Wage board to begin talks on revised garment workers’ pay soon

Representational image of the protest- Collected

The Minimum Wage Board will hold its first meeting soon to work out a new pay structure for ready-made garment (RMG) workers, with its chairman assuring that the process will be completed faster than the previous review.

Board Chairman Sheikh Ashfaqur Rahman said on Tuesday that the meeting would be convened shortly. He noted that the previous board took 45 days to hold its first meeting after the gazette notification, while the full wage-setting process lasted six to seven months.

“This time, however, the process will move much faster as the government is committed to completing it as quickly as possible,” he said.

The announcement comes amid continued labour unrest. Workers demonstrated and clashed with police in Gazipur, Savar, Ashulia and Mirpur on Tuesday, two days after the government reconstituted the wage board.

The government formed the new board on November 1, appointing Senior District and Sessions Judge Ashfaqur Rahman as its chairman.

Prof Dr Musleh Uddin Ahmed of Dhaka University’s Department of Public Administration was named the neutral member. The employers’ representative is Asif Ayub, joint secretary general of the Bangladesh Employers Federation, while Anwar Hossain, president of the Bangladesh Jatiyatabadi Sramik Dal, represents workers.

The board also includes two garment-sector representatives: ABM Shamsuddin, a director of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, and Babul Akhtar, general secretary of the Bangladesh Garments and Industrial Workers Federation.

Worker representatives Anwar Hossain and Babul Akhtar have called on the chairman to arrange the first meeting without delay. They said they would formally submit their request in writing.

Babul said the current minimum wage structure took effect in December 2023 and would complete three years this December. The workers’ representatives want the revised wages to take effect from January.

He said they were prepared to attend continuous meetings, even overnight if necessary, to ensure workers receive fair wages without further delay.

A history of wage revisions

Bangladesh established its first minimum wage board for garment workers in 1994, setting the minimum monthly wage at Tk930.

The minimum wage was subsequently raised to Tk1,662.50 in 2006, Tk3,000 in 2010, Tk5,300 in 2013 and Tk8,000 in 2018. The latest revision, introduced in November 2023, set the minimum wage at Tk12,500.