The impact of coronavirus pandemic had been rather devastating on the garment workers of Bangladesh.
Now, as per Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies (BILS), 1,915 garment manufacturing units have shut down or laid-off workers while a total of 324,684 garment workers have become unemployed during the coronavirus pandemic in the country.
The BILS, which was established in 1995 and works towards upholding the causes of working people and trade unions in Bangladesh, revealed this information at a press conference on Thursday, in capital Dhaka.
According to speakers of BILS – with which 12 major national trade union federations are associated – a total of 26 thousand workers in 87 RMG factories have been retrenched quite in violation of the laid down rules and, without being paid proper compensation or outstanding salaries and dues.
They further alleged that the Government has also failed to take any preventive measures to stop workers’ retrenchment while underlining that many garment factories in the country are running operations without conforming to health guidelines.
The garment workers suffered a lot on account of housing crisis, being laid off without any notice, misleading decisions being taken on opening and closing of factories and not getting salaries during the coronavirus-induced lockdown, underlined Naimul Ahsan Jewel, BILS advisory council member, while reading out a written statement in this regard.
