Garment factory owners are likely to submit a revised proposal to the wage board suggesting Tk 4,430 as minimum wage for workers in the face of frequent protests and criticisms by workers and civil rights groups. Garment sector leaders said that they had made a revised proposal for a 30 per cent hike in the basic wage along with food and transport subsidies.Labour leaders, however, said that they would not accept such proposal without a reasonable hike in the basic wage alleging that inclusion of subsidies in the wage structure was a ploy of the factory owners to deprive the workers.
‘Hopefully, we will offer about Tk 4,500 as minimum wage in our new proposal to the wage board on Sunday with a 30 per cent increase in the basic wage along with food and transport subsidies,’ owners’ representative to the wage board Arshad Jamal Dipu told New Age on Saturday.
He said that Tk 300 as food subsidy and Tk 250 as transport subsidy had been included in the revised proposal.
‘We want to talk to the government to convey that it should set the minimum wage within Tk 5,000. If the minimum wage crosses the amount, we will not be able to run the business,’ Arshad said.
‘If the government wants to raise the amount’, he said, ‘we would request it that subsidies could be increased, not the basic wage.
Workers’ representative to the wage board Sirajul Islam Roni told New Age that the factory owners wanted to include subsidies in the wage to show it as a handsome amount, but it would ultimately deprive the workers.
Instead of a reasonable increase in the basic wage, inclusion of subsidies in the wage is a ploy to deceive the workers, he said and demanded that transport and food subsidies should be paid as per the existing practice.
‘A poor basic wage would also reduce the amount paid for working overtime and we would not accept it,’ Sirajul said.
The government on June 6 set up the six-member minimum wage board with retired district judge AK Roy as chairman.
Workers’ representative to the wage board placed a proposal at the third meeting of the wage board on August 18 proposing Tk 8,114 as minimum wage.
The owners’ representative on September17 proposed Tk 3,600 as minimum wage at the fifth meeting of the wage board.
Workers took to the streets in protest as the owners’ proposal and started violent demonstrations to press for Tk 8,000 as minimum monthly wage.
Amid the protest and criticism, the garment factory owners decided to revise their proposal to the wage board.
The owners’ representative was supposed to submit the new proposal to the board on October 21 at its sixth meeting, but sought three more days as they failed to finalise their new proposal due to Eid and Puja holidays and Batexpo.
As per the decision of the board, the owners’ representative would put forward a new proposal today at the seventh meeting of the wage board.
-With New Age input
