Garment workers’ unions in Bangladesh have rejected an increase in the minimum wage, describing it as a ‘cruel joke’ and a ‘slap on the face,’ with hundreds of workers protesting in the streets in Dhaka last Friday. Turning down the minimum wage of Tk 8,000 as fixed by the government, the garment workers’ unions are demanding it is raised to Tk16,000.
The current minimum wage of 5,300 taka ($63) per month was set in 2013.
There has been no rise in the minimum wage since 2013, when the Rana Plaza factory collapse resulted in the deaths of 1,136 garments workers. Bangladesh is the largest exporter of ready made garment (RMG) products, after China.
The sector employs over 40 million workers, mostly women, and contributes to more than 80% of Bangladesh’s export earnings. Marching under the banner of ‘Garments Workers’ Trade Union Centre’, a platform of RMG workers, staged a sit-in in front of the National Press Club around 11.30am last Friday to press home their demand.
‘Setting the minimum wage at Tk 8,000 for RMG workers is unjust and illogical,’ said Joli Talukder, the general secretary of the union. Mohammed Raisul Islam Khan, field coordinator for the IndustriALL Global Union, said: ‘The new wages announced are not enough for workers to live a decent life.
‘Workers were demanding 16,000 takas (Tk). They are not happy and many organisations are talking about an indefinite strike if the wages are not reconsidered.’ Bangladesh garment workers are among the worst-paid in the world, a compensation report released by the Fair Labour Association (FLA) in April stated.
Overtime income amounts to 20 per cent of their salary, it said, and half the workers put in more than 60 hours a week despite the impact on their health. ‘We can’t accept this salary. It is an injustice and inhuman. It is cheating the workers,’ Jolly Talukder, a top union leader, said of the proposal to increase it to just 8,000 taka.
Talukder’s union is one of three that staged protests in Dhaka on Friday and she said that more are planned to demand a wage of at least 16,000 taka Another union leader Babul Akter said almost all unions, except pro-government groups, have rejected the new wage set after months of negotiations.
Bangladesh’s 4,500 factories shipped $30 billion worth of goods, accounting for more than 80 per cent of the country’s exports last year. Top European and North American retailers such as H&M, Tesco, Gap and Walmart are the main buyers.
The retailers have set up two organisations to push through reforms in Bangladesh factories after the Rana Plaza disaster. But Bangladeshi manufacturers say many retailers have not increased the price they pay for clothes, which keeps factory wages down.
Bangladesh unions have been staging protests for higher salaries for years.
In December 2016, one of their largest protests was brutally ended by police, with hundreds of workers and union activists detained and charged with violence while more than 1,500 workers were sacked. The US-based Fair Labour Association monitoring group said in a report in April that Bangladesh garment workers earned lower wages than any other major garment exporting country and rely on excessive overtime to survive.
Apparel sector trade union leaders on Friday criticised the workers’ representative to the wage board for accepting Tk 8,000 as the minimum wage for ready made garment workers without any consultation with the sector people. The labour leaders said that the workers’ representative failed to protect the interest of the workers as she was not the real representative of the sector.
Workers’ representative Shamsunnahar Bhuiyan said that she agreed with the minimum wage as prime minister Sheikh Hasina had proposed the amount and requested the representatives of the factory owners and the workers to accept it. ‘It is a stage-managed wage board and the government has set the minimum wage as per the will of the factory owners,’ Garment Worker Trade Union Centre executive president Kazi Ruhul Amin.
‘The workers representative is not a real representative of garment sector workers, rather the government appointed her violating the labour law and rules,’ he said. IndustriALL Bangladesh Council secretary general Salauddin Shapon said that the workers’ representative failed to protect the workers’ interest.
Shamsunnahar Bhuiyan was not selected by the trade unions, rather she was appointed by the government and she never discussed with the sector leaders about the minimum wage, he said. Bangladesh Garment and Industrial Workers Federation president Babul Akter said, ‘We the trade union leaders of RMG sector are not happy with the minimum wage at Tk 8,000.
‘The workers’ representative to the wage board is happy with the amount as she does not represent the sector. ‘Before or after her appointment as workers representative to the wage board she never discussed with the sector leaders about the minimum wage.’
Former IndustriALL Bangladesh Council secretary general Towhidur Rahman said that Shamsunnahar was appointed workers’ representative on political consideration and she was not a RMG sector representative. ‘We cannot expect that such a representative, who never represents the sector, will protect the interest of workers,’ he said.
In January, the government formed the minimum wage board to review the wages for apparel workers, appointing Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association president Siddiqur Rahman and Jatiya Shramik League women affairs secretary Shamsunnahar Bhuiyan as the representative of owners and workers respectively to the wage board.
Labour leaders dismissed the appointment of the workers’ representative, saying that the government had violated the labour rules as it did not appoint workers’ representative to the wage board from the highest-represented workers’ federation. Garments Sramik Adhikar Andolan, a platform of 12 garment workers’ organisations, on Friday declared that they would go for strike and other tougher programmes in October if the government fails to declare new minimum wage structure for garment workers by September.
The platform coordinator, Mahbubur Rahman Ismail, made declaration at a national convention of garment workers on minimum wage at the National Press Club in Dhaka.
Speakers at the convention placed their arguments to justify why the gross wage of garment workers should not go below Tk 16,000 a month. They also discussed possible ways to realise their demand.
Mahbubur Rahman demanded the government set minimum gross wage of Tk 16,000 for garment workers. He also demanded a democratic labour law for the workers.
Dhaka University emeritus professor Serajul Islam Choudhury inaugurated the convention where senior unionists, political leaders, rights activists and academics spoke.
Moshrefa Mishu, president of the Garment Workers’ Unity Forum, complained that the garment workers were facing detention and torture by law enforcing agencies and local goons for demanding wage increase. She declared that they would observe tougher demonstration and strikes if the government did not declare Tk 16,000 as minimum wage by September. ‘If workers take to the streets once they will not return home without achieving their demand,’ she said.
Communist Party of Bangladesh president Mujahidul Islam Selim asked the government to declare the wage by next week. Jahangirnagar University economics professor and member secretary of the National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources, Power and Ports Anu Muhummad said workers were leading a slavery life. Workers should start a movement to be true ‘workers’, said the professor.
About the movement for minimum wage, he said the success of the movement would depend on the unity of the workers and on the power of the movement.
