RMG workers demonstrate over arrears in Tongi, traffic halted

Workers of apparel factory Seasons Dresses Limited blocked the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway in Tongi of Gazipur on Monday and staged fresh demonstrations demanding the payment of their arrears.

Workers began demonstrating in front of the Asia Filling Station in the Kha Para at 9:30 am. Traffic came to a halt, causing misery to passengers.

Workers of Seasons Dresses Limited blocked the highway on 17 September, demanding the payment of arrears.

According to industry police and factory sources, currently 1,600 workers are employed at Seasons Dresses Limited, but workers’ wages for half of July and the entire August months remain unpaid. Following the demonstration on 17 September, factory authorities paid workers’ wages for half of July and promised to pay the remaining half on Sunday, 22 September. As workers received no payment on Sunday, they took to the streets on Monday.

Worker Roksana Begum said, “We do not receive payments regularly at this factory as the owners make some excuses every month.”

Workers were seen demonstrating around 10:00 am on the highway, thus, the vehicular movement stopped on both sides of the road. Members of the Gazipur industry and metropolitan police were seen trying to convince the protesting to clear the highway.

Gazipur Industrial police’s assistant superintendent of police (Tongi zone) Mosharraf Hossain told Prothom Alo demands of the workers are rational as the wage of one and a half months remains unpaid. Wages for half of July were supposed to be paid on Sunday, but the owners neither paid the wages nor contacted the workers. So, workers took to the streets.

Owners of this factory make trouble over payment of workers’ wages always and such events happened several times in the past. This should be resolved, he added.

Factory owner Bahauddin Chowdhury could not be reached for comment over the mobile phone.