Automation, monitoring of the Surveillance Laborers at Bangladesh factory

The young woman is quickly sewn a piece of gray gray and gives it to the line of creating one of the largest factories in Dhaka. She looked impatient to the woman before her, as she was ready to work faster and passed to the next piece.

On top of his sewing machine, a screen burns with a red warning. She just made seven pieces so far, it was shown. His target for the day was 101. As he progressed, the color of the screen was transformed into orange, and then, if he had hit the target, green. If he’s staying always, he’ll be fired.

Tablet-sized screen about a device connected to the Internet called “You eat“Short for” no lazy. “Sensors keep track of some pieces of men sewing at an hour, and how many minutes.

Nidle is one of the newly adopted devices in Bangladesh’s main factories fall into the “Smart Manufacturing Category.” It includes perfect robotic devices and partial automatic machines that require some human guidance. The factories provide brands such as H & M and Zara, which depends on bringing clothes with profits quickly, before a fancy die.

Having machines are driving to work in person meant to solve a critical problem facing the bangladesh cloth sector: the rise of a country with a cheap content of it.

“Increased, workers lacked a country like Bangladesh, where the workers were increasing. So the workers asked more,” Khondaker Gelam Moazzem, research director for Dhaka’s policy, told Stick to the world. “There is an inclination, either to some extent, to use machines to replace workers.”

Smart technology repaired productivity and wages, and made the main factory of Bangladesh the most famous competition around the world, told factory owners and their industry associations Rest in the world. After installing nidle and semi-automatic machines in team-owned factories, a Bangladeshi conglomerate allowing brands with H & M And prophecy, production increases up to 10%, according to Abdulla Hil Rakib, director management. Machines can do tasks like attaching buttons or pockets with little human effort.

“Automatic system helps identify bottlenecks, allowing us to use the same worker for better production,” he said. “As my production rate develops due to automation, I can afford better pay.”

But workers, union representatives, and academics speak Rest in the world That salary increases due to worker protests, and no smarter factory. Automation has cost jobs, especially by women, union leaders. Only 57% of clothes workers 2023 women, from 85% of 1991. Semi-automatic machines require workers to match the speed of machines, increasing stress, they say.

“Using such devices creates an unbalance between automatic machine and human workforce,” Secretary-General in Group Group Bangladesh clothing and told Rest in the world.

About 3 million Bangladesh clothing workers sew mainly t-shirts, pants, and other low-value cloths, feeds on $ 1.7 trillion fast fashion industry last year. The sector is the key economy in Bangladesh, and contributes 77% of the country’s $ 50 billion in the country last year, according to Bangladesh Promotion Bureau.

In increasing competition from other countries that produce children such as Vietnam and Cambodia, the main factories in Bangladesh pass through automation. A 2023 survey In 20 factories of Dhaka by Shimmy Technologies, an industrial edskills clothing workers, found 80% of them plan to buy semi-automatic machines.

“If we can’t carry automation, competitors will win the market,” Ayoz Aziz, General Manager in Shimmy, told Rest in the world.

Each machine can replace between one and six workers, and the largest surveyed factory is looking forward to cutting 22% of their workers. Workers and factories speak operators Rest in the world Job cuts have become.

It comes in a time when the workers in Dhaka clothing protesters low wages and poor working conditions. The political crisis of last year that carries government deposition also closed 92 factories, according to Assicades Association and Assters Association and Assters Association.

One morning in January, Fourdory FLOG 4A YARN Dyeing LTD. Outside Dhaka full of hum Hum of 800 machines. There is an increase in action, but no one is talking because of a rule of silence. Sixteen assembly lines make a colorful summer color for Tommy Hilfiger.

Mahmudur Rahman, factory manager, told Rest in the world The production lines originated with 58 machines to 48 with automation. Some workers move up to three machines at a time, he said.

Sewing machines, Nidle made, created by group group, intelligent. It is monitored how smooth workers complete the tasks, and when they are healing.

A 35-year-old factory worker, requested anonymously to protect his job, told Rest in the world His target has increased by 75% after installing NIDLE in 2022. The device collected in real-time time, supervisors allowed to determine slow workers. No more shouts the floor on the floor to develop output and in turn uses the data to ramp up pressure, the worker says.

He stopped using the bathroom to continue, he said.

“Every worker is given more than they can. There is always pressure, we feel that we are cursing a stove,” said the laborer.

Although his job increases, his income remains static to November 2023, when the government raises minimum wage in the clothing sector at 12,500 taka ($ 66). Worker unions in clothing that states even below, and demands 23,000 wonder ($ 190) per month.

About a 10-minute walk from the factory, a 24-year-old worker lives with her husband, mother, and 3-year-old son in a room. The woman, who asked not to introduce the protection of her job, told Rest in the world He has a gastritis and doesn’t have to skip foods. But he was always going to work hungry, he said.

“Even if I’m hungry, I avoid eating to keep on target. The device in front of me (Nidle) is urging concern, always makes me worry about the target,” as the worker. After a week of skipping the meals recently, his illness boarded and sent him home free, he said.

The woman typically works from 8 am to 5 pm, and then overtime up to 8 pms for higher salaries. It is the only way his family can conclude, he said. Almost 28% of his monthly income in 16,000 wonder ($ 131) comes from overtime.

Once back home, usually don’t have time to find out how to operate automatic machines – something that workers can do with man.

“Men’s worker gets a better opportunity to be trained outside the factory at their leisure time or weekend,” as Center for Center Dialogue said. “(The girls) should rush home to cook and take care of their children. … There is a discrimination effect on the automation that we see very clearly.”

Leading international brands prefer smart friorties, according to Kazi Ehtesham Shahid, Deputy General Manager of Urri information, UNIQLO, and Marks and Spencs. Urmi factories also, have intelligent devices and semi-automatic machines.

“Buyers are more pleased when they see such automation in place,” Shahid told Rest in the world. Car working hours while developing production, carrying better margins for Urmi, he said.

“The rate given by buyers (fashion brands) is not enough,” he said. “We must conduct within it, so we intend to increase productivity as possible while reducing strength.

Government officers Anwars Sossain, also the administrator of Bangladesh manufacturers of Glalakes and Ass Exporters, said automation can increase profits.

“It is not true that automation increases workload for workers,” he said Rest in the world. While automated factories are attracted to many orders, workers have many opportunities for income, he says.

Workers support automation if its benefits share them, Kalpona Akter, president of Nonprofit Bangladesh Center for unity of workers, told Stick to the world. But that didn’t happen before, he said.

“We want the use of technology, but should be a worker friendly, not exploitative,” Akter said. “The brands or factories allowing this to happen, knowing the truth, should question their business model.”