Garment owners warned: Give minimum wage or get out of business

Garment owners warned: Give minimum wage or get out of business
The New Nation, Bangladesh

The government would go tough with garment-factory owners to make them pay the recommended minimum wages to their workers if they want to run their business, the Finance and Commerce Adviser warned Sunday.“We won’t allow any excuse in implantation of the minimum wage; if they fail, they have to go out of business,” Adviser Dr Mirza Azizul Islam told reporters to make clear government stance, as there have been complaints about deprivation from ill-paid workers for long. He said this after his ‘Social Compliance Forum for RMG’ meeting in the Commerce Ministry conference room.

Responding to a question, he said that the government would take actions as per the law of the land against the defaulter garment owners.

“If the garment owners say that they will not be able to pay the minimum wage as they don’t have adequate order, we will not tolerate those lame excuses. You have to pay the minimum wage, otherwise, like the other sorts of business, this business also has exit point as well as entry point,” he said.

Dr Aziz said that in a sample study on 1023 garment factories the government figured out that 600 of them are compliant and 130 non-compliant. “The other factories are medium- category factories as they don’t apply compliance issues properly.”

He also hinted that the government is very much active to make all factories compliant.

At the meeting, the participants also agreed to take experts’ approval for structural design of the factory buildings. In the past, it was mandatory to take approval for layout plan from RAJUK. As of now, the structural plan also will have to have approval from the Works Ministry to avoid factory-building collapse like Spectrum Garments at Savar in April 2005.

“Works Ministry will involve the stakeholders in this connection, including the engineers of all public engineering universities,” the Adviser said.

The meeting also decided to work extensively to boost country’s image abroad. “BGMEA with other stakeholders will review the matter and quickly submit a proposal to the ministry,” Dr Aziz told the journalists.

Representatives from BGMEA, BKMEA, BTMA and ministries concerned were present at the meeting.

© Copyright 2003 by The New Nation