Industrial police has identified 674 industrial units, including 435 apparel and textile units across the country as vulnerable to labour unrest over non-payment of wages and festival allowances to workers before the upcoming Eid-ul-Fitr festival.
Industrial police on Sunday placed the list of the vulnerable factories at a meeting on law and order situation held at the home ministry at Bangladesh secretariat.
According to a source present in the meeting, industrial police found 416 readymade garment factories across the country that are in volatile state, of which 327 are the members of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association while 89 are the members of Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association.
It also identified 19 factories under Bangladesh Textile mills Association as vulnerable to labour unrest over payment of salaries and allowances before Eid.
Other than the RMG and textile sector, industrial police also listed 239 units in other sectors where labour unrest might break out over non-payment of wages and festival allowances before Eid, said the sources who attended the meeting.
The sources also said that the director general of industrial police Abdus Salam tabled the list factories in the meeting and informed that they were working intensively with the factory authorities to avert any untoward situation over non-payment of wages and allowances before Eid.
The home minister Asaduzzaman Khan, who chaired the meeting, discussed the list of the factories with the inspector general of police Mohammad Javed Patwary and representatives from factory owners including Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters
Association president Rubana Huq.
Earlier, BGMEA vice president SM Mannan Kochi said that they have prepared a list of some 250 RMG factories as vulnerable based on the reports of several government agencies and the evaluation of the trade body.
He said that the trade body carried out region-wise monitoring of the factories to avert labour trouble often sparked over non-payment of wages and festival allowances.
According to the industry people and law enforcement agencies, garment workers’ unrests centring on wages in different places have continued since April this year.
The trade body and related organisations regularly failed to address the ground realities across the RMG industrial belts. After missing repeated deadlines for the payment of wages, the authorities of Intraco Sweaters Ltd in Gazipur shut all units on April 28 with four months dues.
Once of the RMG factories under Zara Group in Gazipur has been shut without paying the workers’ dues for the last two months, the units nearby were affected by such an arbitrary measure.
Workers of MTM Garments Ltd at Uttarkhan in Dhaka continued their demonstration for the last few days demanding arrears.
Law enforcement agencies are also apprehensive of an imminent labour unrest at the factory of Paradise Cables Ltd in Narayanganj as the workers of the units remained unpaid for the last four months.
Meanwhile, Crisis Management Core Committee under the labour ministry on Monday failed to set a time frame for the factory owners for paying wages and festival allowances to the workers
before Eid-ul-Fitr to be celebrated in the first week of June.
Published On : 20-05-2019
Source : New Age Bangladesh
