Crisis Management Core Committee under the labour ministry on Monday failed to set any 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.In last few years, the core committee comprising representatives of several ministries, law enforcement agencies, factory owners and workers set the deadline for the factory owners for paying wages and festival allowances to the workers before Eid-ul-Fitr and Eid-ul-Azha.The committee on Monday convened its 41th meeting at the labour ministry conference room in Dhaka to discuss the overall labour situation and to determine a time frame for paying workers before Eid.At the meeting, factory owners requested the government not to set any deadline for the payment of wages and allowances saying that they would pay their workers the day before the Eid vacation starts, meeting sources said.According to the sources, Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association president Rubana Huq said they wanted to pay half of the wage for the month of May before Eid.‘In today’s meeting we have not set any time frame but factory owners have been instructed to pay wages and festival allowances to the workers the day before Eid vacation starts,’ Monnujan Sufian, state minister for labour, told reporters after the meeting.She said that the factory owners discussed that they wanted to pay their workers half of the wage for the month of May before Eid but the meeting could not made any decision in this regard.‘They have rights to discuss any issue at a meeting but I think the proposal for paying half of the wage for the month of May before Eid is not logical,’ the state minister said.As per the working paper of the meeting, labour unrest might take place in the readymade garment sector if the factory owners fail to pay workers’ wages and allowances seven or eight days before Eid.The paper also observed that labour unrest might take place centring festival allowances before Eid as there was no set amount of allowances for the RMG workers.Monnujan said that they would hold another meeting with the RMG sector people shortly and the decision on the payment of RMG workers would be made in the sitting.Labour secretary Ummul Hasna, Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments inspector general Shib Nath Roy, Jatio Sramik League president Shukkur Mahmud and Industrial Police director general MA Salam attended the meeting, among others.
