Foreign garment owners to ask compensation from Bangladesh gov’t
People’s Daily Online, China
Foreign garment factory owners will demand compensation for the destruction of their units during the last three days in the highly protected industrial park at Savar, 25 km west of Dhaka, an owner of a foreign garment unit said on Thursday.
The owners told private television channel Ntv that “Bangladesh government should take the responsibility of damaging our factories and should pay compensation.”
Bangladesh’s garment, the No. 1 export earner, saw the worst unrest since Saturday during which 250 garment units were damaged by workers
Among the 250 damaged units, at least 30 were owned by foreign investors in the Savar Export Processing Zone. Many vehicles were also set on fire during the unrest, which left three workers dead and hundreds others wounded.
The television channel said the foreign owners were very angry and scared after the incidents. The owners were quoted by the television as saying they suffered losses of around 66 million U. S. dollars.
Meanwhile, after closure of five days, the garment factories in and around Dhaka started working with limited number of workers as many workers did not show up for fear of repetition of the situation.
A tripartite meeting representing the owners, workers and the government was held Thursday in Dhaka, which discussed in detail the causes of the unrest.
A Rights activist and trade union leader Shrin Akhter blamed the outbreak on accumulated anger of workers, who even do not have any weekend.
She alleged that some garment owners even do not pay the worker their salaries and overtime regularly. And in some cases, the employees loyal to owners cut 2 percent from the salaries and overtime allowances.
Bangladesh’s garment industry, which has around 4,000 units across the country, earns around 4 billion dollars annually, accounting for about 70 percent of total export earnings.
The industry employs around 2.5 million workers, 90 percent of whom are poor women.
Source: Xinhua
