Workers’ protests in Bangladesh

November 06, 2023

Garment workers block a road during a protest demanding the increase of their salaries, in
Dhaka on November 2, 2023. — AFP

Strikes and protests by thousands of garment factory workers in

Bangladesh have closed down more than 500 factories and
crippled production.

The protests started from the Ghazipur industrial area but later
spread to other areas. The protests in Ghazipur began shortly
after factory owners submitted their wage-related proposals to
the wage board. The workers and union leaders immediately
rejected the offer. Labour leaders have made it clear that the
longer it takes to announce a reasonable wage structure, the
more the industry will suffer.

These protests are taking place almost two months before the
general elections in Bangladesh which are likely to take place in
January 2024. The Hasina Wajid government wants to end the
protests and strikes immediately. The workers’ protests also
coincided with an ongoing agitation by the Bangladesh
Nationalist Party (BNP), which has demanded that a non-
partisan government should be installed to conduct the
elections early next year.

The police used tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets to
disperse the protesting workers. At least two protesting
garment workers have been killed as strikes and street protests
that started last week enter a second week despite the use of
repressive measures by the authorities.

Garments are Bangladesh’s biggest export, accounting for more

than 80 per cent of annual export earnings. The garment
exporters are earning billions of dollars as profits every year but
they are not sharing these profits with their workers who are
considered as one of the poorest factory workers in the world.
The majority of the country’s garment industry workers earn
wages well below the poverty line.

The growth of the Bangladesh garment industry is presented as

a success story. The garment industry in Bangladesh flourished
on three factors. One, Bangladeshi garments have enjoyed duty-
free and preferred access to markets in North America and
European Union for nearly three decades and garment factories
there manufacture clothes for many leading American and
European global brands.

Two, the government in Bangladesh offered many concessions

and incentives to the garments sector, also encouraging foreign
direct investment in the sector. Three, the superexploitation of
workers and wage suppression also played an important role in
the growth of the garment sector. To keep the prices down,
factory owners kept wages lower. And then to increase their
profits, factory owners super-exploit garment workers women.
The garment sector is Bangladesh’s second biggest employer
after agriculture, with about 4,500 factories employing about
four million workers, with many living in poverty and working in
dangerous conditions. Hundreds of workers have lost their lives
in different incidents due to lack of occupational safety hazards.

Bangladesh exported $45 billion worth of clothing in 2022,

accounting for a 7.9 per cent share of the global market. In the
first six months of 2023, clothes worth $23.6 billion have been
exported.

Garment workers are demanding higher wages, unions saying a

big raise is required: from the current $73 to $184 taka per
month. But factory owners have proposed $94 taka, an increase
of $21.

Begum Monnujan Sufian, the state minister of labour and

employment, has labeled the proposal from the factory owners
as “unreasonable”. “In the last five years, workers’ salaries
would have already increased to about 10,400 taka at a 5 per
cent annual rate as stipulated in the rules. Is this a worthy
proposition?” She has urged workers to return to their jobs,
pledging that the government would soon announce “an
acceptable” wage structure while also warning that the BNP
was inciting workers’ unrest.

In 2018, when the current minimum wage of 8,000 taka was

fixed, that salary equalled about $100 per month. Workers’
leaders cite these statistics to argue that the owners’ proposal
is equivalent to a pay cut. The current minimum wage of 8,000
taka was already insufficient for a decent living when it came
into force in 2019. Since then, workers have had to endure the
additional pressure of the Covid-19 pandemic and the
subsequent high inflation without seeing their wages increase
at all.
A new monthly minimum wage demand of 23,000 taka has been
calculated based on an extensive cost of living study done by
the Bangladesh Institute for Labour Studies and has been
unanimously supported by trade unions in the country.

Bangladesh’s labour law only requires the wage board to

convene once every five years. This has led to very slow wage
growth. Union membership is also low due to the active
suppression of freedom of association by employers and by
state actors. So when unions come to the table their power to
achieve change is limited.

The writer is a freelance journalist.