Tens of thousands of garment workers have downed tools and taken to the streets to urge the government for an increase in the minimum salary.
4 million employees work in the country’s $20-billion garment export industry – 60 percent goes to Europe – and earn about $38 a month. They are demanding a raise to $103 a month.
Earlier, the Bangladeshi government agreed to a 20 percent increase, but the workers called the raise “inhuman and humiliating.”
“Our backs are against the wall, so we don’t have any alternative unless we raise our voice strongly,” Nazma Akter, president of the United Garments Workers’ Federation told protesters.
Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at
via 50,000 Bangladeshi garment workers strike over ‘inhuman’ wages — RT News.
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