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Recent Unrest in the Rmg Sector of Bangladesh: Is This an Outcome of Poor Labour Practices?

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International Journal of Business and Management

Vol. 7, No. 3; February 2012

Recent Unrest in the RMG Sector of Bangladesh: Is this an Outcome of Poor Labour Practices?
Chowdhury Golam Hossan (Corresponding author) Assistant Professor of Management College of Business Administrations, Abu Dhabi University Abu Dhabi, UAE Tel: 972-501-5710 E-mail: Chowdhury.Hossan@adu.ac.ae

Md. Atiqur Rahman Sarker (Lecturer) Department of Business Administration, East West University 43 Mohakhali, Dhaka 1212, Bangladesh Tel: 88-017-4427-0243 E-mail: mars@ewubd.edu

Rumana Afroze (Lecturer) Department of Business Administration, East West University 43 Mohakhali, Dhaka 1212, Bangladesh Tel: 880-181-888-3767 Received: July 2, 2011 doi:10.5539/ijbm.v7n3p206 Abstract The RMG sector of Bangladesh has experienced disputes and violent protest by the workers in recent times. This study explores the reasons for recent unrest in the garment sector. Since managers are mainly responsible for applying human resource practices, this paper has given particular attention to their views on recent attitude changes of workers. Results show that mutual understanding among workers and managers is absent in the RMG sector. This study also states that high-work load, poor behaviour of line managers, low skills and low wage rates are the notable reasons for high job turnover and social unrest. Poor relationship between workers and supervisors is the main source of conflict. This study finds that there is growing demand for work life balance among the workers of RMG sector. Keywords: Bangladesh, Readymade garment sector, Labour management, Labour dispute, HRM 1. Introduction In the age of knowledge economy and changing business environment, achieving competitive advantages and superior employee performance require proper Human Resource Management (HRM) (Becker & Huselid

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