts of


management in the developing countries can be put todoubt in the light of such an example. The convincedwill of the Bangladeshi employees to see "their factory"succeeds and grows, their capacities of thought to dothe part of the things between the interests of themultinational and the economic and poliUcal necessitiesof their nation, their devotion to the "cause of theenterprise", show that they are the sure actors on whomthe chief of the enterprise could force himself and couldcount on.

Contrary to the imageries which consider that only astrong authority can govern these far off men of theSouth who should contribute everything, the reader hasapprehended through the principal personages of thisnationalist epic of a multinational, how many of theindividuaIs, deprived of very limited scholarly capital,could not only take in their hand their own destiny butalso that of the foreign enterprise.

Conclusion 153

ANNEXURE OFCHAPTER II

Terms and Conditions

1. GENERAL(a) Entering and abiding by this agreement for the period

stipulated there on;(b) Accepting the terms of this agreement in full and final

settlement of all the demands stated in the Charter ofDemands submiited to the Company;

(c) The Sangshad hereby accepts the terms andconditions of this settlement specified hereunder andundertakes from make no further demand havingfinancial implication from the Company during theoperative period of this Agreement.

2. RIGlITS AND RESPONSIBILITES(a) The parties recognise that the Managerial Functions

are vested in Management of the Company. Any benefitor privilege not expressly granted ln this agreementremain a prerogative to the Company.

(b) The Management recognlses the Sangshad (Union) asthe sole bargaining agent for the Unionised employeesof the Company.

3. SCOPE OF THE AGREEMENTThe agreement covers all permanent employees of theCompany except the Officers of all categories.

4. CONDITIONS OF SERVICE(a) When a worker reaches the maximum of hls/her grade.

he / she shall be transferred to the next higher gradeprovided there is a vacancy in the next higher gradeand the employees justifies his/her promotion.

(b) Annual Increment to each worker will be at least oneslab provided he or she. as the case my be. securesminimum 33% marks in the annual performancereview.

(c) The employees who will be on without pay during aparticular year the Management may stop or withheld


his Increment as per past pracUce. Increment shallnot be withheld or stopped without any proper reason.lt is to be communicate to the Union and the employeeconcemed without any delay.

(dl The Personnel Department will issue to eachDepartment a Prescribed Performance Review Formsin the month of September in each year which will bereturned duly filled in to the Personnel Departmentwithin the period notïfied from Ume to Ume. Theannual Increment will be considered on therecommendations of the Immediate supervisor.Increment letters issued to the employees will beeffective from December 1. Increment letters will beissued on or before 31st December without fail.

5. RETRENCHMENTNo retrerlchment shall be made unless and until itbecomes Inevitable. Before retrenchment the Managementwill noUCy the Union and the employees affected as far toadvance as possible. The retrenchment will be madeaccording to categories.The policy of "lAST IN FlAST OUT' within each sepal'ategrade at the time of retrenchment will be followed. Butretrenched employees shaH be appointed in the samegrade and pay if in future vacancies exist in the samegrade.

6. APPOINTMENT AND PROMOTIONThe law provides for the discreUonary powers of theManagement for any appointment or promotion to fill anyvacancy in higher grade or post. Nevertheless, both theparties agree to set a convention by giving preference tothe existing employee to fiH in such vacancy in highergrade or post provided. he/she. as to case may he, is fullyqualified or otherwise eligible. Besides at the time ofappointment of any employees the relative or dependent ofthe unionised employee will be given preference. Afterselection. the candidate will be subjected to screening andmedical examinaUon. When the candidate has successfullypassed through the Medical Test, an appointment letterwill be issued to hlm/her and he/she will be madepermanent on completion of performance review reportsubmitted by the department.

Annexure 155

7. IAYOFFThe Management may. at any time, in the event of fire.catastrophic breakdown of machinery or stoppage orshortage of power supply or raw materials or accumulationof stock or any other cause beyond its control stop anysection or sections or the establishment. wholly orpartially, for any period or periods without notice. But theCompany will pay the afTected the Basic Salary along withall the assistance and allowance granted in terms of moneyby this agreement and. if any. granted from time to time.by the Government during this period of stoppage and theperiod of LAY OFF. No leave will be deducted during thisperiod of stoppage and this LAY OFF.

