"IndustriALL for revision of proposed wage for RMG workers", 25 November 2023

IndustriALL Global Union has termed the recently announced minimum wage of Tk 12,500 ‘insufficient to meet the daily needs of garment workers and their families’ and demanded revision of the wage.

‘I am writing to you as the general secretary of IndustriALL Global Union, which represents more than fifty million workers in mining, energy and manufacturing sectors across the world, including Bangladesh, to urge you to kindly revise the new minimum wage of Tk12,500 as it is insufficient to meet the daily needs of garment workers and their families in the county,’ IndustriALL general secretary Atle Hoie said in a letter to the Minimum Wage Board chairman Liaquet Ali Mollah on November 24...

IndustriALL general secretary in his letter said that Bangladesh, like many of the countries in South Asia, had been witnessing skyrocketing inflation where food inflation crossed 12 per cent in October, highest ever in at least a decade.

In such a context, a small wage increase of Tk 4,500 in real terms, will not be enough for workers to afford a decent standard of living, Hoie said.

Ruling out claim of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association of increasing minimum wage by 56 per cent, he said that in reality, the wage increased only 14 per cent if inflation was adjusted.

‘If the current pace at which inflation is rising continues then in real terms workers will actually be earning much less than what they currently do, thereby making daily survival difficult for workers,’ the letter read.

Hoie also said that it was unfair to consider the monthly gross wage which ranged from Tk 17,000-20,000 and include two to four hours of overtime per day, thus effectively extending the working hours beyond 48 hours per week, given that working overtime was voluntary as per Bangladesh’s labour law...

IndustiALL urged the Minimum Wage Board to engage with trade unions and revise the newly proposed minimum wage.