Two stories, one from Bangladesh and another from Indonesia. In both places, family needs meant that garment factory work was the best option from a very young age, despite other dreams and talents. Confronting the realities of exploitation and abuse in those workplaces brought profound realisations of collective possibilities, and also of personal strengths. Links and contacts Griffith Review: griffithreview.com Matthew Abud (producer): tasi-sound@proton.me Clean Clothes Campaign: cleanclothes.org Patch Pheasant (bass player): patrickpheasant@yahoo.com.au Transcript Kalpona Akter (KP): My name is Kalpona Akter. I am from Bangladesh. So, we, you know, we were like kind of middle-class family. So my life would be going to school, playing with siblings, playing with friends. Uh, it's like all focusing on my study and also helping my mum with the household work as I was the eldest in the family. So, my life was easy like other, other child. So the life basically, clearly changed when I was like 11-ish. So 11, little plus, when my dad got ill, he got a stroke, and he was the primary earner in the family. So, my mum first started working in the factory. She left two months infant at home. And she couldn't continue more than six months because of, you know, baby got ill and mum got ill as well. So then it was me who started working in the factory. Mum said, it is time. Because we had a little discussion on it, two of us, and I understood. It's like, you know, I suddenly got older, and I understood what she said. It was tough being a child in the factory. My first day in the factory was like absolute, absolutely a cultural shock. I haven't seen that many people together. And I never heard that big sound together that was, you know, coming from the machines in the production floor. I haven't heard that adult screaming on the adults and verbally abusing them. So all those was like very, very new to me. You know, as a, as a person, I'm always being strong inside. So, I didn't cry. But I felt really sad, seeing the situation. It was hard, and very first day, I stood up like 14 hours to 16 hours. So I get off from the factory like 10:30 p.m. and it was tough. I was stood up in my feet for whole day. So, I would be working over 450 hours or over 400 hours and making only $6 a month. I could see my school playground from my factory rooftop. So during lunch break, we were able to go there, and that was like one big pain that I got like every day, seeing my friends are playing in the playground and I was in the factory. Mbak Titin (MB): So, I stayed home. Just me and my second older sibling, who was two years above me in the same school. That was it. Only the two of us at home. We cooked together, we ate together. We were two small children, cooking by themselves in their house. On the way home from school, we'd gather dry straw from the rice fields. Then later, when there was no rain, when there was drought, we'd sell it. Then when I passed middle school, I was inspired by a midwife in my village. She had a clinic and went around in a car. And it can bring honour to the family. So, I told my parents and also my older sibling, who was working in Malaysia at that time, that I wanted to go to nursing school. Then I and two others enrolled in the nursing school in Jepara town. My marks were high enough to enrol me. But I was too short for their criteria. They said that if I paid $200, I could study in that school. My parents and my older sibling wanted to get that money any way possible. But I thought about my parents' financial situation. It was really poor. So, if I insisted on going to school, they'd get in a lot of debt. So against their own wishes, I said, I wasn't interested any more in studying. I decided that, also because I was offered a job at a factory called Nikomas Gemilang in Serang City. I started there, hoping that I could earn some money to help support my family. I didn't want my father to have to migrate any more looking for work. I wanted him to enjoy his old age together with my mother. I'd be able to install a well so my mother could have water. I could pay to connect electricity to the house. I could pay for a proper toilet. Those kind of things. Matthew Abud, Producer (MA): We're sharing stories from several different garment workers, including in languages other than English, performed by voice actors. Can you introduce yourself and who's story you're presenting? Sekar Sari (SS): Hello, my name is Sekar. I'm performing as Titin from Indonesia. I think Mbak Titin is someone who has so many layers of identities. She was an entrepreneur who sell some clothes from door to door, and she did so many things. She never stops, like, standing up again for herself and other people she loves. KA: Two years after my work, I was like barely 14 years old, we went for a strike in our factory. We were like 1800 workers. So, it was two days back and forth. After that, we won the strike. And then we went for, you know, three days' Eid vacation. When we came back, they started firing the workers, those was the, those was in the front line. And seven days, we haven't heard from them. And after seven days, they came back and they were telling me and my co-workers that, You know, we sued the factory owner. I was like, what? How we can even sue these factory owners because they're so powerful, and they have money. And they said, we did it. There is a organization helping the workers to do that. On top of that, we learned the law that protect us. And I was like, wow. I couldn't even connect. And they say, then they said that, you know, there is a labour law training and we feel you should come. So I went there and it was like four hours long class, which is completely changed my life. The first time I heard that I'm a worker, apart from human or any anything that my management call me, like stupid, idiot, sometime like even whore, or anything. So apart from that, you know, I'm a worker. And my work shift is should be eight hours. I should paid double for my overtime. There is a minimum wage, there is a, you know, the supervisor cannot slap on me for a minor mistake. There is a leave, you know, sick leave or I should not work during my weekend. And something beautiful I learned that I have right to organize, I have right to bargain. I was like, wow. Wow. I consider this a second born for me. So in the following morning, I went to the factory and it was like, you know, butterfly in my stomach. I really wanted to share this with my co-worker. And you know, I was like started whispering them, you know, I learned these and they were like, wait. Wait till lunch break. So during lunch break, we went to outside of the factory and couple of us we were discussing these. It is, you know, mixed group like child, adolescent, and elders. And when I share with them, this is what I learned, and this is what we can do. And everyone was like, let's do it. So this is how the organizing began in my life. MB: I first got involved in union work in 2018. Why? Back then, I saw that there were colleagues who had been working for 25 years, some of them for 20 years, some for 30 years. But when their jobs ended, they didn't get the entitlements that they were owed from all that time. They only got about $1,500. Back then, there was one woman. She had a disability. We were in the bathroom, and she suddenly started crying, and hugged me. She said, "Tin, I've been fired, with this tiny severance pay." She was crying. I was crying. I knew that she suffered domestic violence from her husband at home. She also wasn't able to give enough attention to her child because of work. I couldn't sleep for two days, because I was thinking about what happened to her. I was confused. This person had told me her troubles, but I couldn't do anything about it. At that point, a friend of mine, called Sofia, she invited us to unionize. She said, we can't stay like this, Tin. If we do, later we'll just go through exactly the same thing. So, 15 of us gathered at my place and we decided we'd unionize. But we didn't want to go public. It was just, if something happened then, if we needed to, we'd work together. But the more time passed, the more we suffered. Even though we'd come together like a union, the verbal abuse continued. Extortion in the workplace continued. Then a colleague of mine became pregnant and she was fired. She was told to resign. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. Whenever someone became pregnant, they were told to resign. I couldn't stand it any longer. That afternoon, when I left work, I went to the union office of the FSBPI. I said, I'm ready to formalize our union and go public. KA: I think in 2010, the government has de-registered our organization registration. They frozen our bank account. In the same year, I got arrested with my two of co-worker. We were supporting workers' voice to increase the minimum wage and they, the government and manufacturers, they found our voice critical, so they fabricated, you know, they brought fabricated charges against us. It was it was 14 different criminal charge were being facing. I was in the prison for month and you know, has been severely or mentally tortured in the, in the police custody. Like it was really painful. Even it is like 2 a.m. in the morning, they would call me and interrogate, like asking same question million times. And it was so disrespectful as a human. It was so ugly. It was so inhuman. It was like I'm from 18th century when people will be thinking others as a slave. And you know, every time the security intelligence would be like tapping our phones, go trying going through our emails, visiting our centres, harassing us. And I think other was like losing my co-worker, Aminul Islam, in back 2012, who has been disappeared and his body has been found 100 km away from the place he disappeared. Aminul was one of the amazing organizer in ou
