Cars vandalized, shops on fire" When Bangladeshi textile workers protest a salary increase, violence breaks out

 Cars vandalized, shops on fire" When Bangladeshi textile workers protest a salary increase, violence breaks out

Over the weekend, demonstrations broke out in Bangladesh, the world's second-largest garment-producing nation behind China, after BGMEA proposed raising the minimum pay by 25% to USD 90 from the USD 208 that the workers had wanted. 

According to figures from the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, or BGMEA, there are now over 3,500 factories in Bangladesh employing four million people, the majority of whom are women. 

The minimum salary for labor unions and workers is 8,300 takas, or USD 75, each month, but they sometimes have to work overtime to make ends meet, according to reports from The Associated Press. 

To demand higher pay, thousands of garment industry workers on Tuesday demonstrated in the streets of Gazipur, an industrial area, and Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. 

While hundreds of demonstrators screamed for higher pay in Dhaka's Mirpur neighborhood, demonstrators in Gazipur were seen hurling stones at many stores. Some people were seen damaging cars. People yelled slogans as security guards moved around the area.

Shahida Akhter, a garment worker, said that she finds it difficult to put food on the table. We won't need to see pay increases if you lower the cost of (necessary) things. What is the price of starting a family, do you know? We must spend more if there are children," she said. 

A Gazipur fire department officer, Raihan Mia, told AP that the workers destroyed a medical clinic and a few other stores in addition to setting fire to an electric products showroom. 

Subsequently, BGMEA urged the demonstrators to refrain from using force or causing damage to their enterprises. According to local media accounts, some workers even lit fires, blocked highways, and destroyed many factories in addition to the two workers who perished in battles with police in Gazipur. 

Bangladesh's economy has been growing steadily each year for many years, but a significant problem now is increasing inflation. The nation exports clothing items mostly to the US and Europe, bringing in over USD 55 billion a year.

The demonstrations coincided with escalating hostilities over the upcoming general elections between the major opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, headed by former prime minister Khaleda Zia, and the governing Awami League party, led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.