Like the previous years, labour unrest is feared in the hub of export-oriented ready-made garment sector, including Savar, Ashulia, Kanchpur, Fatullah and Tongi, ahead of Eid-ul-Fitr over payment of salary and Eid bonus in due time. A few garment manufacturers have allegedly gone for retrenchment while investment in improvement of worker safety has resulted in fresh resentment. A senior detective official said, “We’ve already submitted a report to the authorities concerned about the possibility of labour unrest ahead of Eid.” If factory owners do not pay salary and Eid bonus to workers in due time, unrest may spew in the billion-dollar RMG sector that makes clothes for major global brands and retailers. An intelligence unit already sent a warning message to the authorities, asking them to pay workers’ dues in due time to avoid unrest, the official added.As it happens during every Eid, hundreds of garment workers stage demonstrations on busy roads and highways for payment of salary and Eid bonus, causing intractable tailbacks and triggering untold sufferings to trippers. Meanwhile, workers of two garment factories staged a demonstration outside the National Press Club on Monday to press for their dues before Eid. Meanwhile, Inspector General of Police Shahidul Huq said, “Considering possible labour unrest ahead of Eid, measures have been taken to check traffic mismanagement and criminal activities like toll collection from highways.” With a view to freeing highways from criminal activities and traffic tie-ups, a large number of law enforcers—both plain-clothes detectives and uniformed—would patrol the national highways, he added. “We’ve also asked the ready-made garment manufacturers to pay the workers their dues on time to avoid commotion ahead of Eid.” Syed Ahmed, inspector general, department of inspection for factories and establishments, recently told parliamentary standing committee on labour ministry that he had information of retrenchment in some factories. He told the first meeting of the watchdog that around 11,000 workers of 16 factories lost their jobs as his team shut the factories for poor safety standard. Abdus Salam, deputy inspector general of industrial police, told the meeting that many factories, including one of a leading businessman and ruling party leader, had cut jobs. If the retrenched workers fail to get jobs ahead of this Eid, there could be unrest in RMG units in Savar and Ashulia, he observed. Garment worker Mohammad Alam, 25, is one among many who lost his job two months ago and now runs a battery-run rickshaw in Mirpur area. “I’ve gone from factory to factory, but the owners are not willing to recruit any worker now… They will rather cut jobs,” he told journalists. “Owners now want 10 workers to do the jobs of 30 as they have been renovating their factories.”
