(Ashulia) New clashes broke out on Tuesday in Bangladesh between the police and thousands of workers demanding wage increases in the textile industry which supplies major Western brands, the day after demonstrations that left at least two dead.
“Workers have taken to the streets because their salaries can no longer cover rising food costs,” Al Kamran, a senior union official in the textile sector in the industrial town of Ashulia, in central China, told AFP. country.
Police said tens of thousands of workers at dozens of factories launched wildcat strikes in Ashulia and Gazipur, the country’s largest industrial city.
“Some 15,000 workers took part in demonstrations for an increase in wages at different locations in Ashulia,” Mahmud Naser, deputy police chief of the Ashulia industrial zone, told AFP.
Union leader Al Kamran disputed police figures, saying some 50,000 workers had stopped work in the Ashulia area alone.
According to the police official, on Tuesday demonstrators burned tires, vandalized factories by breaking windows and blocked a major highway linking the industrial zone to the capital Dhaka, prompting the police to use “tear gas and shooting rubber bullets.” No injuries were reported, he said.
According to the police, thousands of workers also abandoned their jobs and vandalized several factories in Mouchak and Bhograr More in Gazipur, where there are more than a thousand factories that produce clothes for brands such as Adidas, H &M and Gap.
Bangladesh is one of the world’s largest clothing exporters, with the industry accounting for 85% of the South Asian country’s $55 billion in annual exports.
According to the unions, salary and working conditions are disastrous for a large part of the four million workers in the sector.
Soaring food prices are one of the main reasons for this movement, with some basic food items seeing their prices double compared to last year.
“Today, a kilo of potatoes sells for 70 takas (0.59 euros, editor’s note) and a kilo of onions is worth 130 takas,” compared to 30 and 50 to 60 takas respectively last year, said Al Kamran.
“Rents have also increased. The only thing that hasn’t increased is the salary,” he added.
The protests began early last week, but the protests turned violent on Monday with the walkout of tens of thousands of workers in Gazipur where a six-story factory was set on fire, leading to the death of a worker.
At least a second worker was killed, fatally injured in clashes between police and protesters and died while being taken to hospital.