In a concession following the convulsive struggles of May-June (see anti-caste: IN MASS WILDCAT STRIKES, TENS OF THOUSANDS OF WORKERS SHUT DOWN GARMENT INDUSTRY, May 23, 2006), the government offers garment workers a minimum wage, but one set at starvation levels. As the factory owners complain that even this is too high, and in the context of redoubled class struggle in other sectors including jute mills, river transport, and railways....
Thousands protest 25 dollar minimum wage in Bangladesh (Agence France-Presse)
"The government's minimum wage board commission last week fixed the monthly wage at 1662.50 taka (25 dollars) after four months of negotiations between unions and factory owners.
"The figure was agreed by employers and one leading textile workers' union. Other unions, however, called for earnings to be set at at least 3,000 taka (44 dollars) and called protests for Tuesday to press their demands.
"Several thousand workers set fire to a factory and attacked several others with stones at Pallabi, 20 kilometres (12 miles) west of central Dhaka, said Major Ehtashamus Samad of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) security force.
"'They held protest marches, set fire to one factory, smashed the windows of cars and also tried to set fire to another factory before police came to the scene and brought the situation under control,' he added.
"Police also clashed with at least 10,000 workers who attacked a factory in the city's northern suburb of Uttara, sub-inspector Malik Khasru of Uttara police station said."
[...]
"Impoverished Bangladesh, which has some 4,200 garment factories, relies on the industry for more than three-quarters of its 10.5 billion dollars in export earnings.
"More than two million workers, 85 percent of whom are women, work in the sector which is notorious for poor salaries and shabby safety standards.
"Business, however, has boomed since the end of global textile quotas last year. Garment exports in the last financial year alone grew by more than 24 percent."
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