The Minimum Wages Board has officially set Tk12,500 as the minimum monthly wage for entry-level workers in the country's readymade garment (RMG) sector.
The board has also streamlined the wage structure, reducing the number of grades from five to four, a change proposed on November 7, as opposed to the previous seven grades established in the 2018 structure.
Liaquat Ali Mollah, the chairman of the Minimum Wages Board, disclosed the finalized wage structure during a press briefing on Sunday at the Labour Ministry's secretariat office in the capital.
He explained that this decision reflected considerations of objections and recommendations from both owners and workers, leading to the reduction of proposed grades from five to four in the draft gazette.
He also said that grade 5, which was proposed by eliminating grade 6 of 2018 structure, has now been upgraded to grade 3 and the workers in this grade will get more benefits and the difference in wages from one grade to another is increased than before.
As grade 4 of the draft gazette has been merged with grade 3, now the grade 5 of the draft will be grade 4, the entry-level grade with a wage of Tk12,500.
The wage of grade 3, next grade to the entry-level, will be Tk13,550, meaning grade 3’s wage will be Tk1,050 or 8.4% more than the entry-level grade, he also said.
Moreover, wages of workers of almost all grades have also increased since the draft as the grade 1 wage was Tk14,750 in the draft, which is now Tk15,035, which is Tk285 more than the draft.
In the revised grade 2, the wage was fixed at Tk14,273 by increasing TK123 from the draft, which was Tk14,150.
Meanwhile, the designations of grades 1 and 2 are not included in revised wages, though according to Section 2(65) of the Bangladesh Labour Act, 2006, an employee in a designated job will be regarded as a worker if they are not in charge of any management, administrative, or supervisory duties and their pay cannot ever be less than the current grade 1 wages.
Md Siddiqur Rahman, former president of the BGMEA and owners’ representative at the board, said that after the publication of the draft gazette, they received 173 objections and recommendations from the owners’ side and 25 from the workers’ side.
“We reviewed these and found that the main claim of the workers was that after promotion from the lowest grade, there is no difference in the wages of the workers in the next grade,” he said.
So, they merged grade 4 with grade 3 and brought these down from 5 to 4, which was accepted by consensus.
He also added: “We are working on a rationing system for the workers of the RMG sector. Moreover, we also are working with the administration so that house rent does not increase in the industrial hubs.”
Sirajul Islam Rony, the workers' representative on the wages board, highlighted that the most contentious issue, the lack of an increase in wages in the second-to-lowest grade, has been resolved.
"Among the four grades, three directly benefit the workers, addressing our primary concern," he emphasized.
Considering the current global and domestic economic conditions and the industry's capacity, Rony stated that they are in agreement with the proposed minimum wage structure.
On November 7, the government, with the approval of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, established Tk12,500 as the minimum wage for RMG workers. This marked a 56.25% increase from the Tk8,000 set in the 2018 structure, with a 5% increment still in place, and the number of grades reduced from 7 to 5.
To gather feedback, the government released a draft and issued a gazette notification on November 11, inviting written objections, appeals, or proposals within a 14-day period.
Meanwhile, the Garment Workers Trade Union Center said that the final wage structure announced by the Wage Board is not acceptable.
GTUC President Montu Ghosh and Secretary Sadekur Rahman Shamim said this in a statement.
According to them, the garment workers have not received a living wage in the current market situation despite oppression and the loss of workers’ lives.
Newly joined skilled workers will be deprived of the minimum wage for a long time due to being in a pseudo-grade wage structure called apprenticeship.
They also said that the government ignored all the demands of the workers to give benefits to the owners.