Bangladesh Forms Wage Board as Garment Protests Shut 529 Factories

Bangladesh set up a new wage board on Sunday to review garment workers pay, and thousands of workers kept protesting anyway. The board was announced while demonstrations over pay blocked roads in Dhaka and Gazipur and shut factories across the main garment districts, according to Al Jazeera and Reuters.

Workers are demanding a minimum monthly wage of 30,000 taka, about $242. The current minimum is 12,500 taka, about $101, set in November 2023. Workers say food, housing, transport and health care costs have cut deep into that pay since then.

Factories shut, roads blocked

Reuters reported that the unrest has forced 529 garment factories to close, leaving 987,190 workers out of work, citing the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association. In Ashulia, a garment hub on the edge of Dhaka, about 30 factories declared holidays on Saturday after protests began there, Ashulia Industrial Police superintendent Mohammad Mominul Islam Bhuiyan said, according to Al Jazeera.

On Sunday, protesters blocked the Mirpur 10 roundabout in Dhaka and the Dhaka to Tangail highway in Gazipur. Police fired tear gas and sound grenades in Mirpur, and Border Guard Bangladesh personnel were deployed at points in Gazipur, The Business Standard reported. Reuters reported that police also used water cannon, that protesters threw bricks, and that a police vehicle and a police box were set on fire in separate incidents.

What the board is

The six-member board will be chaired by Sheikh Ashfaqul Rahman, chairman of the Minimum Wage Board and a senior district and sessions judge, The Business Standard reported. Dhaka University professor Mosleh Uddin Ahmed sits as the neutral member. The board also holds permanent employer and worker representatives, plus two temporary members, one from the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association for factory owners and one from the Bangladesh Garments and Industrial Workers Federation for workers.

Labour and Employment Minister Ariful Haque Choudhury announced the board at a press conference in Dhaka on November 1 and urged workers to return to work. He warned that long factory closures could delay export shipments and payments from international buyers. Ministry adviser M Sakhawat Hossain Chowdhury told reporters the wage board question had been resolved and workers should go back to work smoothly, Al Jazeera reported.

Why it matters

Garments are the backbone of the export economy of Bangladesh, and the wage fight reaches buyers in Europe and North America who source clothes from Dhaka factories. A long shutdown delays shipments. A large wage rise lifts costs across the supply chain. The protests have run for several weeks, with road blockades in the capital since October 14, and they escalated in late October in Ashulia and Gazipur.

What happens next

The board has been asked to take up its work promptly and recommend a revised minimum wage after hearing workers, owners and the government. No date for a recommendation was announced on Sunday. Workers at the barricades said the board alone was not enough, and protests continued after the announcement.