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The industry that alone accounts for 85 per cent of the country's total export receipts is again in turmoil as workers have taken to the streets demanding higher minimum wage. The Readymade Garment (RMG) industry workers' minimum wage, now at Tk 8,000, was fixed in December 2018. But in the current economic situation when the galloping prices of daily essentials have made life of the low-income people, including that of the garment workers, unbearable, they have naturally been pushing for a substantial increase in their wages. The government earlier in April this year also constituted the 'minimum wage board', to recommend a new wage structure. The wage board is supposed to announce the new minimum wage for RMG workers by the end of November. Meanwhile, in the face of the workers' unrest over the demand for wage hike, the garment industry's apex body, the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), at the 4th and last meeting of the Board, came up with the suggestion that the RMG workers' new minimum wage would be Tk10,400, which for obvious reasons, the garment workers have rejected. If the fall in the value of Bangladesh Taka (BDT) against US dollar is taken into consideration, this minimum wage now offered by the garment industry owners is actually lower than the minimum wage when it was fixed in 2018. For at that time, US$1.0 was equivalent to Tk83.90. So, in US$, then an RMG worker's minimum wage was US$95.35. But now the minimum wage (at BDT 10,400) comes to US$94.11. In other words, the RMG owners are now offering US$1.24 or BDT137 less than that fixed in2018. Understandably, garment workers have rejected the offer and demanded that the new minimum wage should be BDT23,000 which is equivalent to US$208.14.
But the garment owners did not agree to it and hence the stalemate with accompanying strikes and protest demonstrations which have often turned violent triggering actions by law-enforcers. In some cases, outsiders were found involved in the melee. Many factories that were shut down amid the violence were trying to open.
In this situation, RMG owners who opened their factories following the past two weeks' violent unrest faced resistance from striking workers. RMG workers who were trying to join work came under attack from the striking ones. Some factory owners as a result are differentiating between what they would like to term 'good garment workers (who are willing to join work)' and 'the bad ones (the striking workers)'. But such tagging does not represent the facts on the ground, and neither is it helpful for resolving the crisis. Many striking workers are reported to have told the media that they were protesting not exactly for a pay hike, but for their survival. One need not be a great mathematician to calculate why the present minimum wage of the garment workers is ludicrously low for a small garment workers' family to survive.
If compared with the average wage of garment workers in neighbouring India (at US$ 171) or another major apparel exporter in the Southeast Asia, Vietnam (at US$ 170), let alone in China (at US$ 303), Bangladesh garment workers are undeniably worse off. It is indeed regrettable that, normally, they do not get a pay raise. Hence is the existential struggle of the garment works that erupts from time to time including the ongoing one. But the way the unrest of the garment workers is going out of control is an ominous sign for the mainstay of the economy, the RMG industry.
True, the garment owners also have their issues like falling consumer demands amid high inflation in Europe and the US where the majority orders for Bangladeshi RMG products come from. Last month, for instance, the country's overall exports were the lowest in the past 26 months, according the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB). The main reason was that fewer shipments of apparel products took place in the previous months.
According to the BGMEA, RMG exports last month (October, 2023) fell by 13.93 per cent to US$ 3.16 billion compared with US$3.68 billion in the same month in 2022. The garment industry is also not an island seeing that not-so-comforting pieces of news are coming from most other sectors of the economy. Those developments no doubt affect the garment industry. But these issues cannot be an argument for not ensuring a rational minimum wage structure for the workers on whose sweat and blood the present edifice of the country's impressive RMG industry stands. Moreover, despite the ups and downs in their business, the affluent lifestyle of the garment industry owners has not been affected in the least. In times of difficulty, cold calculations about profit and loss do not work. The factory owners should also be ready for some amount of sacrifice for their workers. Such a move from the owners' side will only build trust in garment workers' mind about their employers. Because they will realise that factory owners have not abandoned their workers in time of crisis. A disgruntled workforce is a constant source of instability in any industry.
So, to resolve the dispute over a new minimum wage amicably, both sides, the garment industry leaders and workers, should find a middle ground and restore peace and stability in the garment sector.