Bangladesh Garment Workers Protest for Higher Minimum Wage

Dhaka, Bangladesh – Laili Begum, 37, a garment worker at a factory near the capital Dhaka, can no longer afford to keep her two children in school. Some days, she manages only one decent meal.

A skilled seamstress at Virtual Bottoms Limited, Begum earns about 15,000 taka (US$121) a month, rising to 18,000–20,000 taka (US$145–161) with overtime. Her 15-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son dropped out of school earlier this year because the family could not afford the fees.

“We barely manage one proper meal a day. This morning the whole family had only fried rice and a few snacks, and at noon there was nothing. We are going hungry, just hoping for a decent meal tonight. Yesterday was the same. This is how we live,” she said.

Begum is among some 4 million garment workers in Bangladesh, half of them women, who have been protesting for days to demand a pay rise.

Protests spread, hundreds of factories affected

Bangladesh, the world's second-largest apparel exporter after China, is a key supplier to global fashion brands including H&M, Zara, Levi Strauss, Walmart and Primark. The garment sector accounts for more than 80% of export earnings, bringing in US$39 billion in the last fiscal year.

Yet the people who actually sew these clothes say their wages no longer cover basic living costs.

Bangladesh has one of the lowest garment wages in the world. Cambodia pays its garment workers a minimum of US$210 a month, Vietnam US$140–210, and China's manufacturing hub of Guangdong US$286–378.

That gap, combined with inflation and rising living costs, has driven workers to strike and take to the streets since Saturday, demanding a minimum wage of 30,000 taka (US$241) — more than double the current 12,500 taka (US$102).

On Sunday, Begum joined a protest in the Jamgora area of the Ashulia industrial zone on the outskirts of Dhaka. Police fired tear gas and stun grenades to disperse the crowds and arrested dozens of people.

The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association said the protests disrupted operations at 529 factories on Sunday, affecting nearly a million workers.

The same day, the government announced a six-member wage board to review the workers' demands. Yet by Tuesday, workers were on the streets for a third consecutive day. In the Gazipur area north of Dhaka, they blocked the Dhaka–Tangail highway, smashing and torching several vehicles; clashes with police were also reported in neighbouring Mirpur district.

“The government only makes promises. They don't say when wages will rise or by how much,” Begum said.

Inflation erodes wages

Rasel Khan, 30, a worker in Ashulia, said his income of 18,000–20,000 taka (US$145–161) a month, including overtime, is no longer enough to support his wife, children, mother and younger brother. As living costs soared, he has borrowed about 100,000 taka (US$805).

“You can't support a family on this income anymore. Prices keep rising, and we have to borrow just to survive,” he said.

The garment sector's last minimum wage adjustment came in December 2023. Since then, prices have continued to climb. Official figures show annual inflation at 8.34% in September, with food prices up 7.22% and non-food costs up 9.30%.

Begum said she pays 3,500 taka (US$28) to rent a cramped room for her mother and children. Her father, who lives in the family's home district of Sirajganj in central Bangladesh, also depends on her income. She burns scrap paper and discarded materials to cook because she cannot afford a gas cylinder, which costs about 2,200 taka (US$18).

Zahid Hussain, a former chief economist at the World Bank's Dhaka office, said inflation running for five years has sharply eroded the purchasing power of low-income workers.

“When real incomes fall, they are forced to lower their daily living standards. They have no spare income at all,” he said, adding that recent pay rises for public-sector employees had created a “demonstration effect” for private-sector workers awaiting similar improvements.

Government, factory owners and international brands

The wage board announcement followed an amendment to labour law that shortened the wage review cycle from five years to three. The current three-year cycle ends in December.

A day after the protests erupted, Prime Minister Tarique Rahman convened an emergency meeting with senior officials on Sunday, while Interior Minister Salahuddin Ahmed met factory owners' representatives on Monday and pledged that the new minimum wage would be set through negotiation. Labour Minister Ariful Haque Choudhury urged workers to return to work, saying the wage board would begin discussions soon.

Babul Akhter, the workers' representative on the board, demanded that the new wage take effect from the January 2027 pay period, and called on protesters to return to work and for the release of arrested workers and the dropping of charges against them.

The wage talks come as Bangladesh's garment industry faces twin pressures: meeting demands for higher pay while confronting rising production costs and fierce global competition. Sheikh Hossain Muhammad Mustafiz, an official of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association and a director of Cute Dress Industry, said fair wages and stable jobs must go hand in hand with international competitiveness.

“Workers deserve a wage that guarantees a decent standard of living. However, without fair purchase prices from international brands, a sharp wage increase could put pressure on factories and threaten jobs,” he said, stressing that protecting workers' purchasing power amid inflation is a responsibility that global brands sourcing from Bangladesh must share.

Taqbir Huda, a human rights lawyer and Clarendon Scholar at the University of Oxford, accused Western brands buying Bangladeshi products of failing to address workers' rights. In his view, they are the party that could change the situation immediately but play the most “appropriative and exploitative” role, capturing most of the value workers create.

Huda also said the wage board should have been formed this year but was announced only after workers took to the streets, and that its creation does not meet their demands unless it addresses inflation and the cost-of-living crisis.

For Begum, a drawn-out process to decide the new wage means another month of struggling to feed her family. “Wages must go up, but food prices must come down too,” she said.