Bangladesh garment workers set fire to factory over benefits

By -
Hundreds of Bangladeshi garment workers set fire to their factory on Wednesday to demand a better bonus before the country's main Muslim festival, police said.
Firefighters battled to control the blaze which gutted the warehouse on the ground floor of the factory at Mouchak, 40 kilometres (25 miles) north of Dhaka.
"The workers angrily protested at the amount of bonus they got from the owners for the upcoming Eid al-Fitr festival," local police chief Omar Faruq said.
"At one stage they walked out of the factory and set the godown (warehouse), which was on the ground floor of the factory, on fire," Faruq told AFP from the site.
Protests over poor wages and benefits have hit Bangladesh's garment industry, the country's economic mainstay, since April when a factory complex collapsed and killed more than 1,100 people.
The fire, which started at about 2.30 pm at the five-storey Libas Textiles factory, was now under control, said a police officer, Sanwar Hossain.
The April disaster highlighted appalling conditions in Bangladesh's 4,500 garment factories, where workers toil for 10-12 hours a day for basic monthly wages of around $40.
Fearing large-scale protests ahead of Eid al-Fitr, the government has asked factory owners to pay salaries and bonuses early.
The holiday marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan is due on August 10. About 90 percent of Bangladesh's 153 million people are Muslims.
According to local media, some factories have told their workers that they might not be able to make payments on time because of shipment delays and non-payment by buyers.
The country is the world's second largest garment manufacturer after China, with the bulk of its $21.5 billion annual shipments going to top Western retailers such as Walmart, H&M and Inditex.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

UBTH @50: Obaseki hails institution’s role in strengthening Edo healthcare

By -
Image
(Nigeria) Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State, has commended the staff and management of the University of Benin Teaching Hospital, UBTH, for their unwavering commitment, dedication, and hard work in providing high-quality healthcare services to the people of Edo State and Nigeria in the past fifty years. Obaseki, at a dinner organized in honour of the Committee of Chief Medical Directors of Nigeria, at the Government House, Benin City, reassured the government’s continuous partnership and collaboration with the federal government-owned health institution to strengthen the health system and ensure quality health delivery to Edo people. The governor, who was represented by his deputy, Philip Shaibu, reeled out the gains of the government’s reforms in the health sector, commending the medical centre for bolstering the government’s efforts at transforming Edo State into a health hub. He said, "We came into a wilderness where you have to cut a part for yourself and fix it. We held
Read more

NBC has no powers to impose fine on broadcast stations --Court

By -
Image
(Nigeria) The National Broadcasting Commission, NBC, has been restrained by a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, from imposing fines on broadcast stations in the country. Trial judge in the matter, Justice James Omotosho also set aside the N500,000 fines imposed on March 1, 2019, on each of 45 broadcast stations. The court made the orders in its judgment a suit by the Incorporated Trustees of Media Rights Agenda, MRA, which had sued the NBC. Justice Omotosho held that the NBC, not being a court of law, had no power to impose sanctions as punishment on broadcast stations. The court further held that the Nigeria Broadcasting Code, which gives the commission the power to impose sanction, is in conflict with Section 6 of the Constitution that vested judicial power in the court of law. He said the court would not sit idle and watch a body imposing fine arbitrarily without recourse to the law. He said that the commission did not comply with the law when it sat as a complainant and at
Read more