A recent survey has underlined that garment workers’ wage has dropped by 50 per cent to 65 per cent during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic!
Further, the survey has maintained that around 23 per cent of workers have not yet received the minimum wage of Taka 8,000 set by the Government — a garment worker’s average income, including overtime, is currently above Taka 11,000 — while adding that around 90 per cent of the workers in this industry are also still not in any trade union.
According to reports, Jagannath University Associate Professor Mostafiz Ahmed presented the draft of the survey conducted by Care Bangladesh at a multi-consultative meeting recently, conducted by senior fellow at the BRAC Maheen Sultan, and attended by representatives of various NGOs, lawmaker Shirin Akter and apparel workers, who also shared their views on the draft survey at the said meeting.
According to the draft survey report — the survey of 390 garment workers this year focused on the issue of harassment of workers in various ways and limited practice of trade unions even as the meeting also sought ratification of ILO’s Convention 190 to overcome these challenges — more than 22 per cent garment factories do not issue appointment letters to workers even if many of these units, reportedly, only provide identity cards to their workers while 10 per cent of RMG factories do not even give ID cards, even though the labour law mandates issuance of appointment letter before a worker starts a job.
The report also added that those who get appointment letters often get it one year after starting the job whilst the survey also found that around 78 per cent of workers cannot take leave and about 79 per cent of workers are deprived of their weekly day off owing to situations like festivals or order shipments.
