More than 500 workers of Ready Made Garment (RMG) factory, named ZA Apparels, on Tuesday protested by blocking a Kuturia-Sherali regional road of Ashulia demanding timely payment and overtime bills, alleging that the authority have been paying their monthly salary irregularly for the last two months, including their overtime bills, caused the workers have to face extreme crisis as not getting paid by the time, at Kurutia area of Ashulia in Savar, on the outskirts of the capital.
Locals said the workers started protest by blocking the road around 12:30 pm on Tuesday and later industrial police arrived at the scene and persuaded and removed them from the road.
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Paresh Kumar, one of the protestors alleged, the factory authority used to be paid them by 10th of each month, but for last two months, the workers, getting paid on 20th to 25th, caused they have to face extreme crisis following not paying by the time. “Even the authority don’t paid the overtime bills with monthly salary payment, besides the authority don’t paid worker’s maternity leave, attendance bonuses, and general leave pay”, they said.
The protestors demanded to be paid their monthly salary and overtime bills by 7th of each month, and maternity leave, attendance bonuses, general leave as well.
However, when contacted, Md. Jahangir Alam, Managing Director of the factory said, they usually paid workers by 10th each of month, but bank authority delaying to make their payment of incentive for last two months, which caused the delay to make payment to workers. Adding that, the authority will get payment from bank on next November 22, and then the authority will pay the workers on 25th of this month, and problem will be solved by this month, he assured.
On the other hand, Al Kamran, President of Swadhin Bangla Garment Sromik Federation, Savar-Ashulia Regional Committee said the issue was discussed in presence of workers, factory authorities, industrial police, and labour leaders.
Md. Asaduzzaman, Superintendent of Industrial Police-1 said additional police forces have been deployed at the scene to avoid any untoward incident.
