The government has arrested 3 garment industry labor leaders on charges that they had engineered violent and disruptive street protests..
This after mass protests against a proposed 3000 taka minimum wage for working in the retail garment industry in Dhaka and its environs. Though nearly double the standing wage, workers had demanded 5000 taka. Indeed, some labor groups have refused the proposed wage increase on the grounds that it is insufficient to pay for the skyrocketing costs of living in Bangladesh’s the industrial hubs.
The methodology of ascertaining the leaders seems roulette-random at best and criminal, at worst. Garment labor advocates have charged that individual protesters were tortured to give false evidence. It seems unlikely that only these three labor leaders were responsible for what seems to have been wide-spreading protests that broke down into violent clashes between workers and the police. Moreover, it is not obvious that the clashes were illegal as much as they were unfortunate.
A statement published in unison by several labor rights groups including the International Labor Rights Forum states that the arrest of the three leaders was “part of a strategy by the government of Bangladesh to deal with recent riots among garment workers by scapegoating peaceful worker advocates rather than addressing the true underlying cause of such turmoil: the country’s abysmal working conditions.”
