Gazette to be published within 3 days: minister
The gazette notification for the wage board for garment workers would be published within three days, which would pave the way for a rise in their salaries, said the state minister for labour and employment yesterday. Md Mujibul Haque said the law ministry has already vetted and sent the draft copy of the gazette notification to the Department of Printing and Publications. “We hope the notice will be published within three days,” he told The Daily Star. Once the notification is published, Haque said, the wage board will call for discussions to recommend a new salary scale for the country’s 3.6 million garment workers. On January 14, the government formed the wage board and ordered it to recommend a minimum salary scale for the garment workers in six months. The constitution of the board aims mainly at averting labour unrest. Massive demonstrations by hundreds of workers in Ashulia and Savar in December 2016 for a wage hike prompted nearly 100 factory owners to shut their production units.
The factories were reopened after a negotiation with the labour ministry and trade unions. The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association sent a proposal to form the wage board to the labour ministry in August last year.
A four-member permanent wage board already exists. Whenever a board is announced afresh, two additional members representing owners and workers are usually included. The permanent board is led by Senior District Judge Syed Aminul Islam. The other three members are Kazi Saifuddin Ahmed, labour adviser to Bangladesh Employers’ Federation (owners’ representative); Fazlul Haque Montoo, executive president of Awami League’s workers front Sramik League (workers’ representative); and Kamal Uddin, a teacher of Dhaka University (independent member).
As the new members, the state minister for labour appointed Begum Shamsunnahar, women affairs secretary of Awami League, as workers’ representative, and Siddiqur Rahman, president of BGMEA, as owners’ representative.
The minimum wage was last fixed at Tk 5,300 in 2013, up from Tk 3,000 in 2010, Tk 1,662.50 in 2006, Tk 940 in 1994 and Tk 627 in 1985.