Kalpona Akter is the Executive Director of the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity (BCWS), one of Bangladesh’s most prominent labor rights advocacy organizations. She started working in the garment industry when she was 12 years old, earning $6 a month. As a teenager she was fired and blacklisted for attempting to form a union in her factory. Today Kalpona is an internationally-recognized labor rights advocate and has traveled widely to speak about the deplorable conditions that Bangladeshi garment workers face every day. She has been interviewed extensively by international media, particularly following the Tazreen Fashions fire and the Rana Plaza building collapse. Kalpona is a featured narrator in "Invisible Hands: Voices from the Global Economy" (Voice of Witness, May 2014). BCWS is regarded by the international labor rights movement and by multinational apparel companies as among the most effective grassroots labor organizations in the country. Levi Strauss & Co. calls BCWS “a globally respected labor rights organization, which has played a vital role in documenting and working to remedy labor violations in the apparel industry in Bangladesh.”

 

Maritza Vargas was born in Manzanillo, Dominican Republic in 1965. She worked 26 years in a free trade zone as a sewing machine operator. She entered the labor movement in 2001, and was shortly selected to join the negotiating committee of the Union of Workers of the BJ&B Company. Later she was elected Secretary of Conflicts, a position she held for two years. Since then, Maritza remains actively involved in various activities related to trade unionism. After BJ&B Company fired her she became a full-time organizer in the FEDOTRAZONAS (Dominican Federation of Workers of Free Trade Zones, Diverse Industries, and Services). She was elected Secretary of Women in 2003 and later Secretary of Finances. In 2004, Maritza also became a member of the Department of Gender Equality of the CNUS (National Confederation for Union Unity) and member of the Network Against Trafficking of Migrant Workers. In 2008, Maritza formed the Union of Workers of the company Gildan in Bayaguana (SITRAGILDAN). In February 2010, she was hired as a sewing machine operator in Alta Gracia Project Company. Three months later, the Steering Committee of the Workers Union at the Alta Gracia Project (SITRALPRO) formed. Currently, she is serving her second term as the democratically elected Secretary General of SITRALPRO, which is currently preparing for re-negotiating its collective bargaining agreement with management in order to seek improved working conditions.