8. RE-ARRANGEMENT OF ADHOC OF TAKA 500/- (TAKAFIVE HUNDRED)Ad-hoc of Taka 500/ - (Taka five hundred) only will beadded with the existing Ad-hoc of Taka 75/- (Taka seventyfive) only effective 1st December. 1982.

9. Effective 1st December. 1983 the Ad-hoc will berearranged in the following manner:(a) Taka 100/- (Taka one hundred) only will be added

with individual basic salary as of 1-12-83.(b) This addition of Taka 100/- (Taka one hundred) only

will not call for any slab adjustment.(c) The existing minimum House Rent of Taka 225/

(Taka two hundred twenty five) only effective 1stDecember, 1983.

(d) The Ad-hoc of Taka 575/- (Taka five hundred seventyfive) only will stand at Taka 450/- (Taka four hundredfifty) only efTective 1st December. 1983.

All other terms and conditions will however remainunchanged.

10. BASIC SAIARYThe Company agree to increase the Basle Salary ofindividuals of different grades according to the detailsgiven below with efTect from 1st December. 1984.

For individual employee drawing basic salary betweenBASIC SAIARY RANGE PERCENTAGETaka 250 - 500 25Taka 501 - 750 23


Taka 751 - 1000 21Taka 1001 - 1250 21Taka 1251 - 1500 20Taka 1501 - 1750 20Taka 1751 - 2000 18Taka 2001 - 2250 18Taka 2251 - 2500 15Taka 2501 - 2750 15Taka 2751 - above 12

Adjustment of the individual basic salaI)' in the Pay Scale givenbelow will be made if required upto half slab. This adjustmentbenefit will be awarded only if the individual basic salaryexceeds at least by one taka from the nearest lower slab.

PAYSCIAEGRADEIGarden Helper, Dish Washer, A/H Attendant, Cleaner. ServiceMan. Jr. Laboratory Attendant. Loader & Unloader.250-17 -335-23-450-31-605-42-815-57-1100

GRADE IISteward, Cook Helper. Sr. Cleaner. Gardener. Watchman. Jr.Peon. Sr. Loader and Unloader.270-19-365-25-490-34-660-46-890-62-1200

GRADE IIICook. Workshop Helper, Utility Helper, Sr. Lab. Attendant.Peon, Head Loader and Unloader, Unskilled Worker. Sr.Watchman. Sr. Steward.295-21-400-27-535-37-720-50-970-68-1310

GRADE IVSalesman. Jr. g.C. Assistant. Driver. Semi Skilled Worker.355-25-430-33-645-45-870-60-1170-82-1580

GRADE VTime Keeper. Jr. Telephone Operator. g.C.Assistant. Asstt.g.C.lnspector. Sundry Clerk, Head Cleaner. Head Gardener, Jr.Compounder. Sr. Peon.400-28-540-38-730-51-985-69-1330-93-1795

GRADE VICompounder. Sr. Driver, Sr. Salesman. Asstt. Welder. Asstt.Turner. Asstt. Electrlcian. Asstt. A.C. Operator, Asstt.

Annexure 157

Technlclan, Canteen Supervisor, Skilled Worker, ChiefStewed, Head Cook, Head Watchman.490-34-660-46-890-62-1200-84-1620-113- 2185

GRADE VIIJr. Assistant of aU Departments, Sr. Telephone Operator, Asstt.Security-In-Charge, Jr.Telephone Operator-cum-Receptionist.Petty Cashier, Typist, Sr. Compounder, Sr. Canteen Supervisor,Head Driver g.C. Inspector, Sr. Q.C. Assistant.515-36-695-48-935-65-1260-88-1700-119-2295

GRADE VIIITurner, Welder, Electrician, Boller, Attendant. A.C. Operator,Carpenter, Sr. Skilled Worker/Operator, Head Compounder.540-38-730-51-985-69-1330-93-1795-125-2420

GRADE IXTeam Leaders, Security-in-Charge. Canteen-in-Charge, Sr.Q.C.Inspector, Transport-in-Charge.600-42-810-57-1095-77-1480-104-2000-140-2700

GRADE XMechanic, Sr. Turner, Sr. Welder, Sr. Boiler, Attendant, Sr.Electrician, Sr. Carpenter, Sr. A. C. Operator, Sr. TelephoneOperator-cum-Receptionist.625-44-845-59-1140-80-1540-108-2080-146-2810

GRADE XISr. Asstt., Sr. Cashier, Store Keeper, Warehouse Keeper.675-47-910-64-1230-86-1660-116-2240-157-3025

GRADE XIIElectrlcal Foreman, Mechanical Foreman, Utility Foreman,Section-in-Charges / Supervisors.780-55-1055-75-1425-100-1925-135-2600-182-3510

Movements to new grades/deslgnations will not be automatic.Will be effective only through promotion/Increment letters.

