Nahid backs garment workers, slams wage board
Opposition Chief Whip and National Citizen Party (NCP) Convener Nahid Islam on Sunday accused the government of meeting garment workers’ wage demands with baton charges and tear gas, and described the newly formed wage board as a way to halt the movement rather than a concrete assurance.
In a Facebook post, Nahid Islam said industrial areas including Gazipur, Mirpur, Ashulia and Savar had been in turmoil for nearly two weeks, with thousands of workers on the streets demanding a higher minimum wage.
He said workers who sit at sewing machines for 10 to 12 hours a day were asking only for a decent life, calling the demand “not a luxury or a crime” but the minimum arithmetic of survival.
His remarks came on a day when 529 garment factories remained closed across three industrial areas, with 987,190 workers not working, according to an industrial-area summary.
Labour and Employment Minister Ariful Haque Choudhury has announced a six-member wage board and urged workers to return to their workplaces.
Criticism of the wage board
Nahid Islam said the board, formed under heavy pressure, was “merely a tactic to halt the movement, not a concrete assurance.”
He pointed to 2023, when, he said, the board was used to buy time against a demand of Tk25,000 before a token Tk12,500 was imposed. That remains the current minimum monthly wage.
He also alleged that the board includes a representative of a labour organisation backed by the ruling party, saying this raised doubts about its neutrality and effectiveness. The government has not publicly responded to this criticism.
“Inflation for some, conspiracy for others” The opposition leader argued that prices of rice, lentils, oil, house rent and healthcare had multiplied over the past three years, making it impossible for workers to run families on the current wage.
He said the government had recently cited inflation to introduce a new pay scale and higher pensions for public servants, yet treated workers’ demands as a “conspiracy.” He called this “plain hypocrisy.”
Response to infiltration claims
Nahid Islam rejected the framing of the unrest as political. Police have said some of the more than 40 people arrested were activists of the banned Awami League who infiltrated the protests.
Rashed Khan, political assistant to the prime minister, claimed in a Facebook post on Sunday that Jamaat-e-Islami and the NCP had earlier instigated the movement. These claims could not be independently verified.
Without naming the officials, Nahid Islam said the old attempt to brand the movement a political conspiracy instigated by opposition parties was on display again.
He said that if a banned organisation caused disorder, it should be investigated and tried, but that using this as a pretext to dismiss thousands of workers’ rights exposed the failure of the government’s intelligence and administration.
Allegations over policing
He said at least 30 people had been injured in baton charges by police and the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), and that journalists and bystanders were not spared.
He described the arrest of labour leaders, and of an ordinary worker over a Facebook post protesting a colleague’s detention, as grave violations of freedom of speech and fundamental rights.
“When a state deploys the BGB on the streets over a question of workers’ wages, it is clear whose side it stands on,” he wrote.
Referring to the July uprising, he said the working people who gave blood and lives for change were now being met with the tone and language of repression seen during Sheikh Hasina’s rule.
The injury figure and the reported deployment of the BGB could not be independently confirmed. Police have said they fired tear gas and sound grenades in Gazipur and Mirpur after protesters blocked roads and, in some instances, set fire to a police vehicle.
Demands
Nahid Islam said manufacturers’ references to the global slowdown and rising raw material costs did not justify loading the burden of a crisis onto workers after enjoying profits in good times.
He said the government’s core responsibility was to secure fair prices from international brands and hold owners accountable.
He noted that more than 80 per cent of export earnings come from the labour of about 4 million garment workers, saying their work had boosted foreign exchange reserves while their own households struggled.
He demanded that a fair minimum wage be announced immediately after talks with workers, along with the release of those arrested, an impartial investigation into police action, an end to dismissals and blacklisting, and guarantees of safe workplaces and trade union rights.
Prime Minister Tarique Rahman convened a meeting at the Bangladesh Secretariat on Sunday evening on the crisis. No decision from it had been made public.
