Owners agree to ensure workers’ payment before Eid
The government on Thursday directed the apparel factory owners not to close any of their units in Ramadan and to pay workers before Eid-ul-Fitr to head off any disorder in the export-oriented sector.
Officials told a home ministry meeting that sudden closure of factories and job cuts in a number apparel units before Ramadan caused fresh labour unrest in the industrial belt of Ashulia, on the outskirts of Dhaka city.
‘Readymade garment factory owners have agreed to pay due wages with festival allowances before Eid in August,’ the home minister, Sahara Khatun, said after presiding over the meeting with the representatives of factory owners and labour leaders at the secretariat.
She said that BGMEA and BKMEA leaders had also been directed to take steps so that no apparel units were closed in Ramadan as workers work hard over the year and eagerly wait for Eid holidays to celebrate the festival with their families.
The lawmen have been asked to keep an eye especially on ‘sub-contract factories,’ which were usually closed before Eid to avoid paying festival allowances and dues to the workers, officials said.
The directives came in the wake of the ongoing labour unrest at Ashulia over non-payment of wages and job insecurity. The workers started rallying for pay hike and against an abnormal increase in house rents in June which led to the closure of almost all apparel units in the labour-intensive Ashulia for more than a week.
The owners, she said, urged government measures to keep the commercial banks open even at weekends before Eid, which may fall on August 20.
According to the home ministry report placed at the meeting, at least 75 factories have not paid the workers their monthly wages of May till June 15.
It said that nine factories including Radiance Knitwear, GB Garments Industries, Ha-Meem Group and Naz Knitwear were facing labour unrest for various reasons like non-payment of wages, pay increase and job cuts and, a senior official told New Age, adding that the government feared that labour unrest might spread across the apparel sector if the workers wages were not cleared before Eid.
‘We have agreed with the government to pay due wages to workers before Eid holidays begin,’ the Bangladesh
Garment Manufacturers and Exporters’ Association president, Shafiul Islam Mohiuddin, told reporters.
The last working day before Eid will be on July 14 as the three-day vacation beginning on August 19 merges with other holidays.
The home ministry report says that there were 247 incidents of labour unrest in May, 2012 and 193 in June in apparel factories at Savar and in Gazipur, Narayanganj and Chittagong. There are about 40 lakh people, mostly women, are employed in about 4,000 factories that earns more than $20 billion a year.
The Jatiya Sramik League president, Sukkur Mahmud, said that they were preparing a list of sub-contract factories to make them accountable as these apparel units are not members of the BGMEA.
These factories depending on the third party do not pay due wages regularly to workers and always create law and order problem in the industry, he alleged.
The cabinet committee on law and order at its meeting on Tuesday instructed all concerned in the apparel sector to ensure that workers get their due wages and festival allowances before Eid.
In response to workers’ unrest on Monday, the management of five factories announced a holiday for the day and the management of another factory announced a lock-out for an indefinite period.
-With New Age input
