“We’ve announced a logical minimum wage taking into consideration the interests of both sides. We’d formally discussed with the leaders of almost all organisations concerned before announcing the wage and they all agreed with the structure,” he said.
The junior minister was talking to reporters after a function at the Secretariat to hand over BSRM’s contribution to Bangladesh Workers’ Welfare Foundation Fund.
“I think most of the garment workers will accept the minimum wage. There’s no scope of creating unrest over it as the wage was increased by 51 percent,” he added.
Replying to a query about the rejection of the minimum wage by some workers’ bodies, Chunnu said, “It’s up to them who will accept and who won’t. But this is the minimum wage. No one can pay less than it.”
Earlier on September 13, the government fixed the minimum wage for readymade garment workers at Tk 8,000, which will come into effect in December next after the publication of a gazette notification.
The basic in the new wage is Tk 4,100.
Turning down the minimum wage, some garment workers demanded raising it to Tk 16,000.
The minimum wage for garment workers was Tk 1,662.50 in 2006, Tk 3,000 in 2010 and TK 5,300 in 2013.