Due to the numerous factory fires and fatal accidents which led to a strike by Bangladesh garment workers, the International Labor Organization agreed to launch a $24 million initiative to better factory conditions, BBC News reported.
The three-year plan was announced on Tuesday and will be funded by the British and Dutch government. The plan will allegedly include factory safety measures and safety inspections in more than 1,000 factories. The plan will also consolidate an accord signed by major European retailers in May after an April disaster, and will include lesser-known retailers that have not signed the accord, according to BBC News.
According to Reuters, Bangladesh is the second-largest clothing exporter in the world due to its rock bottom wages. The rock bottom wages have propelled the garment sector to account for four-fifths of the country's exports, bringing in $22 billion a year.
The minimum monthly wage for the garment workers is 3,300 taka, around $39, and hasn't been raised since 2010. That's half the wage that rivals like Cambodia and Vietnam have, and a little over a quarter of what top exporter China pays workers, according to data released in August by the ILO.
The common garment worker in Bangladesh take home around $54 dollars a month due to overtime, according to the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), Reuters reported.
Workers are currently asking for 8,000 taka a month in order to end the strikes. Factory workers have offered 3,600 taka, only 300 more taka than the previous minimum wage, but have told Reuters they anticipate Bangladesh officials to offer between 4,500 and 5,500 taka.
Bangladesh officials will also ask for a 5 to 15 percent from major retailers like Wal Mart, JC Penney, and H&M, Reuters reported. The wage board met on Monday before sending out a proposal to the government, and are due to announce a new minimum wage figure by next month.
Major clothing company H&M said it has urged Bangladesh to raise the minimum wage, and revisit it annually. "Wages are one of the issues that are at the top of our agenda to drive improvement in the textile industry," Helena Helmersson, H&M's head of sustainability, said in an emailed response to Reuters.
"These workers' rights are being discussed all over the world now and the government is nervous," Amirul Haque Amin, the head of the National Garment Workers Federation, told Reuters. "There is this pressure now, this has given us the opportunity to raise our voices."
If wage hikes get anywhere close to the garment workers request, many smaller factories will be hit the hardest, according to factory bosses like Muzaffar Siddique, whose mid-size factory in Dhaka employs 650 workers, Reuters reported. Siddique said if wages were hiked to 4,500 taka, he would have to charge retailers 30 percent more.
This past April the Rana Plaza factory complex near Dhaka collapsed, which killed more than 1,100 garment workers; a factory fire in November of 2012 killed more than 100 workers; and a factory fire 25 miles from Dhaka killed nine people and injured 50 on Oct. 8, BBC News reported.
According to Reuters, factory bosses claim that they "would like to pay workers more, but can only cover this cost by charging Western retailers more," which can take away the sole appeal of Bangladesh: its dirt cheap prices.
"It's a very simple equation - wherever they get a cheap price, they will go there," BGMEA president Mohammad Atiqul Islam told Reuters. "It's not like they're here because like the Bangladeshi food or the Bangladeshi man."
© 2025 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
