This iconic photo is from a sweatshop worker’s strike in Dhaka, Bangladesh in June 2010. Police used tear gas, truncheons, & water cannons against mostly women & child workers demanding back pay & an immediate increase in monthly wages. At that time, garment workers had no minimum wage standard & were paid below the World Bank poverty standard of $1.25 a day–when they were paid. In US dollars they received $21.45 a month; in Bangladesh taka that is 1662.50 & in Euros about €17. No matter which currency you use it all comes out to chump change.

There had been labor conflict for several weeks prior to this strike but on this day workers erected barricades, pelted cops with rocks, & attacked cars. Police described the fighting as the worst yet seen & may explain why riot cops now show up at labor protests with rubber bullets. They might want to brace themselves for the labor tsunami erupting among sweatshop workers in Bangladesh & elsewhere.

This photo is posted for those apologists who want to let the Bangladesh government off the hook for it’s culpability protecting sweatshop manufacturing. May the struggles of sweatshop workers around the world inspire us in the historic task of socially transforming labor & ridding this beautiful planet of all exploitation. May these child workers of Dhaka lead the way in ending the abomination of child labor.

(Photo by Munir Uz Zaman/AFP/Getty Images)