Gazipur: 30pc factories operate over weekend to recover losses

Nearly 30 per cent of readymade garment factories in Gazipur continued their production on the weekend, Friday, in an effort to make up for the losses caused by recent worker protests.

As of the filing of this report around 2:00 pm today, the factories were in operation, with members of the police force, army, and other law enforcement agencies guarding the industrial area. Unlike the previous days, there were no reports of protests or chaos by workers.

There has been unrest among workers in a significant number of garment factories in Gazipur over the past two weeks, with incidents of attacks, vandalism, and arson.

Some factories announced a general holiday to avoid further unrest, while others announced indefinite closures. All these reduced industrial production to a remarkable extent.

However, a significant number of factories resumed operations on Friday and are working hard to recover their losses.

Sarwar Alam, superintendent of industrial police in Gazipur, told Prothom Alo, “Today is actually the weekend for the garment workers, but the owners decided to keep the factories in operation to make up for the losses during the protests of the last few days.”

He also disclosed that nearly 30 per cent of factories in Gazipur district are in operation today. However, the eight factories that went into indefinite closure remain shut.

Police and army personnel have been guarding different factories, with additional forces deployed at factories with high exposure to unrest, he said, adding there were no reports of any untoward incidents as of 2:00 pm.

According to the department of inspection for factories and establishments (DIFE), there are 2,633 registered factories in the district, in addition to around 500 unregistered ones, employing a total of 2.2 million workers.

It was learned that workers of a factory owned by the BEXIMCO Group had staged demonstrations in the Bhabanipur area since Wednesday. At one point, they vandalised nearby factories, and set a factory named Big Boss on fire.

The unrest spread across the Tongi, Salna, and Kashimpur areas, prompting 30 factories to announce general holidays and eight to go into indefinite closure on Thursday. Earlier, five more factories were declared shut on Tuesday.