Bangladesh garment workers demand minimum wage be doubled

Bangladesh's garment workers are demanding a minimum monthly wage of 30,000 taka ($243), more than double the current 12,500 taka, after protests last week shut hundreds of factories and drew tear gas and sound grenades from police.

The government's wage board, the body that sets pay floors for the export industry, agreed on November 4 to put a revised wage structure in place from December. Workers would receive their first pay under the new scale in January. The size of the increase has not been decided.

Garment making earns Bangladesh more than 80% of its export income and employs more than 4 million people, making the country the second-largest apparel exporter after China. Brands including H&M, Zara, Gap, Primark and Walmart source from its factories.

Shilpi Khatun, 27, has worked in the industry for five years and is the only earner in a household that includes her unemployed husband, her parents and her in-laws. She cooks on a wood-fired clay stove in Gazipur, an industrial hub outside Dhaka, because the family cannot pay for gas.

Her pay has risen from 9,000 taka a month when she started to 13,500 taka ($108) now, and reaches about 16,000 taka with overtime. The money rarely lasts until the next payday, she said. On the hardest days the family eats puffed rice, and she has not seen a doctor in three years despite worsening health.

"Everything costs more now. Rent has doubled, food is more expensive and whatever I earn disappears before the month is over," Khatun said, gathering leafy greens outside her home to eat with rice.

Bangladesh has been under a cost-of-living squeeze since 2022, with inflation averaging around 9%. Food prices drove the first surge; non-food costs have stayed high.

Roksana Parveen, 29, a sewing operator in a factory in Ashulia outside Dhaka, said she thinks twice before buying anything, including food. One of her two daughters has dropped out of school to cut costs.

Factory owners argue that a steep increase would strip Bangladesh of its cost advantage over competitors such as India and Vietnam and squeeze margins already hit by higher energy bills. Workers already receive a 9% annual increment and two festival bonuses on top of basic pay, the manufacturers say, leaving little room for a large rise.