Editorial
Salary increase for garment workers
Break out of the $40 per month ceiling
THE government's move to set up a new minimum wage board for garment workers to increase their salaries is welcome, but it has to be finalized after consulting with the owners and an objective assessment of the industries financial condition. That the new wage will have retrospective effect from May 1, 2013 will certainly benefit the workers.
The test of the pudding would be in eating. If their salaries are nominally increased as had happened before then it would be another disappointment, a cruel joke played on them again.
Please keep in mind that the wage increase is actuated out of a universal sympathy for the poor working conditions including wage structure our workers have been toiling in.
For the government let the move not become an exercise in populism -- come election season -- rather it should result in a remunerative wage pegged to the rate of inflation and offered upfront to workers. When their minimum wage was raised from Tk 1662 in 2006 to Tk 3000 per month as from November, 2010, it was evidently an insufficient raise. The same mindset is no longer tenable; this time the salary should be increased to meet the workers basic needs. Even Cambodia pays a higher rate.
While we are sympathetic to the workers' need for better salary the concerns of the garment manufacturers will also have to be addressed, the principal among which is that the buyers are demanding lower prices, thereby negatively impacting the prospect of owners' paying more to the workers.
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