Over a week-long readymade garment workers’ agitation to protest against alleged discrepancies in the new minimum wage board seems to be over now with workers reporting to work and operations back on track in garment manufacturing factories in Savar and Ashulia Industrial areas, as per media reports.
The reports claimed that hundreds of workers were seen entering respective factories to resume work amidst presence of law enforcers.
As per Superintendent of Industrial Police (SP) in Dhaka-1Sana Saminur Rahman, no untoward incident has been reported so far with workers resuming duties peacefully. However, additional police forces have been deployed in strategic areas of Savar and Ashulia to thwart any untoward incident.
It may be mentioned here that the apparel manufacturing hubs of Gazipur, Ashulia, Savar and Mirpur were hit hard by the workers’ protest in the last few days. Concerned by the worsening scenario, Bangladesh Government convened a tripartite meeting (involving workers’ representatives, factory owners and Government officials), which reportedly decided to hike wage in six grades while leaving the minimum monthly pay unchanged at Taka 8,000.
Following this move, the agitated garment workers decided to call off their protest and go back to work.
“The revised wage board is effective from Dec 1, 2018 and will be adjusted from February this year,” maintained Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi after the tripartite meeting.
