About 30 per cent of the garment factories failed to pay festival allowance to their workers within the June 26 deadline set by the government, according to the BGMEA.

Labour leaders, however, claimed that the majority of the factories are yet to pay festival allowance while a good number of small and medium ones located in the capital city maintaining silence over wage and festival bonus payment.

"About 70 per cent factories have paid festival allowance until Sunday," Mahmud Hasan Khan, vice-president of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), told the FE.

But he expressed the hope that the rest of the units would pay the same before the Eid holidays start.

The labour ministry in a meeting last month asked the garment makers to pay festival allowance by 20th Ramadan and pay monthly wage before Eid.

Sirajul Islam Rony, president of Bangladesh National Garment Workers-Employees League, claimed that only 25 per cent of the factories in the industrial belts of Savar, Ashulia and Gazipur paid festival allowance until Sunday last. 

Though the government asked the owners to pay festival allowance by 20th Ramadan, they started paying it from Sunday, he claimed.

"The units located in the capital city — mostly small and medium-sized and subcontracting — are yet to give any clear directive as to whether they will pay festival allowance or not and when the payment will be made," he said.

He said though workers have not yet taken to the streets, they were abstaining from work in some factories to press home their demand for payment of festival allowance and monthly wage.  

Nazma Akhter, president of Combined Garment Workers Federation said, "The majority of the factories pay monthly wage and festival allowance just a couple of days before the start of Eid holidays." 

She claimed that some 50 per cent of the units have paid festival allowance. 

Two government agencies have recently identified some 358 garment units as 'vulnerable' to labour unrest over payment of wage and festival allowance, according to competent sources.

Already there were some outbreaks of protests at the factories, even in the capital, they said, adding that some groups of workers already staged demonstrations to press home their demand for arrears, wages and festival allowance by 20th Ramadan. 

The two agencies had sent two separate lists containing the names of some 358 garment factories to the BGMEA and requested it to take necessary measures to avert any untoward incidents before Eid.

The BGMEA has kept some 1,000 factories under its monitoring over payment of wages and allowance in the country. The BGMEA monitoring cell has got the report on 445 units which revealed that one of the factories expressed its inability to pay festival allowance and another factory has not yet paid the wage for the last month. 

The BGMEA leader admitted that there are problems in a few units. He also expressed the hope that it would be resolved before Eid. 

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Source: The Financial Express