Business Report :
Protests by retrenched garment workers and job seekers continued in Ashulia and Gazipur, as workers from several garment factories and unemployed young adults demanded various concessions, prompting authorities to close over 60 factories on Wednesday.
Later, the law enforcement agencies intervened and managed to restore normalcy.
“The government will take immediate action to address the growing labor unrest, which officials believe is being fuelled by external influences,” said Asif Mahmud Shojib Bhuiyan, Labor and Employment adviser, following a meeting at the Ministry of Home Affairs on the day.
“We’ve had multiple discussions with both the workers and factory owners regarding the unrest,” said Asif Mahmud. “Our industry adviser has also been involved in these discussions. What we’ve learned from labor leaders is that the current protests lack a clear set of demands, leaving even the leaders puzzled. This suggests a significant involvement of external elements.”
Despite joint operations by the army and police, about 60-70 readymade garment (RMG) factories were forced to close on Tuesday due to worker protests fueled by these outsiders. The situation was calm in the industrial zones of Savar, Ashulia, and Gazipur in the morning, but protests reignited by noon, leading factory authorities to declare a holiday.
Workers have seen their slice of the global income pie shrink significantly over the past two decades, swelling inequality and depriving the combined labour force of trillions, the UN said Wednesday, reports AFP.
The United Nations’ International Labour Organization said that the global labour income share — or the proportion of total income in an economy earned by working — had fallen by 1.6 percentage points since 2004.
“While the decrease appears modest in terms of percentage points, in 2024 it represents an annual shortfall in labour income of $2.4 trillion compared to what workers would have earned had the labour income share remained stable since 2004,” the ILO said in a report.
The study highlighted the Covid-19 pandemic as a key driver of the decline, with almost half of the reduction in labour income share taking place during the pandemic years of 2020-2022.