Il. HOUSE RENTThe Company will pay 60% of basic salary as House Rentper month with effect from lst December, 1984 subject toa minimum of Taka 400/- (Taka four hundred) only and amaximum of Taka 2000/- (Taka two thousand) only permonth.


12. CONVEYANCEThe Company will pay conveyance of Taka 350/- (Takathree hundred fifty) only per month with effect from IstDecember. 1984.

13. ADHOCThe Company will pay Taka 350/- (Taka three hundredfifty) only per month as Ad-hoc.

14. SECTION ALLOWANCEThe Company will pay Taka 125/- (Taka one hundredtwenty five) only per month to the workers who faB underthe following categories with effect from Ist December.1984.(a) AB Workers of Production Department other than

those described in (a) below.(b) R. M. Store and Workers of Store who handle

hazardous materials (as defined in Manual).(c) Animal House Attendant.(d) Worker of other department who works in the area of

Production Department.(e) The production workers working in the foBowing

hazardous area will however be paid Taka 150/- Cfakaone hundred fifty) only per month as Area Allowanceeffective Ist December. 1984 :-

1. Sterile Area (Manufacturing only)li. Capsule/Tablet (Manufacturing only)Iii. Dry Syrup (Manufacturing only)Iv. Washing

In case of (b), (d) and (e) prior approval of Divisional Headswill be required to entitle themselves to the payment of thisaBowance. The Management preserves the right to effectinter-sectionai transfers.

15.0VERTIME RATEThe overtime rate will be calculated as foBows :(a) Double the rate of his/her basic salary for working

overtime other them festival and declared holidays.(b) For festival and declared holidays 6 (six) time of the

normal hourly rate.(c) RATE OF OVERTIME hour calculation

ANNUAL BASIC SALARY

ANNUAL WORKING HOUSE

Annexure 159

MONTI-ILY BASIC SALARY----------x 2

170 HOURSOVERTIME shaH be calculated on an hourly basis, part of anhour of overtime shall be counted as under :

(1) 10 to 30 minutes - as half an hour(2) 31 to 60 minutes - as one hour(d) MEALALLOWANCEThe meal aHowance of Taka 12/- (Taka twelve) only shaHbe paid to the employee who works overtime for 3 (three)hours or more than 3 (three) hours on any day and whowill work overtime 7 (seven) hours or more than 7 (seven)hours in a day shall be paid Taka 18/- (Taka eighteen) only.

16. BONUSEffective from Company's fiscal year commencing from 1stDecember, 1984, the Company agrees to pay 6 (six)average basic salary per annum as bonus to its aIlpermanent employees.

17. PAYMENT OF BONUS(a) Bonus will be paid to all permanent staff without fail onor before 31st December each year.(b) The company also agrees that Bonus will be paid before

two EID Festivals in two equal instaHments.(c) An Employee who has completed at least 6 (six)~~~~~~s~ce~~~~~~~

full payment of Bonus.(d) An employee who has not completed 6 (six) months of

service will receive payment of Bonus on prorate basis.

18. LUNCH(a) Lunch will be provided to aIl permanent staff at

subsidized rate of Taka 0.30 per Lunch. It is alsoagreed that if the Company fails to provide lunch to thepermanent staff Taka 22/- (Taka twenty two) only willpaid by the Company to each worker for each day ofattendance effective 1st December, 1984.

(b) Free snacks service will remain unchanged as perprevious practice.

(c) Persons who are advised by the Medical Officer not totake lunch in the canteen, will be paid Taka 22/- (Takatwenty two) only per day of attendance effective 1stDecember, 1984.


19. EVENING SNACKS(a) The Company agrees to provide snacks free of cost to

empIoyees who will he on overtime aCter 5 p.m. at Ieastfor three hours or more in line with past practice.

