Before dawn each day, garment worker Shilpi Khatun cooks over a wood-fired clay stove because her family cannot afford gas, before heading to a factory in Gazipur, an industrial hub on the outskirts of Dhaka. The 27-year-old is the sole breadwinner in a household where her husband is unemployed and her parents and in-laws depend on her wages, and rising prices have left her struggling to afford basic necessities despite five years in the garment industry.
Her frustration is shared by thousands of Bangladesh's garment workers, who staged protests last week demanding the minimum monthly wage be raised to 30,000 taka, about $243, from 12,500 taka. The unrest, some of it violent, forced hundreds of factories to shut down as workers staged protests and clashed with police, who used tear gas and sound grenades to disperse demonstrators. The protests resumed on Tuesday, 10 November, in the industrial belts of Ashulia and Gazipur, with workers blocking roads and demanding both higher wages and the release of arrested colleagues.
The disruption this week has been severe. About 152 garment factories suspended production on Tuesday as workers refused to work, according to the Financial Express in Dhaka, after workers blocked the Baipail-Abdullahpur road in the Jamgora area of Ashulia at around 10:30 in the morning. Clashes in Ashulia left 20 people injured, including five police personnel, and two garment workers were injured in clashes with police, according to the Press Trust of India. Authorities deployed 36 platoons of Border Guard Bangladesh personnel in key industrial areas of Dhaka, Gazipur and Narayanganj to maintain law and order.
Several factories announced closures under Section 13(1) of the Bangladesh Labour Act, including an indefinite closure of all factories operated by New Age Group in Ashulia from Tuesday. Other factories belonging to groups including Star Link, Envoy and Sharmin Group also declared holidays as the protests intensified, and 11 factories in Gazipur suspended operations in phases from around 10:30 in the morning.
The government's wage board agreed on 4 November to implement a revised wage structure from December, with workers set to receive their first pay under the new scale in January, but it has yet to determine the size of the increase. The government formed the board on 1 November to review wages for garment workers, and at its second meeting on Monday the workers' representatives proposed 32,000 taka as the minimum monthly wage for an entry-level worker, with 30,000 taka for new recruits and trainees. The board asked owners' representatives to submit their proposal within the next four working days, and the next meeting is to be held on 16 November.
The stakes are enormous for Bangladesh. Low labour costs have helped make the country the world's second-largest apparel exporter after China and a preferred manufacturing base for global brands including H&M, Zara, Gap, Primark and Walmart. The industry generates more than 80 per cent of the country's export earnings and employs more than four million people, which means a wage settlement will ripple through the entire economy.
Manufacturers, however, say a steep wage increase would erode Bangladesh's cost advantage over rivals such as India and Vietnam and further squeeze margins already under pressure from higher energy costs. They argue that workers also receive a 9 per cent annual increment and two festival bonuses in addition to their basic wages, leaving limited room for substantial increases. Khatun herself now earns 13,500 taka, about $108, up from 9,000 taka when she started five years ago — a rise that has not kept pace with the cost of living.
Bangladesh has faced a prolonged cost-of-living squeeze since 2022, with inflation averaging around 9 per cent, and the garment workers' demands reflect years of eroding purchasing power for food, housing, transport and healthcare. The workers' demands now go beyond pay: they have called for an end to blacklisting, the reinstatement of dismissed colleagues and the release of arrested workers, turning a wage dispute into a broader confrontation over how the industry treats its workforce.
Whether the wage board can produce a figure both sides accept will become clearer after its next meeting on 16 November. For now, the factories are quiet, the roads in Ashulia are patrolled, and workers like Shilpi Khatun are still cooking over a wood-fired stove before dawn, waiting to learn what their labour will be worth next year.
