Authorities in Bangladesh have announced a new minimum wage for garment factory workers after weeks of violent protests.
  • @islesEnglish
    29•1 year ago

    I’m all for the workers getting better wages. Indeed, let’s 4x them. 10x them. We are drowning in garments from fast fashion, we do not need more garments. In the past, clothing was heirloom because of the effort and resources to create it. And it’s fun for us to flaunt how little money it costs now. But our landfills are overflowing with clothes. Impoverished countries are refusing clothes donations.

  • AutoTL;DRBEnglish
    3•1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Authorities in Bangladesh announced a new salary structure on Tuesday for protesting garment factory workers with a 56% increase in the monthly minimum wage to $113 from the previous $75, a decision rejected by some workers’ groups as too small.

    State Minister for Labor and Employment Monnujan Sufian announced the decision after a meeting of a government-formed wage board made up of representatives of factory owners and workers.

    The protests began after the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association offered to increase the monthly minimum wage by 25% to $90.

    Kalpona Akter, president of the Bangladesh Garment and Industrial Workers Federation, said they were “extremely frustrated” over what she described as a paltry increase.

    Bangladesh is the second largest garment-producing country in the world after China with nearly 3,500 factories employing about 4 million workers, most of them women, according to the manufacturers’ association.

    Bangladesh annually earns about $55 billion from exports of garment products, mainly to the United States and Europe.

    The original article contains 310 words, the summary contains 166 words. Saved 46%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

    • ericEnglish
      10•1 year ago

      Assuming you’re not joking, that would not work to break even. It would decrease their output and therefore the amount they can charge their clients, so they would have less income to pay their workers. They most probable way that they’ll try to break even is to push their workers for higher output to offset the higher labor costs.