(b) If the Company fails to provide evening snacks to allpermanent staff, then Taka 5/- (Taka fIve) only will bepaid per head per evening in addition to overtimemeals allowance.

20. SHIFTING ALLOWANCE(a) The Company has agreed to pay Taka 16 (Taka sixteen)

only per head per day of attendance on evening shiftduty.

(b) If the Company chooses nat be provide canteenfacilities for the new shift Taka 25/ - (Taka twenty five)only per day of attendance will be paid to each worker.

(c) The staff put on shift duty will get the same transportfacility as provided to other unionised employees of thePlant.If the Management fails to provide transport forevening shift staff. then the actual conveyance incurredto reach to the point from where he is picked up willhe paid by the Company.

(d) It is agreed that shifting duty other than normalworking hours will not he more than 3 (eight) hours inaday.

(e) Any change in the timing of shifts can he effected onlyaCter agreement between Management and KarmachariSangshad.

(f) As far as practicable all efforts will be made not to putany employee on evening shift continuously for morethan two weeks.

21. PROVIDENT FUND(a) The Company agrees that the rate of employees

contribution to the Provident Fund shall continue to be1/12 of his basic salary every month and the Company'scontribution to the fund in respect of each employeeshall be equal to the employees contribution to theftmd.

(b) On completion of 5 years service the contribution ofthe employee and that of the company will increase to10% of the basic salary.

(c) Company's contribution will only be paid aCter

Annexure 161

contlnuous service of 3 years. A copy of the rules andregulations of the provident fund scheme will be madeavailable to aH eligible members as early as possible.

(d) The trustees of the Provident Fund will consist ofthree members from the Management and twomembers from the Sangshad (Union).

(e) The Trustees of the Provident Fund will intimate to aUthe employees. the balance of their account withinthree month's from the date of closing the fiscal yearof the Company.

22. GRATUIlY(a) The Company agrees to pay Gratuity to the permanent

male/female employees upon completion of 7 (seven)years continuous and confirmed service at the rate ofone month's last drawn basic salary.

(b) The term of Basic Salary as used means the BasicSalary last drawn by the worker at the Ume ofseparation from the Company's employment.

(c) In the event of death or total disablement of a workerbefore completion of 12 years of service, the Companyagrees to pay upto a maximum of sic basic salaries inaddition to the gratuity that will he payable.

(d) In the event of the death of a worker who is entitled topayment of gratuity. the gratuity will be paid to thelegal hair/hairs or to the nominee of the deceasedworker.

(e) The gratuity will be paid at the time of final settlementof individual account whether on voluntary retirement,resignation, termination of services, death of disabilitywhatsoever.

23. OUTSTATION ALLOWANCEThe Company agrees to pay this aUowance at the rate ofTaka 75/- (Taka seventy five) only per day per hand. Inaddition Taka 0.50 per mile will be paid if the employeeavails of the Company's transports and Taka 0.80 per mileif the employee travels by public transports with effectfrom Ist December, 1984. Mileage will be paid for going toand coming back from the destination.

24. OFFICIAllNG ALLOWANCEThe Company agrees to pay Taka 150/- (Taka one hundredfifty) only per month per hand as officiating allowance.


The allowance will be paId under the followlng terrns andconditions:(a) No body will be allowed to set the benefit unless by

works for at least 15 (flfteen) days contlnuously.(b) This allowance will be payable if any unionised

employee officiants against either a Section-in-Chargeoran Officer.

(c) Written prior approval of Divisional Heads will berequired.

25. CASH DEALING ALLOWANCEThe employees who are dealing with cash in and outsidethe office will be entitled to draw a sum of Taka 150/(Taka one hundred flfty) only per month as cash dealingallowance.The following employees will get cash dealing allowancewlth written pIior approval of their divisional heads.(a) Cashier(b) Counter Cashier(c) Van Delivery Driver(d) Purchasing Clerk(e) Company's Cash HandlerThose who handie Company's cash of a minimum Taka300/- (Taka three hundred) only per day.

26. MEDICAL FACILITIES(a) The Company agrees to continue through its Medical

Department or Company's appointed MedicalPractltioners, medical facilitles to the dependents ofthe employee i.e. husband or wife and dependentchlldren.

(b) Hospitalization will be made on the advice of theMedical Officer dependlng on the nature of illness.

