Another group of ready made garment factory workers have demonstrated in Badda area of capital Dhaka, demanding their due wages.
At least 50 workers blocked the street in Badda U-loop area around 10:30am on Saturday, amid a nationwide virtual lockdown in place to enforce social distancing in order to prevent the novel coronavirus from spreading further in the country.
Badda police station's Sub-Inspector(SI) Shafiqul Islam confirmed, and said the workers moved from the road after they peacefully intervened.
“These workers of a factory situated in the area are yet to receive their salaries of the past three months.They are now demonstrating in front of the factory,” he said.
The factory owner recently went to his village home following his father’s death and is unable to return to Dhaka because of lockdown, said SI Shafiqul. “But he has assured the workers of paying their dues.”
RMG workers block the street in Badda U-loop area, demanding their due wages, on Saturday, April 25, 2020 | Collected
The capital city and several other districts have been seeing demonstrations of garment workers over the past few month, demanding due wages and allowances, after the government shut down all public transports and businesses in order to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic.
Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) on April 18 had claimed that they had so far cleared salaries and wages of around 94.68% workers for the month of March.
In a message, the trade body said some 2,341,000 workers out of total 2,472,417 (of member factories under BGMEA) were paid.
Out of total 2,274 factories, some 2,056 — or 90.42% — cleared salaries and wages so far, it said, leaving only 218 factories to pay their workers' salaries.
BGMEA recently also said that it was planning to reopen the apparel factories early next month in phases with foolproof safety measures for their workers, but urged all of its members to refrain from notifying the workers to return to their workstations until a concrete decision is taken.
