Multinational Enterprises: India and Bangladesh

Running Head: MNE’S 0
International and Comparative HRM and ER

MNE’S 1
Multinational enterprises: India and Bangladesh
It is true that multinational enterprises are known for paying higher pay rate as
compare to the domestic firms. However, the MNE’s from India and Bangladesh are
violating many laws by providing bad working conditions and low pay. Several cases are
seen where the female workers has been abused in the workplace for not working overtime.
Even after starting the several laws in India and Bangladesh, garment and other factories are
breaching the law. In spite of the trade unions, workers right are not protecting properly
(Amin, Diamond, Naved & Newby, 2018). The discussion is also carried on the employment
relation and human resource management practices that are violated by the multinational
enterprises. The literature has been supported by providing the examples form Bangladesh
factories.
Multinational enterprise is defined as the firm that control as well as own the
production facilities in two or more than two countries. The multinational enterprise
distributes as well as produces the goods or services across the national boundaries. In the
recent time, thousands of multinational enterprises are violating the rights of workers
(Rashid, Ahmad & Sarkar, 2014. Moreover, all these multinational corporations are likely to
bring the more jobs and best practices for workers. They also tend to pay more than the
domestic firms do. It is found in a report that the multinationals from foreign pay around 40%
more than the average wages. In order to reduce the worker turnover and monitoring cost,
they tend to offer the higher pay (Yawar, & Seuring, 2017).
In the recent time, it is found that garment factories of Bangladesh are paying low
wages and bad working conditions to their workers. Moreover, female exploitation has been
seen in the Bangladesh Ready Made garment (Haque & Azmat, 2015). The female workers of
Bangladesh suffer the physical and economic abuse due to their low status in the factory. As
per the wage structure, an entry-level worker should be paid around US$95 per month.
However, various factories are paying only US$ 68. This wage structure is the lowest all
across the world as per the survey report. Bangladesh is the second biggest exporter of the
readymade garments across globe by earning around US$27 billion every year by exporting
to EU and US (koh, H & Shah, V). Child labour is the strongest factor in the success of
Bangladesh apparel sector. However, due to the awakening of the working class, it is true that
low wages will not be tolerated for the longer time (Hesketh, Gamlin, Ong & Camacho,

MNE’S 2
2012). After knowing that manufacturer of garment only spends their 12% revenue on the
wages, it is necessary to take the strict action (Obe, 2018). “Section 195” of the Bangladesh
Labour act also states the various unfair labour practices that should not be undertaken by the
factories. The interview conducted in Dhaka also underlines the various abusive practices that
come under this law. Most of the female workers have also stated that they faced the threats
as well as insults of the sexual nature (Dhaka Tribunal, 2019).
Low wages are not only the issue that is seen in the Bangladesh. Overall bad working
condition is also one such issue. Productivity also seems to be low. Due to the poor
infrastructure, several incidents have also occurred in the 2012 and 2013. The inadequate
infrastructure has led to the death of around 200 workers at the Tasreen garment factory in
the year 2012. In this incident, around 1134 persons died in the Rana Plaza disaster in the
year 2013 (Lattemann, Fetscherin, Alon, Li & Schneider, 2019). Several surveys has also
been done that states that around 70% garment workers complained that they do not have
saving. The several women workers are also facing the several health related complications
due to the stringent rules, unsafe factory condition, absence of the maternity leave, and
regular overtime working with the long working hours. Moreover, workers are informed at
the last moment that they have to work extra hours. If they do not get ready to work for extra
hours, they are threatened by verbal abuse as well as penalties.
As per the Section 201 of the Bangladeshi labour law, workers are only supposed to
work for eight hours. Garment workers are also required to work for extra hours on regular
basis for meeting the production targets as per factory owners (Dhaka Tribunal, 2019).
Research also shows that about 80% of the women workers leave the factory between 8 pm to
10 pm (Tasnim, Rahman, Rahman & Islam, 2016). The worst part of doing overtime job is
that still women workers remain unpaid. Owners of factory also cut their overtime payment
when they want it. Several factory owners do not tend to follow the Bangladesh law of 2006
that protects the right of maternity leave. Several women workers also forced to leave the job
after giving job. It is because they believe that women cannot work at the previous grade
(Naved et al, 2018).
Thousands of the workers in Bangladesh has staged the discrimination in Dhaka. Almost
all the new unions have rejected the new wages. The one of the biggest garment producer,
Bangladesh has shipped around $30 billion worth of the goods in the 4500 factories including
Walmart, H & M, Tesco and Gap. They also employed around 40 million workers including