(c) Vaccination, inoculation or similar preventivemeasures against epidemics etc. will be provided bythe Company to aIl employees and their dependents.

(d) The outcome of medical bills will be communicatedwithin seven days from the date of submission to theCompany.

(e) Taxi or Baby Taxi fare will be paid to the patient forattending medical centre, hospital, specialist etc. orthe Company's transport will be provided to them forattending medical centre, hospital, specialist etc. IfCompany's transport is provided, the Conveyance

Annexure 163

Allowance will not be paid.(0 ln case of emergency patient is allowed to go to any

doc for immediate treatment and Company's transportwill be provided for all kinds of emergency patient. ifVan is available.

(g) products will be supplied from the Depots or PlantDispensary when employees produce the prescriptionof a retaince doctor of the Company.

(h) One Vitamin product will be supplied to all unionisedpeople every month.

(i) The optical bill for spectacles upto Taka 600/- (Takasix hundred) only is allowed.

27. lNSURANCE(a) The Company agrees to insure each unionised

employee for Taka 50.000/- (Taka fifty thousand) onlyagainst accidentai risk or death at working place oroutside during the tenure of service.

(b) lnsurance premium to be paid fully by the Company.(c) The employees (unionised stam who are dealing with

cash should be provided with indemnity insurance to amaximum of Taka 60. 000/ - (Taka sixty thousand) only.Ths amount is inclusive of Taka 50.000/- (Taka fiftythousand) only under insurance (2) above.The following employees will be included in theindemnity scheme:-1. Ali van delivery driver/employees2. Al cashiers3. Ali counter cashiers4. Ali purchase clerks

(d) ln case of death, the claims by the legal heir/nomineeof his/her will be settled by the Company. fromCompany's fund and the Company will not defer thepayment if the Iegal heir/nominee authorities thecompany to receive the final payment from theinsurance company concerned.

(e) AccidentaI death/death of any employee. while comingto and from the duty will be treated as on duty.

28. SHARE HOLDING FAClLllYThe Company agrees to extend the facility for holdingshare with the Company if the Iaw of the land provides it infuture and if this is made mandatory.


29. LEAVEThe Company will grant the following leave to theconfirmed members of the Sangshad:-1. Casual Leave 10 days a year2. Slck Leave 21 days a year3. Special Sick Leave 90 days wlth full pay

30. ACCIDENT LEAVEThe Company agrees that an employee meeting with anaccident in connection wlth Company's work will beprovided with full salary and with other facilities untilcomplete recovery.

31. PRIVILEGE LEAVE1. 14 days for each completed year but only first two

years.2. 21 days aCter 3 years of continuers service.3. 30 days aCter 5 years of service.4. Accumulation is allowed upto a maximum of 120 days

only.5. Encasernent is allowed but a minimum balance of 15

days must be kepl. Encasernent will be paid on grosssalary.

32. LEAVE INCENTIVE OF SICK LEAVE AND CASUAL LEAVE(a) Employees who do not avail more than 5 days leave

during the year (excluding privllege leave) will be paidone month's present salary.

(b) Employees who avail more than 5 days but upto 25days leave during the year (excluding privilege leave)wlll he paid at the rate of present cross salary againstthe balance Casual/Sick leave to their credit during theyear.

33. UNIFORMSThe Company agrees to provide class uniforms to theemployees whose nature of dutY warrant il.

34. RAMZAN TIMINGRarnzan timing will he as follows :SundaytoWednesday - 6 1/2 X 4 =26 hours

Thursday - 5 x 1 = 5 hours31 hours

Annexure 165

35. EDUCATION BENEFIT OF DEPENDENTSIt will remain unchanged.

36. RECREATION ALLOWANCE(a) One month's gross salaty will he paid to aIl pennanent

unionised employees after every 3 years. The firstpayment was made on Ist July 1980, next on Ist July1983 and subsequent payments will be made afterevery three years.

(b) Employees who do not faIl under category (a) abovewill be paid Recreation Allowance as and when theycomplete three years of service and subsequentpayments will be made after every three years.

'37. COMPENSATIONAIl types of Compensation s will be settled wi thin 15(fifteen) days from the date of receipt of the application.

38. SHOESCompany agrees to provide one pair of shoes to aIlunionised employees.

39. RAlN COATSRain Coats will be provided to aIl cooks, peons. drivers,watchman/Night Guards and Deliverymen of the Company.

