Owners Announce No-Work-No-Pay Factory Closures: 55 Already Shut, 92 More at Risk
Garment factory owners have announced that factories will be closed without wages if there is disorder or no work. At a joint BGMEA and BKMEA news conference on Saturday afternoon, the owners said that if work does not take place, they will keep factories closed indefinitely under Section 13(1) of the Labour Act. The owners said 55 factories in Savar-Ashulia and Gazipur have already been closed on a 'no work, no pay' basis.
Section 13(1) of the Labour Act allows factories to be closed on a 'no work, no pay' basis. If the section is applied, workers receive no wages for the days the factory is closed. Application of Section 13(1) to close factories began last Thursday. Earlier on Saturday morning, BGMEA and BKMEA members held a joint views-exchange meeting at the BGMEA Complex in Uttara, Dhaka; most owners at the meeting favoured keeping factories closed if production cannot be carried on.
BGMEA President Mahmud Hasan Khan told the news conference that production could not be carried on at 147 factories in Savar-Ashulia and Gazipur despite efforts. He said 55 factories were closed indefinitely under Section 13(1) on Saturday and 92 factories tried but failed to run production. About 300,000 workers work in these 147 factories.
Mahmud Hasan Khan alleged that a quarter is creating a disorderly situation centred on fixing the minimum wage in order to create the backdrop for an unreasonable wage announcement. He said the wage board was formed on November 1 and the disorderly situation was created from the last week of October. In his account, the board's first meeting already announced when the higher wage would take effect, so creating anarchy after that amounts to creating the backdrop for forcing an unreasonable wage announcement under pressure.
The BGMEA president also said most workers want to join work, but a small number of misguided workers inside factories, incited and provoked by outside quarters, regularly create disorder, forcing other workers to stop work and leave. He said identifying who is creating the anarchy is not possible for the BGMEA; law enforcement agencies are working on it and, in his account, those creating the anarchy have already come within the agencies' network. He also alleged that worker organisations played no effective role in stopping the disorderly situation.
Garment workers have been protesting since last month demanding a wage increase. In the face of the worker movement, the government formed the minimum wage board on November 1. At the board's second meeting last Monday, the workers' representative proposed a minimum wage of Tk 32,000. The board's third meeting is scheduled for Monday, November 16. Mahmud Hasan Khan said that although owners question the logic of wage-board talks while vandalism in factories and road blockades continue, as a responsible part of society they will attend the November 16 meeting; he hoped the situation would improve in the next one or two days, and said the owners would sit again and decide if it continued after that. BKMEA Executive President Fazle Shamim Ehsan, Vice-President Amal Poddar, and BGMEA vice-presidents Rezwan Selim and Mizanur Rahman, among others, were present at the news conference.
Several worker leaders believe the owners' announcement may complicate the situation further. In their account, workers at most factories want to work and have not called any strike; the owners closed factories for security reasons, and in such a situation receiving wages is the workers' right, and discontent may grow further if they do not receive them.
Babul Akhtar, the workers' representative on the minimum wage board, said factories whose workers were not on strike but whose authorities gave holidays for security reasons must pay full wages. In his account, closing those factories under Section 13(1) is completely illegal, because the workers wanted to work and the owners gave the factory holiday for security reasons.
Nazma Akter, president of the Sammilita Garment Sramik Federation, said closing factories can never be a solution to the problem; it harms both owners and workers, so both sides should behave with tolerance. Worker leaders also say the owners always adopt the tactic of closing factories without wages to suppress discontent and then propose a very low wage; if the owners showed goodwill to raise wages significantly, no outsider would be able to take advantage.
Syed Sultan Uddin Ahmed, head of the Labour Reform Commission formed during the former interim government, said that to calm the labour situation, tripartite talks among owners, workers and the government must be held at regional level as well as central level, and the minimum wage board's discussions must be speeded up. In his account, the owners must come with a logical wage proposal, after which talks should start quickly.
Meanwhile, workers also protested on Saturday demanding a wage increase. In the Chandra Palli Bidyut area of Kaliakair Upazila in Gazipur, workers began a protest by blocking the Dhaka-Tangail highway at about 8:30 in the morning. At about 12:30 p.m., members of the law enforcement agencies dispersed the workers by baton-charging and firing tear gas shells and sound grenades; traffic on the highway returned to normal after about four hours.
Speaking to police and workers, it was learned that workers of two factories — Tropical in the Chandra Palli Bidyut area and Apex Lingerie in East Chandra — protested last Thursday; police fired tear gas shells and sound grenades that day, injuring several workers. When news spread on Saturday that a worker injured on Thursday had died, workers stopped work and began protesting, and at one stage took position on the Dhaka-Tangail highway near the factories.
In Savar's Ashulia, the number of factories closed under Section 13(1) kept rising on Saturday. Two factories of the Losaka Group in the Jirabo Pukurpar area of Ashulia — Bek Knit and Tamam Design — were declared closed in a notice on Friday. Last Thursday, workers from other factories threw brickbats targeting the group's Bek Knit Limited factory; the authorities gave a holiday that day for security reasons, after which outsiders came, broke the office gate and beat a security guard. A woman worker of Bek Knit, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there was no trouble in their factory and the trouble was in the neighbouring factory; they are suffering because of others.
