Bangladesh garment workers reject minimum wage proposal – union leader
Forbes
DHAKA (XFN-ASIA) – Bangladesh garment workers have rejected a proposed new monthly minimum wage of 1,604 taka, a labor union leader said.
‘It’s far lower than our expectations. We hoped the commission would think about the cost of living in the country before fixing this absurd minimum wage,’ said garment labor union leader, Nazma Akhter.
‘We shall not accept this minimum wage. We want the minimum wage to be at least 2,000 taka or else we will have no option but to launch protests on the streets to realize our demands,’ Akhter said
Rioting workers set fire to 16 factories and ransacked hundreds of others in May. The workers went back to work in mid-June after employers promised to set a new minimum wage.
But employee representatives today dismissed the new wage of 1,604 taka following an announcement late yesterday by the government’s National Wage Commission.
Jafrul Hasan, a member of the Commission, said the new minimum wage had taken into account the cost of living and the ability of employers to pay.
‘The ground realities are that if you raise the minimum wage to a higher level, many of the garment factories will not be able to pay salaries to their workers,’ he said.
‘We hope both the unions and the factory owners will accept the minimum wage,’ he said.
The Bangladesh government fixed a minimum wage of 930 taka for the sector in 1994 but many factories did not implement it, citing poor profit margins.
(1 usd = 69.18 taka)
