The Bangladesh Government on Tuesday accused deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina of fuelling labour unrest as violent garment workers’ protests over higher wages entered the fourth day, forcing hundreds of factories to suspend operations and prompting authorities to deploy additional paramilitary forces.
According to the Bangladesh Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), fresh violence forced another 300 factories to shut down, taking the number of affected units to nearly 1,000 since the latest wave of protests began on October 31. The unrest has spread across Dhaka and its industrial outskirts, including Gazipur, Ashulia, Mirpur and Narayanganj, and Mymensingh district, with workers clashing with police, blocking roads and disrupting production.
The workers are demanding a minimum monthly wage of 30,000 taka (approx INR 23,000), more than double the existing 12,500 taka (approx INR 9,507), citing rising prices of food, housing, transport and healthcare that have eroded their purchasing power.
Prime Minister’s Information Affairs Adviser Zahedur Rahman accused Hasina of being behind the unrest, saying he did not believe she would allow the Government to function peacefully as long as she remained alive. “I do not believe Sheikh Hasina will let the Government remain in peace as long as she is alive. As long as Hasina would remain alive, acts of sabotage could continue,” he told a media briefing, alleging that the ousted premier is an architect of the protests.
The remarks marked a shift from Rahman’s earlier assertion that Hasina and her disbanded Awami League were politically irrelevant in Bangladesh.
Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed on Monday also alleged that some garment factory owners linked to the Awami League were fuelling the unrest. The minister claimed Hasina’s supporters were behind the violence, while Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s labour and employment adviser Mahdi Amin said the Government has found evidence of the infiltration of “fugitive evil powers” into the workers’ movement, in an apparent reference to the Awami League. Amin said those involved would be exposed and face legal action. The allegations came despite the home minister’s assertion in July that the Awami League had been “politically destroyed” and would never be able to return to politics in Bangladesh. The protests come at a critical time for Bangladesh’s readymade garment industry, which employs about four million workers and accounts for more than 80 per cent of the country’s export earnings.
Bangladesh is the world’s second-largest garment exporter after China, supplying major international brands such as H&M, Zara and Gap.