40. GAZE1TED HOLIDAYS(a) Holidays declared by Government will be observed as

closed holidays;(b) Gazetted holiday(s) falling on workers' rest days Le. at

present Saturday(s), will be substituted by proceedingof following day(s) preferred by the Sangshad;

(c) If a gazetted holiday falls on Friday and Governmentsubstitutes the same with any other day. the Companywill observe the day as holiday;

41. NOMINATIONThe Company agrees the following :(a) An employee will be entitled to name his nominee or

nominees and distribute the amounts standing in hiscredit in Provident Fund, Gratuity, Profit Sharing Insurance and other benefits and salaries amongst his nominee/ nominees at his own discretion and the same willbe paid to him/her/them accordingly after his death.


(b) An employee will be entitled to cancel the nominationmade by him earller and to nomlnate any other personor persons to recelve the amounts standing ln hlscredit Is any fund ln the event of hls death and directthat the said amount will be distrtbuted to the personor persons nominated according to hls directions.

(c) A nomination and Its modification will take effect fromthe date on whlch It Is recelved by the Company.

42. MUTIJAL CONSULTATION BEFORE TAKING DECISIONThe Company agrees to arrive at its decision afterconsultation with the Sangshad for the transfer ofSangshad office bearers and executive members.appointment of retalner doctors and submission of chargesheets.

43. MATERNI1Y BENEFITThe Company agrees that matemlty benefit will he ln forceaccording to the provisions of the "BENGAL MATERNI1YACT. 1939" and as amendments are made by theGovernment under notification from time to time wlthImmediate effect.

44. MEDICAL CHECK-UPThe Company agrees that complete medical check-up ofworkers will be conducted periodlcally at least once in ayear.

45. EXISTING FACILI1YThe Company will not curtail or withdraw or disturb anyfacility not covered by this agreement.

46. CONTINUATION OF SERVICEThe Company agrees that the services of those employeeswho have been working in this Organisation from the Pakistanperiod will be counted as continuation of their services.Laboratories (Bangladesh) Limited. for the Pakistaniperiods. Provident Fund and Gratuity will also be pald tothe employees at the time of thelr separation fromLaboratorles (Bangladesh) Limited accordlng to thecontinuation of their services. Company will issue aletter/ certiflcate to the Indivldual employee for thelrcontinuation of their service including Pakistan period onor before 30th May. 1981.

Annexure 167

47. ESSENTIAL ENGAGEMENTSThe following engagements shall be treated as on putY ifpermission is obtained from respective Divisional Heads.(a) Attending Union masting or any body caHed by the

Sangshad for natlonal/Sangshad's interest.(b) Attending joint meetings of the Sangshad and the

Management.(c) Attending courts, labour office, Registered Trade

Union. Police Office, Income Tax Office with priorpermission through General Secretary of theSangshad.

48. INCOME TAX(a) Company agrees that Income Tax of aH unionised staff

who receive salary/wages for which income tax ispayable will be paid by the Company every year.

(b) The payment shaH be limited to maximum Taka3000/- (Taka three thousand) only per unionised staffper fiscal year of Govemment Income Tax. Any incometax payable in excess of this amount shaH be paid bythe employee concemed.

49. RECREATION FACILITIESRemain unchanged as per previous contract.

50. PRAYER PIACERemain unchanged as per previous contract.

51. REFRIGERATORRemain unchanged as per previous contract.

52. LIBRARYBooks will be procured gradually.


S. M. Imamul Huq is a Professor ofDhaka University. He is a part-timeteacher of French language in theInstitute of Modem Languages of Dhakauniversity.

rcns Publications1. Anisuzzaman, Creativity, Reality

and Identity.

2. Burhanuddin Khan Jahangir, TheQuest ofZainul Abedin.

. 3. Brigitte Erler,Sahajya naMaronastra (Bengali Translationfrom German).

4. A. F. Salahuddin Ahmed, BengaliNationalism and the Emergence ofBangladesh.

5. Willem Van Schendel (cd.), DakkhinPurba Banglay Francis Buchanan(1798), (Bengali Translation from

.English).

Cover Design: Hashem Khan. Price: Tk. 180.00

the experience of a multinational company in bangladesh

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