CLASS STRUGGLE IN BANGLADESH: WORKERS SAY WAGE HIKE WON IN 2006 IS NOT ENOUGH!

[See also: Bangladesh: Women Garment Workers Fight Starvation Wages,
Workers Hammer (Winter 2010-2011)]

Thousands protest Bangladesh wages for fourth day (AFP)

“Bangladeshi garment workers blocked roads and attacked factories on Monday as protests over the level of a new minimum wage spilled into a fourth day.

“Around 10,000 workers in Fatullah, south of the capital Dhaka, pelted police with rocks as they demanded a minimum monthly wage of 5,000 taka (73 dollars), rejecting a 3,000 taka deal offered by the government last week.

“‘They attacked factories, set up barricades in the road–we had to use tear gas and batons to disperse the workers,’ district police chief Biswas Afzal Hossain told AFP.

“The government said last Tuesday that the minimum monthly wage for garment workers would rise to 3,000 taka from 1,662 taka, but the new wage will not be implemented until November.

“Some major unions have accepted the 80-percent hike, but a string of smaller unions have rejected the deal, and violence erupted in Dhaka on Friday with workers blocking roads, vandalising factories and shops and looting goods.”

See also:

Cheap clothes shortchange garment workers (The National (Abu Dhabi), August 14, 2010):

“Bangladesh’s garment industry is the country’s biggest employer after agriculture. According to the International Trade Union Confederation, Bangladesh’s 3.5 million garment workers, most of them women, are the ‘world’s most poorly paid workers.’

“Many work 12 to 14 hour shifts, six days a week, often in hazardous conditions.

“The 5,000 taka they are demanding is less than half the monthly wage of workers in China, the world’s largest producer of garments.

“In recent years, Bangladesh has emerged as an attractive manufacturing centre for top multinational clothing retailers such as Tesco, Gap, H&M;, Walmart and Marks & Spencer because of its low-cost labour, believed to be the world’s cheapest, against more expensive manufacturing centres such as China and India.”

And see:

Dhaka garment workers in violent protests over low pay (The Guardian (UK), July 30, 2010)

And see all anti-caste posts on Bangladeshi garment workers.