Workers of a readymade garment factory in Gazipur have clashed with police over the closure of Liz Apparels, a unit of Nassa Group.
Workers said that they found the entrance to the factory closed with a notice hanging on it when they reached their workplace on Saturday. They said that they staged a demonstration in front of the main gate and when they tried to open the gate by themselves, law enforcers arrived at the scene and intervened.
Officer-in-charge of Gacha police station in Gazipur said that, following the exchange of heated arguments, some of the workers hurled brick chips at the policemen which prompted the law enforcers to resort to baton-charge and disperse the agitated workers.
Police fired several rounds of teargas shells and opened blank fires to bring the situation under control. No one was injured during the incident, he added.
Factory director, Gazi Mohammad Zaber, told reporters that on Wednesday the workers had suddenly stopped working. They also beat up an official of the factory and vandalized office rooms.
He alleged that electronic items worth Tk 1.5 million were also looted during the incident. The management, therefore, was forced to close the factory on Saturday.
On the other hand, a quality controller at the unit, Sharif Hossain told Dhaka Tribune that the factory paid no heed to the workers’ demand of a 5% rise in wages this year.
Moreover, the executive director had misbehaved with a number of workers when they did not go back to work following a fire incident at the factory on Wednesday. In protest, he said that the workers then staged a demonstration in front of the unit on that day.