The minimum wage board made small increases in the wages of apparel workers of certain grades at the request of the government, labour ministry sources said.
An increase in the ranges of Tk 98–Tk 120 was added to the gross minimum wages for workers of Grade 3, 4, 5 and 6.
Apparel workers demanded some changes in the wages after they had been announced on July 30. The board on October 11 put the wage structure into a final form without making any changes and sent it to the government for implementation.
The labour ministry later sent back the documents to the board and prescribed some small increase in the wages for workers of four grades.
The board called a special meeting on October 21 and made the changes and sent it again to the labour ministry.
‘The ministry has received the revised submission. It will be gazetted very soon,’ a senior ministry official told New Age on Sunday.
A member on the minimum wage board also said the changes had been effected.
After talks with stakeholders over several months, the board on July 30 proposed an increased wage structure by increasing wages of Grade 7, or entry level, apparel workers to Tk 3,000, up by 80 per cent from the earlier Tk 1,662.
Workers’ representatives earlier demanded Tk 6,200 in wage for entry level workers.
According to the proposal, a Grade 6 worker would get Tk 3,210, up from Tk 1,851; Grade 5, Tk 3,455, up from Tk 2,046; Grade 4, Tk 3,763, up from Tk 2,250; Grade 3, Tk 4,120, up from Tk 2,449; Grade 2, Tk 7,200 up from Tk 3,840 and Grade 1, Tk 9,300, up from Tk 5,140.
After the revision, gross minimum wage of a Grade 6 worker is now Tk 3,330, Grade 5 Tk 3,553, Grade 4 Tk 3,861 and Grade 3 Tk 4,218.
