The angst over wages has rattled Bangladesh’s ready-made garment industry which accounts for more than 80 per cent of export earnings and employs about four million people.
Bangladesh is on the edge, as escalating labour agitation widens fault lines in a politically polarised nation. The BNP government is understandably worried over former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's announcement that she will return to the country in December to face trial. The government anticipates Hasina's entry will be followed by a mass agitation that her party, the Awami League, is planning to unleash on the streets to weaken the government’s grip on an already fast-deteriorating law and order situation.
Though a ban limits the political options for the Awami League, that led the country's post-independence struggle, it remains the most expansive political organisation in the country, replete with student-youth and women-labour fronts with a powerful volunteer wing in tow. Despite facing intense repression – false cases, mass arrests, mob lynching and targeted assassinations – the Awami League remains a potent grassroots-driven party capable of street agitations that can upset the government’s applecart.
Now adding to the government’s Hasina return worries, the government faces a powerful labour agitation in the country's ready-made garments industry, Bangladesh's biggest foreign exchange earner. The demonstrations began on Saturday, October 31, in Bangladesh’s garment-producing belt around Dhaka, with workers seeking a minimum monthly wage of Taka 30,000, up from Taka 12,500. They also demand reinstatement of workers dismissed after being blacklisted. Blacklisting can deny workers, who have joined protests, from getting jobs in other factories. The government formed a six-member wage board on Sunday to review pay, but announced no deadline for its recommendations.
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The angst over wages has rattled Bangladesh’s ready-made garment industry which accounts for more than 80 per cent of export earnings and employs about four million people. The current minimum wage was fixed in 2023, when it rose from Tk 8,000 to Tk 12,500. Workers allege that this barely helps them survive in a country, where price levels of all essential commodities have skyrocketed in recent months.
Garment labour agitation spreads
On Monday morning, workers left factories in Savar and Ashulia, industrial areas northwest of Dhaka, and gathered on roads and near factory gates. Some tried to block the Nabinagar–Chandra highway, a major route through the region. Police fired tear gas and used water cannons to disperse protesters. Clashes were reported at several locations; workers threw bricks at factories and police, and a covered van was set on fire in Narsinghpur.
By mid-afternoon, authorities had declared holidays or suspended operations at 264 factories in Savar and Ashulia. In Gazipur, another major manufacturing hub north of Dhaka, workers blocked roads and the Dhaka-Tangail highway in areas including Konabari, Kashimpur, Mouchak, Shafipur, Chandra and Palli Bidyut. Police and Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), a paramilitary force, used tear gas and sound grenades to clear roads. Police said they had filed three cases over arson and vandalism since Sunday, naming about 4,000 people as suspects, and had arrested at least 30. Five BGB platoons had been deployed in the area. In Mirpur, police said four cases had been filed over two days of protests, accusing about 10,500 unidentified people and arresting 22.
Watch: Why are Bangladesh garment workers up in arms?
The protests also reached Narayanganj, an industrial city south of Dhaka. Around midday, workers from several factories in Fatullah blocked the Dhaka-Narayanganj Link Road, disrupting traffic as they demanded a Tk 30,000 minimum wage. Police said they were trying to resolve the blockade through talks.
Largescale factory closures
The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), the industry’s main trade body, said 529 factories were affected and nearly one million workers were impacted. Factory owners have said that continued disruption could delay production and shipments. BGMEA President Mahmud Hasan Khan said owners might use a “no work, no pay” provision if protests forced factories.
Bangladesh's annual inflation touched 8.34 per cent in September, outstripping salary increases in the garment industry, even as the government announced huge salary increases for government employees.
Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed has blamed factory owners linked to the Awami League, including former lawmakers and ministers, of fuelling unrest by closing factories and refusing to hike wages. As usual, the Home Minister's allegations are not backed by any evidence. He also failed to explain why the BNP mobilised thousands of its armed supporters to combat the labour agitation. But Awami League spokesperson Rokeya Prachy alleged the BNP was playing up the Awami League to cover up for its “massive governance failures”.
Workers’ insecurity is compounded by factory closures and layoffs. More than 400 garment factories have shut down between July 2023 and June 2026, with the BGMEA claiming that factory closures cost the sector more than 19,000 jobs in the six months to mid-2026. Gas and power shortages have also cut working hours and overtime at some factories, reducing workers’ take-home pay even as their expenses rise.
The new government pay scale has sharpened the contrast. Approved in August and gazetted in September, it raises basic salaries by up to 142 per cent for some public employees.
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Economist Fahmida Khatun of the Centre for Policy Dialogue said the government should periodically review garment workers’ wages proactively before announcing the public-sector pay scale, and should set adequate wages proactively rather than wait for workers to agitate.
Bangladesh's annual inflation touched 8.34 per cent in September, outstripping salary increases in the garment industry, even as the government announced huge salary increases for government employees.
Taslima Akhter, president of Bangladesh Garment Workers Solidarity, vouched that workers’ demands were legitimate and urged the government to fix wages in line with living costs. But she also warned workers not to fall into a “trap” set by groups seeking to divert the movement. Akhter is married to Zunaid Saki, a state minister in the current government, so expectedly she reflects the BNP's fear that the Awami League may utilise the labour agitation to unsettle the government in the rundown to Hasina's return to Bangladesh. It will be naive to expect the Awami League will not use the festering agitation in the country's biggest industry but it is up to the government to nip it in the bud through meaningful negotiations.
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