Nearly 40 per cent of garment factories in the Bangladesh capital were failing to pay a new minimum wage announced last year for workers stitching clothes for Western retailers, an industry head said today.
Bangladesh's government agreed last November to raise the minimum monthly wage for the country's four million garment workers to USD 68, an increase of 77 per cent, after protests and strikes in the crisis-hit industry.
But almost 40 per cent of factories surveyed in and around Dhaka were still not paying the new amount, while the figures were much higher for the port city of Chittagong, the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association said.
The association surveyed the USD 20 billion industry, the world's second largest and a mainstay of the Bangladesh economy, to determine which of the 4,500 factories were paying the new legally required wage.
"We have done a survey on 594 factories situated in Dhaka and its outskirts. Of them 62 per cent paid their workers under the newly hiked wages," association vice-president Shahidillah Azim said.
"In Chittagong only five per cent factories could (afford to) pay the new minimum wage," Azim told AFP without giving further details of the survey, which has not been made public.
He blamed deadly unrest in the run-up to the January 5 general election -- which saw opposition-led protests and transport blockades -- for a drop in export orders that forced factories to postpone implementing the wage.
"It's a very bad situation. Western retailers have cancelled or diverted orders. As a result, new recruitment in the factories has almost stopped. Workers also understand the situation," he said.
However government figures show a boom time for the world's second largest garment export industry.
Garment shipments grew an impressive 20 percent in the six months to December compared to the same period last year, data released in January showed.
Union leader Babul Akter disputed the association's figure on the number of factories complying with the hike, saying separate research by union groups showed only 20 per cent were paying workers the new wage.
