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New protests in Bangladesh garment factories
Agence France Presse - July 5, 2010
Dhaka – Protesting workers forced a dozen Bangladeshi garment factories near the capital Dhaka to shut on Monday in a repeat of major industrial unrest that hit the sector last month.
A police official said about 2,000 employees demonstrated over low pay in the Ashulia industrial area, where hundreds of factories temporarily closed after riots in June.
"The workers were demanding higher wages at one sweater factory, which prompted the owners to shut down the plant indefinitely," deputy police chief of Dhaka district Monowar Hossain said.
The workers threw stones and bricks at the factory, he said, adding owners of about 10 other nearby factories also shut to stop the protests from spreading.
Bangladesh's garment workers, who make clothes for major Western brands such as Walmart and H & M, have been demanding wages of at least 5,000 taka (70 dollars) a month. The current minimum wage is just 25 dollars.
The government has said it would raise the salaries of the country's three million garment workers by the end of July and urged them to be patient. Garments accounted for nearly 80 percent of Bangladesh's 15.56 billion dollars of exports last year. The factories employ around 40 percent of the industrial workforce.
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