Refayet Ullah Mirdha

The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic is inflicting a shock to the employability of the vulnerable youth population in Bangladesh, according to a report of the International Labour Organization (ILO).

Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) has been engaging different international rights groups to ensure that international retailers and brands pay local suppliers.

Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) has threatened to blacklist British clothing retailer Edinburgh Woollen Mill (EWM) in Bangladesh for not paying suppliers and not responding to the call of the association.

Japan has asked Bangladesh to have a blitz on the business environment and services to the existing Japanese companies as preconditions to come by fresh investments from the far-east Asian country.

Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) has recommended that the ministry of labour and employment close down 46 garment factories that failed to pay the workers’ salary for March despite repeated requests from the association.

Here’s a spot of good news amid the doom and gloom.

Bangladeshi suppliers of the American retail giant JC Penney are in hot water as their payment has now become uncertain after the company filed for bankruptcy protection on Friday.

The government yesterday asked garment factory owners to pay the workers 50 percent of their basic salary as Eid bonus before the festival and another 50 percent after the festival.

Al-Muslim Group, a leading garment exporter, is constructing quarantine centres at Savar to treat its workers who show Covid-19 symptoms.

Garment factory owners yesterday proposed paying workers 50 percent of their basic salaries as Eid bonus.

The world is moving heaven and earth every day to line up one remedy or the other to steer clear of the novel coronavirus. And here, a company claims to have developed a fabric that can annihilate the deadly pathogen.

With more and more garment factories reopening every day, the deadly coronavirus appears to be spreading among workers in the industrial belts in Ashulia, Gazipur, Narayanganj and Chattogram.

Incredulous, is what one would sigh when chancing upon April’s export receipts, which hit rock-bottom at $520.01 million.

Shahid Alam, a yarn manufacturer for the local garment industry, used to sell cotton yarn worth Tk35 crore a month, and more so on the occasions of Pahela Baishakh and Eid-ul-Fitr.

Despite repeated calls from the union leaders for paying the workers of closed factories at least 65 percent of their gross salaries for April, the owners at a meeting yesterday refused to offer any more than 60 percent.

Garment exporters who supplied to the struggling British department store Debenhams have run into a brick wall.

Nearly a thousand garment factories outside the capital, which resumed operation haphazardly since April 26, didn’t follow the reopening schedule agreed upon at a high-profile meeting five days ago, spurring a huge influx of workers to Dhaka and elsewhere amid coronavirus risks.

Tuomo Poutiainen, country director at the International Labour Organisation, speaks about May Day, measures aimed at tackling the coronavirus pandemic and the importance of protecting workers, by Refayet Ullah Mirdha and Md Fazlur Rahman

In a bid to avert job cuts and temporary closures during Covid-19 outbreak, the government yesterday directed ready-made garment factory owners to pay their workers’ salary by 60 percent for April.

The government yesterday decided to waive the demurrage fees on the storage of imported raw materials of garment items piled up at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (HSIA) warehouse.