Workers in Ashulia industrial area return to factories

Peace has been restored in the Ashulia Industrial Area after days of unrest as workers started returning to factories.

Gradually, all factories are reopening.

The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) agreed to the demands of the workers following a meeting and opened the factories on Wednesday, said Md Sarwar Alam, superintendent of police in the Ashulia Industrial Police. The workers went to their respective factories after they opened at 8am and started production.

The situation has returned to normal and no untoward incident has been reported. No factory has been shut.

However, authorities in 14 factories have yet to reopen them as of Wednesday afternoon, the police superintendent said. As per section 13 (1) of the Labour Law 2006, those factories were closed for an indefinite time. Apart from those, production was back to normal in all other factories.

On Tuesday, the BGMEA identified 18 demands of the workers in its meeting, said Khairul Mamun Mintu, law secretary of the Bangladesh Garments and Sweaters Workers Trade Union.

One of the key demands was to form a probe committee on ‘salary increases.’ The committee will submit its recommendations in three months. Workers will also have access to subsidised TCB goods from now on.

Besides, factories will pay their workers any arrears by Oct 10. They also took decisions about night shift bills, tiffin bill, and bonuses. As the owners agreed to all of the demands, the factories were opened, the union leader said.

Meanwhile, workers staged protests inside the Knit Asia factory, he said, adding that the Vintage, Deco Group and Generation Next factories were closed.

The BGMEA also decided that authorities could not lay off workers under the current situation. However, 139 workers at the Ananta Garments and Ananta Sportswear factories were temporarily suspended for vandalising the factories and creating unrest. The authorities put up a notice about the suspensions.

Seeing the notice, the workers began to stage a demonstration when the army stepped in and dispersed them, he said.

Besides deploying policemen to prevent any untoward situation, joint law enforcement forces were patrolling the industrial area, said SP Sarwar.