Bangladesh: Textile Workers Strike · Global Voices
600 factories stopped, about 50 ransacked, four burned, many blocked roads, four workers killed after clashes with law enforcement, 140 people arrested... In Bangladesh, historical strikes have hit textile factories in recent weeks. The workers called for an improvement in their working conditions and an increase in the minimum monthly wage, which they would have liked to see rise from 8,300 takas (70 euros) to 23,000 takas (195 euros).
The movement was launched in the industrial city of Gazipur, in the north of the capital, Dhaka, following the announcement of the BGMEA, an association of clothing manufacturers and exporters, which proposed at the end of October a salary increase of 25%. Protests quickly reached other parts of the country. On 7 November, the Bangladesh Textile Industry Minimum Wage Committee finally decided to raise the basic monthly wage by 56.25%, i.e. 12,500 takas (104 euros), from December. The Bangladesh Federation of Industrial and Clothing Workers (BGIWF) found this increase unacceptable. The minimum wage committee only meets every five years to revise the basic wage, the workers fear that they will remain blocked for another five years with incomes too low to get out of it, their purchasing power being at the lowest, impacted by inflation (10% in October) and the sharp depreciation of the taka against the US dollar (-30%). Yesterday, Wednesday, November 15, the chief union leader called on the workers to return to the factories while maintaining their demands.
Some major international brands have told the Bangladeshi Prime Minister that they have noticed wage stagnation since 2019 while inflation has exploded. However, a survey published in January 2023 by the Transform Trade Association and the Scottish University of Aberdeen revealed that 70 per cent of the major brands supplying Bangladesh are priced the same as at the beginning of the pandemic and 90 per cent of them have engaged in non-responsible purchasing practices (cancellations of orders, refusal of payment, etc.).
Bangladesh is the world's second largest exporter of clothing after China. Four million employees, mostly women, work in the country's 3,500 textile factories, and produce 85% of the country's 51 billion annual exports.
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