Garment workers have been agitating for a long time demanding a minimum wage of 25,000 rupees. In view of this, the wage board has announced that the minimum wage of the workers will be 12,500 taka. Rejecting this announcement, the workers called for a protest rally on Friday.
Jolly Talukder, general secretary of the Bangladesh Garment Workers Trade Union Center, confirmed the matter on Tuesday (November 7) afternoon.
He said, ‘Garments Sramik Andolan’ platform has been formed with 11 organizations to demand increase in wages. On the initiative of this platform, we will hold a protest rally on Friday (November 10).
He also said, ‘We reject the announcement of increasing the wages of garment workers to 12,500 taka. I call upon the government to reconsider our demand for wage increase.
Sirajul Islam Roni, president of the Bangladesh National Garments Workers’ Union, a government-owned labor organization, said, ‘The Prime Minister has supported this wage increase for the workers. Still we will try to increase it further.’
Earlier, State Minister for Labor Mannujan Sufian announced that the minimum wage would be Tk 12,500 in the meeting room of the Ministry of Labor and Employment at noon on Tuesday (November 7) after the six-round meeting of garment workers and employers.
He said, ‘We are announcing this wage on the instructions of the Prime Minister. The minimum wage will increase by 56.25 percent from 8 thousand taka to 12.5 thousand taka. There will be an annual increment of five percent.’
It is known that in the fifth meeting of the wage board on November 1, the workers’ representative Sirajul Islam Roni proposed to raise the minimum wage to Tk 20,394. On the other hand, Siddiqur Rahman, the former president of BGMEA, proposed to raise the minimum wage to Tk 12,500. Based on his proposal, the government announced the new wages.
In 2018, the minimum wage of workers was fixed at 8 thousand rupees. In 2013, the minimum wage was 5 thousand 300 taka.
