Editorial
Garment sector boiling again
Find a sustainable solution
IT appears that the RMG sector is heating up once again. It is distressing to learn of the destruction of a large number of garment factories in Ashulia by agitating workers demanding payment of their arrears. What is regrettable is the routine regularity with which the management of some garment factories default on payment to their workers, and for the workers to almost predictably resort to violence resulting in loss of property.
Interestingly this time, most of the owners have denied having defaulted on payment, asserting at the same time that their factories were ransacked by outsiders. That and the corroborative statement of the BGMEA president that the factories which were attacked were not defaulters, and were in good corporate culture, cause us anxiety. The question that arises is why then are those factories that have not erred in the payment of wages to their workers being targeted? Or is the statement of the BGMEA president entirely accurate?
One thing must be made amply clear. It is utterly unacceptable that the workers go without their wages, which is meagre as it is. It is equally unacceptable that the workers should resort to destruction of valuable property impulsively without giving talks a chance. Even worse is the proclivity of some workers to lay siege to highways disrupting inter district traffic and damaging private and public vehicles.
All relevant quarters must address the tremor in the garment sector in all earnest. It being one of the two major foreign exchange earners for the country, any disruption would affect our earnings, which in turn is likely to compound the foreign exchange inflow, with remittance from the expatriate workers being also under threat.
It devolves on all concerned to go to the bottom of the problem. One could well ask as to why this sector is so violence--prone when there have been accords at different times including a tripartite agreement on wages. It is heartening to see that the knitwear association has decided to supplement the wages of their workers to meet the rising prices. While that is one aspect of the wage issue it is for the garment manufacturers' association to oversee that whatever has been committed is paid in time. It is also for the relevant agencies to ascertain why and how agitation in one factory spills over all the others in the area, something that we have witnessed in the past also, and how, as claimed by many factory owners, hooligans posing as workers manage to resort to vandalism and destruction of property.
It is time that all concerned put their heads together to find out a sustainable solution to these problems.
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