Garment Owners Consider Closing Factories on 'No Work, No Pay' Basis If Unrest Does Not Improve

Ready-made garment owners want to keep factories closed on a 'no work, no pay' basis if workers' protests demanding a wage increase do not stop. However, the government has requested them to observe the situation until next Sunday.

A delegation of ready-made garment owners met Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed at the Secretariat at 2pm on Thursday over the ongoing unrest in the garment industry. The delegation was led by Mahmud Hasan Khan, president of the BGMEA, the garment owners' organisation.

Several garment owners who took part in the meeting said the ongoing unrest over wage increase demands was discussed for more than an hour. The owners said that if the situation does not improve, they want to keep factories closed on a 'no work, no pay' basis under Section 13(1) of the Labour Act. However, the home minister requested the owners to observe the situation until Sunday. He commented that if the situation does not improve after that, the owners can take their own decisions.

Present at the meeting were Labour and Employment Minister Ariful Haque Chowdhury, Home Ministry Senior Secretary Manzur Morshed Chowdhury, Labour Secretary Md Abdur Rahman Tarafdar, former BGMEA presidents Kutubuddin Ahmed, Kazi Moniruzzaman and Anwar-ul Alam Chowdhury Parvez, Rubana Haq, Ha-Meem Group Managing Director AK Azad, current board Vice-President Rezwan Selim, BKMEA Vice-President Amal Poddar and others.

It was learned that on Tuesday afternoon, BGMEA President Mahmud Hasan Khan held a meeting at the BGMEA office with several former presidents and leaders of top ready-made garment exporting industrial groups. At that meeting, a preliminary decision was taken to keep factories closed under Section 13(1) of the Labour Act if the situation does not improve.

After that, on Tuesday evening, the BGMEA president met Prime Minister Tarique Rahman at the Secretariat and said garment owners do not yet consider law enforcement support sufficient to run factory production uninterrupted. The prime minister then gave a positive message on law and order. After that, the BGMEA authorities gave no instruction to member factories about keeping factories closed.

Workers have been protesting for two weeks demanding a wage increase. As a result, production at quite a few factories has been disrupted every day this week. Last Sunday, the government formed a wage board to re-fix workers' wages. The board's first meeting was held last Wednesday. It decided that the new wage structure will take effect next December. Workers will receive wages under the new structure from January.

After the announcement from the wage board meeting, the situation in Gazipur and Narayanganj was calm on Thursday. Workers joined work. However, workers protested by blocking a road in Ashulia, Savar. At that time, there were chases and counter-chases between police and workers and an incident of vandalism of a police vehicle.

A BGMEA source said production was disrupted at 170 garment factories in the Savar-Ashulia-Jamgara area on Thursday. In addition, 91 factories in Gazipur and Savar-Ashulia have been closed for two days.

When asked, BGMEA President Mahmud Hasan Khan said that although the ongoing unrest was discussed at the meeting with the home minister, no decision was taken. In response to another question, he said the situation has improved somewhat. The movement is now centred on Ashulia.