Garment workers' wages
S.A. Mansoor, Gulshan, Dhaka
At long last, and at least two months after the CTG's correction drives started; this gross violation of Minimum Wages law by the rich garment factory owners came as front-page news in many dailies on 28 May. This undue procrastination on the matter by the CTG is sad indeed. But then who cares about the poor and the needy; they seem to be the last and least of our national priorities. Hopefully, they will now redeem themselves by rooting out this cancer in our society; patronised by the rich; and the basic cause behind the lawlessness in garment industries and the country as a whole. Hopefully, CTG will bell the "tomcats". Pity the poor garment workers; mostly helpless and needy women; whom the factory owners have been exploiting with impunity! While price of daily necessities has gone up by around 20 percent; these workers have been deprived of their due wages for many years! Was this not a form of moral and inhuman corruption on the part of our political governments? Possibly many ex-MPs were owners; so they could merrily ignore the fundamental rights of the working people. They could not care less, so long as cash came to their pockets! The CTG must force the owners to pay the workers' minimum wages, with retrospective effect since the minimum wages came into force. They must be also forced to pay all overtimes, and legal benefits on this basis, including the workers whose services were terminated earlier and who were deprived of the minimum wages. This must be done if the CTG believes in moral justice. Don't ignore the undeniable right incorporated in Islamic tenets of fair wages for a fair day's work pay before the worker's sweat of the brow has dried up!
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