The minimum monthly wage of the readymade made garment workers in Bangladesh will continue to be the world’s lowest despite a 74 per cent hike proposed from the next month.
A government appointed wage board recently fixed the minimum monthly wage at Tk 5,300 equivalent to US $68.12, up from Tk 3,000 or around $39.
The hike is unlikely to help Bangladesh overcome the image as the home to lowest paid workers.
Bangladesh’s apparel industry employs four million workers, mostly women.
The new wage is likely to come into force on December 3, will be three dollars less than the minimum wage an RMG worker earns in India and five dollars less than a
Sri Lankan gets.
According to an International Labour Organsiation report, released last week, the minim wage for an RMG worker is $73 and in India — $71.
Vietnam pays the minimum wag of $78, Pakistan — $79 and Cambodia–$80.
By refusing to pay more to the workers, Bangladesh’s RMG entrepreneurs only lost a big opportunity to leave their bad reputations behind, said former caretaker
government adviser and economist Mirza Azizul Islam.
He said another $10 to $15 hike in the wage could help improve the country’s image as an apparel exporting nation.
Centre for Policy Dialogue, a national economic think-tank, at a dialogue on Minimum Wage for the apparel industry in September suggested raising the minimum wage to
over $100.
The ILO report titled Studies on Growth with Equity: Bangladesh Seeking Better Employment Conditions for Better Socioeconomic Outcomes acknowledged that the country’s
export oriented garment industry played the key role in providing steady growth from 3.2 per cent in the 1980s to 4.8 per cent in the 1990s and close to 6 per cent in
the past decade.
Bangladeshi workers are among the world’s lowest paid, said report.
It also said that while the other countries revised their minimum wage each year, Bangladesh did it only thrice since 1985.
The ILO said harsh working conditions, low wage and frequent tragic accidents drew the world’s attention to Bangladesh’s RMG industry.
Worldwide criticism forced the present government in Bangladesh to appoint a board in June.
The death of over 1,133 workers in the collapse of Rana Plaza, housing several apparel factories, at Savar in April 2013, the worst factory tragedy in recent memory
and the death of 117 apparel workers in a devastating fire in the factory of Tazreen Fashions hardly six months earlier, drew the world’s attention to the working
conditions in Bangladesh.
Shocked by the factory collapse, even Pope Francis condemned the working conditions as ‘slave labour’ and called the unjust wages –the result of unbridled quest for
profits.
Economist Wahiduddin Mahmud called the advantage of the low wages as no advantage to fight poverty.
-With New Age input
