"When employees of government and non-government offices and other industries are getting bonus to enjoy the Eid, we are exploited," said Rahela Ferdousi, a garment worker from Khilkhet during a demonstration in front of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) office in Dhaka.

Rahela along with hundreds of garment workers staged the demonstration demanding festival bonus ahead of Eid-ul-Azha as they did not get it to celebrate the second biggest festival of the Muslims to be observed on Wednesday.

"We did not get bonus during Eid-ul-Fitr and the owners continued to deprive us of the bonus for this Eid," said another garment worker.

At least 80 percent of the city's garment factories did not pay festival bonuses to their employees for Eid-ul-Azha, according to advocate Mohammad Delwar Hossain Khan, president of Bangladesh Garments Workers Unity Council.

Council sources and garment workers said 90 percent of the garment workers do not have any formal appointment letters. This sort of unofficial employment procedure deprives the workers of various benefits and rights including bonus.

In Dhaka City more than 12 lakh people, mostly female, work in as many as 3,000 garment factories. In Dhaka district, there are around 4,600 factories.

A survey of the National Garments Workers Federation says the owners of some factories pay festival bonus but they do not follow any specific rules. Some of them pay their workers a month's basic salary as bonus, some pay half the basic while a number of factories pay 30 percent of the basic salary.

Kulsuma Ahmed of a garment factory in Gulshan said, "I received Tk 200 as Eid bonus while one of my co-workers got Tk 50. There is no official rule about bonus."

Amina Rahman from a factory in Badda said she has been working for the last nine years and not a single time she got festival bonus. Some of her colleagues said they have come to know about the bonus system recently but the staff in factory management threatened them to beat up if they inquire about the bonus anymore.

"It would be a miracle if we ever get bonus during Eid," said an apparel worker from Mirpur. Eid bonus was never paid in her factory since its establishment eight years ago.

Trade unions and labour organisations in Dhaka organise a series of protests before every Eid to force the factory owners to pay the festival bonuses, but to no avail. The union leaders said festival bonuses are guaranteed under existing laws.

When asked, BGMEA's Senior Deputy Secretary (Labour) M Rafiqul Islam said, "There is no specific rules about the payment of Eid bonus. The garment factories are not bound to pay it. If the wage system is changed or updated by the government, only then we can pressurise the garment factory owners to pay bonuses."

Sources in the BGMEA and trade unions said the wages fixed in 1994 through a gazette notification have not been increased in the last 12 years. The minimum wage of the workers is Tk 930, which is too inadequate to meet the rising cost of living.

"This is 2006 and so much has changed over the years -- prices of commodities have increased. How can we live with Tk 930?" questioned a worker. Moreover, there are a lot of garment factories, which do not even pay Tk 930, he said.

SM Abu Tayeb, the first vice president of BGMEA, said that it totally depends upon individual factories and their owners to decide on Eid bonus, BGMEA does not have any control over that.

"But there can always be a central system for all the garment factories across the country who will follow it while paying wage and festival bonuses", added Abu Tayeb.