Garment Workers Table Tk30,000 to Tk37,000 Wage Demands as Board Meets for Second Round

Bangladesh's newly formed minimum wage board for the garment sector sits down for its second meeting today, and for the first time workers' representatives are putting real numbers on the table. The consensus floor among labour leaders is at least Tk30,000 a month, more than double the Tk12,500 minimum that has stood since late 2023. Factory owners have yet to name a counter figure of their own.

• Workers' side wants a minimum of at least Tk30,000 a month, against a current floor of Tk12,500
• Four garment union federations have proposed figures ranging from Tk27,000 to Tk37,000
• Employers have not yet countered with a number, citing weak orders and high import costs
• Both sides have agreed the new wage structure takes effect December 1, with revised pay arriving in January packets

Why the board is meeting again

The eighth minimum wage board for ready made garment workers was formed on November 1 after a wave of factory closures and street protests across Ashulia, Savar, Gazipur and Narayanganj. Workers walked out after the government announced a new pay scale for its own employees that roughly doubled salaries and benefits, a move that sharpened the contrast with the Tk12,500 floor most garment workers have not even been earning in practice. Babul Akhter, general secretary of the Bangladesh Garments and Industrial Workers Federation, says only about 5 to 8 percent of workers currently receive that minimum, since most are paid against grade based structures that have not kept pace with inflation running near 8 percent.

Today's session is the board's second since its formation, and it carries more weight than the first. At the opening meeting on November 4, the six member panel, chaired by senior district and sessions judge Sheikh Ashfaqur Rahman, agreed on a timetable rather than a number. This time, worker and employer representatives are expected to actually table figures.

The numbers on the table

Four trade union federations under the IndustriAll Bangladesh Council have independently proposed minimum wages of Tk27,000, Tk32,000, Tk35,000 and Tk37,000 a month. IndustriAll will choose one figure, likely somewhere in that range, to submit formally on workers' behalf. Separately, the Bangladesh Garment Workers Solidarity group and allied unions have drawn a hard line of their own.

"From my understanding, we will propose a minimum wage of at least 30,000 taka," said Babul Akhter, the workers' representative on the board.

"We have decided not to propose a minimum wage below 30,000 taka to our representatives," said Taslima Akhter of the Bangladesh Garment Workers Solidarity.

A Tk30,000 floor would mark a roughly 140 percent increase over the current minimum, a figure employers have repeatedly called unaffordable given current trading conditions.

Where employers stand

The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association has prepared eleven demands of its own for the board but has not confirmed whether individual factory owners have submitted a specific wage figure. ABM Shamsuddin, the employers' representative, said his side is still working on its position. Mijanur Rahman, BGMEA's vice president for finance, said manufacturers will send supporting data to their board representative only after consulting experts and businesspeople, citing infrastructure costs, dollar fluctuations and competition from rival exporting countries such as Vietnam and Cambodia as factors the board needs to weigh alongside workers' demands.

Owners' caution is rooted in a genuinely difficult trading year. Export orders have been inconsistent, raw material import costs remain elevated, and the sector is still absorbing the disruption from this autumn's factory closures, which at their peak idled nearly 700 factories in a single day in early November.

The clock: a December deadline, a January payday

Despite the gap on numbers, both sides have agreed on timing. The new wage structure is meant to take effect from December 1, with workers receiving the revised amount alongside their December salary, paid in January. ABM Shamsuddin has said the board intends to finish its work by December "so that workers can receive their increased salaries by January." If employer and neutral representatives submit their own proposed figures at today's meeting, the board could move toward a final number quickly. If not, officials expect a decision within two to three days.

What it means for you

For the roughly four million workers in Bangladesh's garment factories, most of them women, the gap between Tk12,500 and Tk30,000 or more is the difference between a wage that no longer covers rent, food and transport in Dhaka's satellite towns and one that might. For factory owners and investors with exposure to listed textile and apparel names, a wage settlement toward the higher end of the proposed range would raise unit labour costs at a time when order flow is already uneven, a real risk for margins heading into next year. For international buyers and brands sourcing from Bangladesh, a wage increase of this size is likely to show up eventually in negotiated prices, though manufacturers and retailers typically absorb the first round of any increase themselves.

Bangladesh remains the world's second largest garment exporter after China, and the sector supplies around four fifths of the country's total export earnings. However today's meeting resolves, the outcome will ripple through an industry that underpins both household incomes and the national trade balance.