Government Takes the Initiative of Minimum Wage Structure

The government has taken an initiative to bring the workers of private hospitals, clinics and diagnostic centers under the minimum wage. The Minimum Wage Board has already sent the proposal to the Ministry of Labor and Employment. The Ministry of Labor and Employment will soon discuss the wage structure with stakeholders.

In addition to clinics and diagnostic centers, the Ministry of Labor has sent a proposal to bring workers in six other sectors under the minimum wage. Apart from this, the Department of Labor under the Ministry of Labor is also working to determine the minimum wage structure for workers in seven other sectors.

There are many privately owned hospitals, clinics and diagnostic centers in various cities of the country, including the capital, and even in rural areas. There is no salary structure for the workers working in these institutions. The owners pay their salaries as they please. As a result, the workers of these institutions have been deprived of their fair dues for a long time. But this time their wait is about to end.

Recently, the tea workers protested for more than three weeks demanding a daily wage of 300 taka. There is a strike in the tea gardens. In such a situation, the Prime Minister sat in a meeting with the tea garden owners. In that meeting, the minimum daily wage of the workers was fixed at Tk 170. Before that, the tea workers were working for a long time for a wage of 120 taka. Accordingly, the daily wage of the worker increases by 50 taka. Along with this, it was decided to increase plucking bonus (money for picking extra leaves), festival allowance, future fund and other facilities at a proportionate rate. With this, annual leave and sick leave of the workers will also increase. At the same time, initiatives have been taken to increase the ration benefits of tea workers at subsidized prices, medical benefits, pension for retired workers, expenses for education of pets, maintenance, expenses for cow pastures, free housing and maintenance of workers' welfare programs. If these things are implemented, the daily wages of the tea workers will fall like 450 to 500 taka.

Meanwhile, a study has revealed that workers in the garment sector are now working more overtime to cope with the rise in prices of daily commodities. In such a situation, the worker leaders demanded the formation of a new wage board for the survival of the garment workers. Recently, this demand came up in a workshop organized by the think tank Center for Policy Dialogue (CPD) in the capital. CPD Executive Director Fahmida Khatun was presided over by various levels of worker leaders and representatives of employers' organizations and various organizations.

It is said that workers in other sectors can also go on strike any time to demand increase in minimum wages. Recently, there was a demand to make the minimum wage of naval workers 20 thousand taka. Workers and leaders have demanded that the minimum wage of boat workers be set at Tk 20,000 and death compensation at Tk 12 lakh.