Garment workers in Bangladesh say wages barely cover basic needs
Tens of thousands of Bangladeshi garment workers have taken to the streets for a third day to demand a minimum wage of 30,000 taka ($241) a month, more than double the current 12,500 taka ($102), in the world’s second-largest apparel exporter after China. The ready-made garment sector employs about four million people, half of them women, supplies brands such as H&M, Zara, Levi Strauss, Walmart and Primark, and accounts for more than 80 percent of export earnings, which reached $39bn last financial year.
Laili Begum, 37, a sewing operator at Virtual Bottoms Limited near Dhaka, earns about 15,000 taka ($121) a month, or 18,000–20,000 taka ($145–$161) with overtime. Her 15-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son left school this year; the family of four often manages only one proper meal a day and has lived on puffed rice and Bombay mix. She pays 3,500 taka ($28) rent for a single room shared with her mother and children, supports her father in Sirajganj, and burns discarded paper because a gas cylinder costs about 2,200 taka ($18). Rasel Khan, 30, in Ashulia, says similar overtime pay no longer supports his household and he owes about 100,000 taka ($805).
On Saturday workers struck; on Sunday police used tear gas and stun grenades in Jamgora, Ashulia, and arrested dozens. The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association said 529 factories were disrupted and nearly a million workers affected. The government then named a six-member wage board, but protests continued on Monday in Gazipur, where the Dhaka–Tangail highway was blocked and vehicles were vandalised and torched, with clashes also reported in Mirpur. The last garment minimum-wage revision was in December 2023. Annual inflation was 8.34 percent in September (food 7.22 percent, non-food 9.30 percent). Cambodia’s garment minimum is $210, Vietnam’s $140–$210, and Guangdong’s $286–$378. Former World Bank Dhaka economist Zahid Hussain said five years of inflation have sharply eroded low-paid workers’ purchasing power.
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