The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) instructed its members to keep all factories operational from Sunday (September 8).
They instructed this after an emergency meeting with the representatives from the army, industrial police, intelligence agencies and RMG manufacturers held at a factory unit of Ha-meem Group at Ashulia on Saturday.
After the meeting, BGMEA Senior Vice President Abdullah Hil Rakib told the media that there will be a team of 20-25 policemen in front of the factories which are high risk of protests.
If needed, they will set up sufficient police boxes at industrial gates.
He also said that they will not declare the policy of ‘no work, no pay’ at this moment as they prioritize the welfare of the workers first.
“We will try our best to keep our factory units operational from Sunday. It is a very positive vibe that there were comparatively lower appearances of outsider fuelers at the factory areas on Saturday,” he further said.
He also said that they are hopeful the situation will return to normalcy very soon in the industrial areas and they will take further decisions as per the situation.
Earlier on Saturday, most of the RMG factories started operation in Savar and Ashulia industrial areas. The situation was much better on that day compared to the past several days.
However, in the morning, the workers started working in the factory on time but with the progression of time, workers in some factories stopped working and raised various demands including increase in attendance bonus, stop laying off workers, increase in tiffin bill and many more.
As per the sources, 7 factories including factory units of NASSA Group, Pearl Garments, and Newage Group remained shut.
However, 37 factories that started operations in the morning on Saturday, declared closed at various times of the day including factories of Active Composite, Al Muslim Group, Mascot Group and Sharmin Group.
Meanwhile, the law enforcers strengthened security in the areas where labor protests are taking place in the last few days.
According to sources, no untoward incident was reported anywhere near the factory till afternoon of Saturday.
Army, RAB and police personnel patrolled the various roads of Ashulia, Savar and adjacent areas and they were also stationed in front of various factories with high risk of protests like Pearl Garments.
Army, police and RAB members were deployed in major roads of Ashulia and Savar areas like Narsinghpur-Baipail Road, Baipail-Abdullahpur road etc.
Mohammad Sarwar Alam, SP of Ashulia Industrial Area Police-1, said that the workers of various factories joined work at the stipulated time of Saturday morning.
Meanwhile, BKMEA President Mohammad Hatem on Saturday said that a group is making recurrent attempts to take advantage of the unstable situation of the country to harm the RMG sector at a press conference at the Narayanganj Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
He also said that when the unstable situation was created in Sri Lanka, the orders from this country shifted to Bangladesh
“I don’t want to mention the name of the country but someone may want to take the order to their country,” he said, adding that several news reports about this circulated in the newspapers of that country.
He also said that everyone has to be careful against the anarchy created in the RMG sector.
“The political and labour leaders of all those areas have to play their role in this revolution. I will tell the labour brothers not to be the scapegoat of anyone’s provocation,” he added.
He also said that as a result, the workers will also suffer along with the country and country’s economy. They should be concerned about the outsider fuelers, conspirant, and vested interest groups.
