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Three dead in Bangladesh garment wage protests
Agence France Presse - December 12, 2010
Nurul Alam, Chittagong, Bangladesh – Three people were killed and scores injured on Sunday as tens of thousands of Bangladeshi garment workers clashed with police at protests over low wages.
Police fired live bullets and tear gas shells during violent demonstrations in the capital Dhaka and the southeastern city of Chittagong, a day after Korean company Youngone shut down all 17 of its factories following staff demonstrations.
Bangladesh's garment workers, who make clothes for many Western brands, have been angered that a government hike in wages due last month has not yet been implemented.
"Three people have died, including a rickshaw driver who died on the spot after he was hit by a brick," Meshbahuddin, the special branch police chief of Chittagong who only uses one name, told AFP.
He said about 50 people had been injured at the Chittagong Export Processing Zone, where 20,000 workers attacked factories and a police station.
Another police officer in Chittagong, Sergeant Sheikh Abul Hasan, told AFP that workers had rampaged through the area.
"They torched and damaged scores of vehicles and attacked our officers and the station with bricks and stones. We fired live bullets when they became completely out of control," he said.
In Dhaka, 4,000 mainly female workers torched two vehicles and blocked a main road in protest against employers, who are accused of not implementing the recent increase in the minimum wage.
Bangladesh's 4,500 garment factories, many of which produce clothes for Western retailers such as Wal-Mart, H&M and Levi Strauss, must now pay workers at least 3,000 taka (43 dollars) a month – up 80 percent on the 2006 minimum wage.
Unions have said that many manufacturers have not raised salaries, despite government warnings, and that some experienced workers had been demoted to deny them higher wages.
At Rupganj, 30 kilometres (20 miles) northeast of Dhaka, 5,000 workers attacked a German joint-venture garment factory, said district police chief Biswas Afzal Hossain.
He said police used tear gas and rubber bullets to break up the protesters.
Korean company Youngone – the country's largest exporter – shut its factories after riots in Chittagong on Saturday, when dozens of people were injured, including two Youngone managers, as workers vandalised factories and vehicles.
Youngone director Shikdar Mesbahuddin Ahmed told AFP its wages are already higher than the new government minimum but it was "devising ways to compensate senior workers who felt deprived by the new rates."
"They became unruly and didn't wait for our decision. Our deputy director is seriously injured. He will be flown to Bangkok for treatment," Ahmed said, adding Youngone employed 36,000 workers in Bangladesh.
Garments accounted for 80 percent of the country's 16.2 billion dollars of annual exports last year. Bangladesh's factories employ more than three million workers, about 85 percent of them women.
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