Refayet Ullah Mirdha

Al-Muslim Group, a leading garment exporter, is constructing quarantine centres at Savar to treat its workers who show Covid-19 symptoms.

Garment factory owners yesterday proposed paying workers 50 percent of their basic salaries as Eid bonus.

The world is moving heaven and earth every day to line up one remedy or the other to steer clear of the novel coronavirus. And here, a company claims to have developed a fabric that can annihilate the deadly pathogen.

With more and more garment factories reopening every day, the deadly coronavirus appears to be spreading among workers in the industrial belts in Ashulia, Gazipur, Narayanganj and Chattogram.

Incredulous, is what one would sigh when chancing upon April’s export receipts, which hit rock-bottom at $520.01 million.

Shahid Alam, a yarn manufacturer for the local garment industry, used to sell cotton yarn worth Tk35 crore a month, and more so on the occasions of Pahela Baishakh and Eid-ul-Fitr.

Despite repeated calls from the union leaders for paying the workers of closed factories at least 65 percent of their gross salaries for April, the owners at a meeting yesterday refused to offer any more than 60 percent.

Garment exporters who supplied to the struggling British department store Debenhams have run into a brick wall.

Nearly a thousand garment factories outside the capital, which resumed operation haphazardly since April 26, didn’t follow the reopening schedule agreed upon at a high-profile meeting five days ago, spurring a huge influx of workers to Dhaka and elsewhere amid coronavirus risks.

Tuomo Poutiainen, country director at the International Labour Organisation, speaks about May Day, measures aimed at tackling the coronavirus pandemic and the importance of protecting workers, by Refayet Ullah Mirdha and Md Fazlur Rahman

In a bid to avert job cuts and temporary closures during Covid-19 outbreak, the government yesterday directed ready-made garment factory owners to pay their workers’ salary by 60 percent for April.

The government yesterday decided to waive the demurrage fees on the storage of imported raw materials of garment items piled up at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (HSIA) warehouse.

The Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments (DIFE) has launched an investigation to find out whether the garment factories that are going for temporary closures following mass order cancellations are doing so by the book.

The Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments (DIFE) has been making a guideline for reopening the garment factories, most of which have been asked to shut down by the sector’s apex trade body on April 11.

The Bangladesh Bank has extended the deadline for opening mobile financial service (MFS) accounts for the employees of export-oriented factories by six days to April 26.

Bangladesh’s export earnings await a massive blow in the coming months as the global coronavirus pandemic has wreaked havoc on orders and shipment while sending factories to a near standstill, exporters and experts said.

Export earnings in March declined by 18.29 percent year on year to $2.73 billion due to a fall in shipment of apparels, according to data from the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB).

At least 370 garment factories have failed to pay their workers’ salary within the stipulated time of April 16, said the Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments (DIFE).

The logistics and freight forwarding business in Bangladesh has been devastated by the global coronavirus pandemic, which has led to a nosedive in transportation of goods by land, air and sea.

The garment factories are not reopening on April 26, which was fixed by Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) earlier.