RMG workers' pay inhuman: PM
ET Report

Agitated readymade garment workers barricade road at Mirpur section 1 protesting torture on fellow workers at Maridion Garments on Tuesday.

Prime minister Sheikh Hasina has said the wages, the owners of the ready-made garment unit pay their workers, were 'insufficient and inhuman'.
She made the comment while answering to the questions from the MPs in the parliament on Wednesday.
Sheikh Hasina said the owners should pay a portion of the profits to the poor workers so that they could maintain their families. 'The wage of the workers are paid, I will say, is not only insufficient, but also inhuman. The workers cannot even stay in Dhaka with the peanuts they get in wages,' she said.
She said the owners could take loan from the government at one percent interest to construct residences for the workers.
'The owners should feel that they make profit through exports as the toiling workers strive for the ready-made garments industry and they (the owners) should give a portion of the profit to the workers for their survival,' said Hasina.
She said the labour minister had been holding discussions with the owners to revise the minimum wage for apparel workers.
The prime minister said the owners were not interested in providing the minimum wage demanded by the workers. 'The negotiations are on, and I think we will be able to announce a fresh wage structure for the workers,' said Hasina.
Labour minister Khondker Mosharraf Hossain earlier announced that the government, by July 28, would announce a fresh minimum pay for the workers of the industry, which accounts for 80 percent of the country's US $ 18 billion export.
The workers get at Tk 1662.50 as minimum wage and have been demanding Tk 5,000 as minimum wage.
On July 6, the prime minister urged garment workers not to lose patience over their latest demand for a minimum wage.
Meanwhile, The 11th round of tripartite negotiations for setting the minimum wage of apparel workers on Wednesday made little headway as the factory owners increased their offer by Tk 573 to Tk 2,562.50 a month, which fell far short of Tk 6,200 the workers are asking for.
With the deadline for the Minimum Wage Board to recommend a new wage structure only a week away, the chairman decided to continue the negotiations today.
The minimum wage board sources said that the factory owners raised their offer to Tk 2,562, from Tk 1,989 they offered eight weeks back, as the minimum wage for the apparel workers.
The board will continue the negotiations today to fix a new wage structure and grouping the apparel workers in fewer grades, said its chairman, Iktedar Ahmed.
The board, he said, would restructure the grades of the workers' jobs.
The workers feel that the factory owners wasted much time in coming up with their initial offer of Tk 1,989 since the wage negotiations began in January.
The workers' representatives at the Minimum Wage Board rejected the offer outright describing it as far too inadequate, Labour Ministry sources said.
The minimum wage board for the apparel workers is required to come up with its recommendations of a new wage structure by July 28.
The existing minimum wage of Tk 1,662 was set in 2006.
Habibur Rahman Seraj, the permanent representative of the workers at the board said, 'The owners have scaled up their offer but it is in no way acceptable to the workers.'
He, however, said that with time running out for the Minimum Wage Board the owners have started changing their mind.
The two sides, he said, should be able to arrive at an amicable settlement on the question of minimum wage and a new wage structure.
He described the existing minimum wage of Taka 1,662, set in 2006, as 'too small.'
The existing minimum wage set five years back, he said, mercilessly deprive the workers.
How the offer could be considered a reasonable increase when the cost of living escalated by leaps and bounds over the years, he asked.
Board sources said the representatives of workers called for grouping the workers in five grades, from existing seven, but the owners favoured six grades.
'We were informed that owners' representative at the Minimum Wage Board raised their offer to Tk 2,562 a month from Tk 1,989 they had offered earlier,' a senior labour ministry official, who is liaising with the board, told New Age.
Workers representatives stuck to their demand of fixing the minimum wage at Tk 6,200 a month. On the recommendations of the parliamentary standing committee, the labour and employment ministry asked the Minimum Wage Board to revise the wages in January in the wake of run away inflation and sky rocketing essential prices eroding the workers' real earnings.
Begum Shamsunnahar Bhuyian, workers' representative in the Wage Board, told New Age that the latest offer of the owners was in no way acceptable to the workers.
'The offer is much below the workers' expectations,' she said.
She expressed the hope that the owners would end the negotiations soon meeting the requirements of the workers.
The labour ministry expects that revised wages would be finalised by July 26.