APSN | Bangladesh police fire rubber bullets at protesting garment workers

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Bangladesh police fire rubber bullets at protesting garment workers

Agence France Presse - September 23, 2013

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Bangladesh police have fired rubber bullets and tear gas at thousands of local garment workers during a second day of protests to demand a $100 minimum monthly wage.

Police say 6,000 workers took part in the protests where protesters threw stones and bricks at factories just outside the capital in Kaliakoir that make clothes for some of the world's top retailers while others marched along a key highway and blocked traffic.

"We were forced to fire rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse the workers who attacked about half a dozen factories," Kaliakoir police chief Omar Faruq said.

On Saturday, dozens of factories were forced to shut after at least 20,000 workers left their machines to demand the wage rise. Police say angry demonstrators hurled stones at the outside of some 20 factories after managers refused to allow some employees to join the protests.

In June this year, the government set up a panel to review salaries and unions have demanded an 8,114 taka ($100) minimum monthly wage. Factory owners have rejected the demand, saying they can raise wages by only 20 percent to 3,600 taka due to gloomy global economic conditions.

Protests over poor wages, benefits and working conditions have shaken Bangladesh's garment sector, the country's economic mainstay, since April when a factory complex collapsed, killing over 1,100 people.

The collapse, one of the world's worst industrial disasters, highlighted appalling working conditions in the garment factories, where employees toil for 10 to 12 hours a day for low wages.

Widespread protests seeking wage rises in 2006 and 2010 led to deadly clashes, leaving dozens of workers dead and hundreds of factories vandalised.

Bangladesh is the world's second-largest garment exporter with apparel shipments from its 4,500 garment factories accounting for 80 per cent of its $27 billion annual exports.

The vast majority of the impoverished nation's three million workers earn a basic monthly wage of 3,000 taka ($38), among the lowest in the world, following a deal between unions, the government and manufacturers in August 2010.