Well well! garment manufacturers in Bangladesh agreed on BDT 8,000 (US $ 95) as minimum wage to the workers. To no surprise, readymade garment workers have turned down the offer as they think it’s still not ‘fair’. The workers said they will continue to fight for the right wage and i.e. BDT 16,000.
“The Government has done injustice to the workers by declaring the minimum wage. We reject this wage,” a garment workers’ union leader told media.
Yet again, workers have hit the street today (September 14, 2018) to express their anger over the offer made by the Government.
The wage issue has been creating chaos in the Bangladesh garment industry for a while now. Global buyers have also been asked to increase the price they pay to purchase products from Bangladesh. However, no concrete step has been made in that direction as well, which has thus made it tough for the manufacturers to increase the minimum pay to workers as they are already finding it difficult to operate.
Notably, Bangladesh exports garment products from its around 4,500 manufacturing factories to global fashion retailers like H&M, Walmart, Zara, Gap and others. The industry accounts for 82 percent of the country’s overall exports and employs 4 million workers.
