After almost four months to the first meeting, Bangladesh’s wage board, formed to fix the new pay structure for garment workers, is expected to hold its next meeting on July 8.
Insiders within the board sought anonymity to confirm the date which has been set more than two and half months after a pre-set April 25, mainly due to busy schedules of the leaders of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA).
It has been known, the workers’ representative at the board will be placing recommendation for a new minimum pay structure which is unlikely to be less than BDT 16,000 as per demands surfacing through the last six months, since the formation of the wage board on January 31.
In the first meeting held on March 14, it was decided that the owners’ and the labour representatives would submit separate recommendations for a new minimum pay structure. Outside the meeting venue, pro-labour forces were demonstrating for a minimum wage of BDT 16,000.
However, BGMEA has already ruled out the possibility of BDT 16,000 as the new wage structure, saying it is an impossible demand. They said the new pay structure would reflect ‘both the requirements of a garments worker and the capacity of a owner’.
