The Bangladeshi government and apparel factories' owners continued to completely douse the blaze of labor unrest at a mega industrial belt Ashulia on the outskirts of Dhaka for the fourth straight day on Tuesday.
The unrest, triggered on June 27 reportedly by a trifling issue of not allowing three workers to join work due to late presence, turned severe in the last three days, leaving 2 workers dead in the clash with police and hundreds of workers and policemen injured.
Thousands of angry workers on Monday also set ablaze dozens of factories and over 100 vehicles, causing big losses to the export-oriented garment sector which has already been hit by the global economic recession.
A big factory was completely burned down and around 200 apparel units vandalized due to the violent demonstrations at Ashulia, President of the Bangladesh Garments Manufactures and Exporters' Association (BGMEA) Abdus Salam Murshedy told Xinhua on Tuesday.
"The situation is now almost under control. There was no report of fresh clashes excepting some stray incidents today," he said, adding "We're in close monitoring of the situation with support of the government to avoid any further unpleasant incident."
A BGMEA official, however, on condition of anonymity said, "Though the first two days' clashes were centered to three workers' issue but the third day's mayhem was due to the sacking of about 1,000 workers of a sick garment factory which incurred huge losses due to the recession."
He said at a stunning speed it fanned the festering anger of jobless workers which ultimately prompted thousands of workers to take part in the wholesale vandalizing and damaging of the garment units at Ashulia, about 30 km north of Dhaka city.
Virtually, the ongoing global financial meltdown had a background part to play in the whole thing as scores of factories turned sick due to reduced orders from global the market, the official said.
However, labor unrest in the country's apparel industry, contributing over 75 percent of the total export earning, took place frequently in recent years over unpaid wages and overtime.
The South Asian country has around 4,500 textile factories which employ nearly 2.5 million workers. The minimum monthly wage of a garment worker is around 1,662 taka (about 24 U.S. dollars) a month.
According to a survey by the government's Factory Inspection Department released here recently, 122 of 825 factories covered inthe survey did not pay their workers on time between January and May this year.
It showed another 53 factories did not pay overtime while eight paid less than the government's fixed minimum wage.
It's quite natural that there will have some misunderstanding or disputes in the apparel industry as this is the most labor intensive sector, said Syed Sultan Uddin, an official of an NGO, the Bangladesh Institute of Labor Studies (BILS).
But, Uddin said, "The problem is that in most of the Bangladesh's garments factories, there is not at all any proper body for workers to lodge their complaints."
As part of a permanent solution to the unrest incidents like that at Ashulia, he suggested, "The workers can be allowed for trade unions aimed at welfare of both owners and workers."
In each apparel unit there should be a labor or compliance officer and a "Participatory Body" comprising representatives of both owners and workers to resolve any disputed issue, said Uddin.
Following the garment workers' violence, the government said it would take stern action to prevent unrest in the garment sector.
Local reports said some 3,000 law enforcers have been deployed in the violence-ravaged Ashulia industrial belt and the nearby Dhaka Export Processing Zone (DEPZ) areas.
"We'll probe the entire incident and punish those involved in the riots so that such incidents do not happen again," the country's Labor Minister Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain told reporters earlier.
Finance Minister AMA Muhith on Tuesday also told the parliament that more allocation of money has been made in the next fiscal year's budget to support the recession hit garment sector while the Home Ministry will ensure better law and order situation in the industrial zones.
He said, "There is a deep rooted conspiracy to keep Bangladesh's garment industry unstable. We're planning to establish soon industrial police to ensure better law and order situation."
In this connection, the country's Home Minister Sahara Khatun on Monday said the government has taken initiative to form a 1,850-member industrial police for maintaining law and order in industrial areas.
