Wage Board's Third Meeting on Garment Workers' Minimum Pay on November 16, Owners to Submit Written Proposal

The third meeting of the Minimum Wage Board, formed to recommend the minimum wage for all classes of workers and employees in the garment industry, will be held on November 16. The meeting comes amid continuing worker unrest in the garment sector over demands for higher pay.

The meeting will be held at 11am that day at the Directorate of Labour, on the 19th floor of the Labour Building at 196, Shaheed Syed Nazrul Islam Sarani, Bijoy Nagar, Dhaka.

Under section 139 of the Bangladesh Labour Act, 2006, the meeting will be chaired by the board's chairman, Syed Azad Subhani, who holds the rank of district and sessions judge.

According to the board's notice, the first item on the agenda is the submission of a written proposal on the minimum wage rate by the garment industry owners' representative. The meeting will also discuss preparing the recommendation on the minimum wage rate for all classes of workers and employees in the industry.

Amid worker unrest in the garment sector over pay rises, the government on November 1 reconstituted the Minimum Wage Board and formed the board for the garment industry.

Even after that, protests and clashes continued in Dhaka's Mirpur, Savar, Gazipur and Narayanganj.

At the board's first meeting on November 4, a new pay structure effective from December was announced, and workers began returning to work.

This year the Labour Act was amended to reduce the period for resetting workers' minimum wages from five years to three years.

After the owners' written proposal is submitted at the November 16 meeting, the board's work of preparing its recommendation will move to the next stage.