RMG workers protest in Ashulia rejecting newly announced minimum wage
Several factories have been declared closed following he protests
Workers of several RMG factories in Ashulia staged a protest today rejecting the decision of the Wage Board to raise the minimum wage to Tk12,500. Some factories have declared a general holiday today due to the unrest.
"Some workers of two factories in Narsinghpur stopped working at around 11am and the authorities declared a factory holiday. Later some of these workers started protesting and tried to occupy the road. We later tried to calm the agitating workers and sent them home," Additional Superintendent of Police (Ashulia Industrial Police-1) Mahmud Nasser told The Business Standard on Wednesday (8 November).
"Due to the protest, some factories have declared a holiday today. Besides, the overall situation in Savar-Ashulia is normal," he added.
Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel
Additional police are deployed in front of various factories.
BGB personnel along with law enforcement officers were seen patrolling various important roads in the area since morning.
According to police and locals, workers attended work normally in the factories in the morning, but at around 11am workers of some factories in the Narsinghpur area of Ashulia started protesting rejecting the decision of the wage board to increase the minimum wage to Tk12,500 and refrained from working.
Later authorities of some garment factories declared a factory holiday.
Most of the workers went home, but a part of the workers started protesting on the Bypail-Abdullahpur road in the Narsinghpur area of Ashulia.
When the workers tried to block the road, the police chased them and dispersed them by firing several rounds of tear shells.
A female worker of Hollywood Garments in the Jamgra area said, "We will not work on the newly announced wages. It should be increased."
On the other hand, some workers working as operators said that even if the wage board fixed the minimum wage at Tk12,500, they are not clear about how much they would get in the operator position.
The Minimum Wage Board for the readymade garments sector finalised the increase of RMG workers' minimum wage to Tk12,500 from Tk8,000, an increase of 56% on Tuesday (8 November).
RMG workers demand that their minimum wage be increased from the existing Tk8,000 to Tk20,390 while the owners had proposed to increase it to Tk10,400.
On 21 October, RMG workers took to the streets to demand that their minimum wage be increased from the existing Tk8,000 to Tk20,390.
The garments sector — the jewel in Bangladesh's export crown, with exports reaching over $46.99 billion in the fiscal year 2023 — was ravaged by protests in recent weeks centring a hike in the minimum wage.
On 30 October, at least two people were killed and about 40 injured in massive clashes between police and ready-made garment workers in several industrial areas in Ashulia, Savar, and Gazipur.
Following the weeklong clashes, the factory owners on 1 November agreed to pay higher minimum wages to garment workers than Tk10,400, which they proposed earlier.
The Minimum Wage Board sat down and finalised the pay yesterday.
