Pending salaries and unrest in the RMG sector

Pending salaries and unrest
in the RMG sector

Mushfique Wadud investigates the causes behind the recent garment factory workers’ unrest in Fatullah, Narayanganj and talks to leaders of the country’s Ready-Made Garments sector on how damaging an impact such uproars could have on the sector and ways to prevent such turmoil in future

photo by Prito Reza

On August 25, reports of the latest episode of unrest among workers of a garment factory surfaced as hundreds of workers of the Auto Textile Knitwear Limited, in Lalpur, at the Fatullah industrial hub, Narayanganj, took to the streets in protest.

The workers had been at loggerheads with the factory owners over their impending salaries, which culminated into demonstrations. The workers’, prompted the police to charge in and disperse the protestors, quashing chances of workers taking any violent meas

Death in a foreign land

Death in a foreign land

Mushfique Wadud investigates the recent rise in death among expatriate workers and the probable causes behind the high number of such tragic incidents

photo by Al-Emrun Garjon

On April 5, when Tajmahal’s mobile rang, she received the call with eager excitement as she anticipated her husband calling from abroad. Her husband, Jaynal Abedin, had been living in Malaysia for the past three years.

Her heart, however, broke to pieces as the caller informed her of the demise of her husband. An expatriate Bangladeshi wage earner, Jaynal Abdin died of a heart attack in Malaysia on April 5. She could not believe the news as she had spoken to him over the phone just a day before.