2023-11-09 11:55:00
The police said they had fired rubber bullets and tear gas on Thursday against thousands of Bangladeshi textile workers demonstrating against the increase deemed “ridiculous” in their minimum wage, with unions denouncing intimidation and arrests.
On Tuesday, the minimum wage committee for the textile sector increased the basic monthly salary of the sector’s four million workers by 56.25%, bringing it to 12,500 takas (104 euros), but this amount was deemed “ridiculous” by the unions and rejected.
The textile workers, who have been demonstrating for two weeks, are demanding a near tripling of the monthly salary, currently at 8,300 takas (70 euros).
According to police, violence broke out in the industrial town of Gazipur, north of Dhaka, where around a thousand demonstrators chanted: “we want 23,000 takas” (190 euros).
“The workers tried to block” a road “and we had to fire tear gas canisters and rubber bullets to disperse them,” Ashok Kumar Pal, deputy police chief of Gazipur, told AFP.
According to the police, the demonstrators set fire to piles of wood and threw bricks and stones at the police.
Several thousand workers also left factories in Ashulia, a northern suburb of Dhaka, to demonstrate, a police inspector told AFP.
The government is accused of arresting and intimidating union leaders.
“The police arrested Mohammad Jewel, one of the organizers of our unions,” Rashedul Alam Raju, general secretary of the Bangladesh Independent Garment Workers’ Federation, told AFP, adding that a “local leader ” was also arrested.
“Union leaders and rank-and-file activists are being threatened by the police” to put an end to the mobilization, declared a senior union leader, who requested anonymity, according to whom “at least six rank-and-file unionists” were also arrested. .
Police have not commented on the accusations.
Washington urged authorities on Wednesday to “review the decision on the minimum wage” to respond “to the growing economic pressures facing workers.”
According to police, at least three workers have died since the protests began, and five police officers have been injured.
Textiles are a key industry in Bangladesh, the world’s second largest clothing exporter behind China.
Its approximately 3,500 textile factories, mostly employing women, produce 85% of Bangladesh’s 51 billion euros in annual exports and supply many major global brands, such as Levi’s, Zara (Inditex group) and H&M.
11/09/2023 10:54:17 – Gazipur (Bangladesh) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
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