Move underway to review wage structure of 11 industrial sectors

The government has initiated a move to review the wages of 11 industrial sectors as more than five years have already passed since minimum monthly wages of these sectors were revised last, officials said.

The sectors included type foundry, petrol pumps, salt crushing, jute press and baling, cold storage, match industry, homeopath industry, rubber industry, privately-owned industrial sector's adult unskilled and young workers except agriculture and domestic work, cinema halls and oil mills and vegetable products, they added.

Out of these sectors, more than three decades have passed after last minimum monthly wages for the workers of petrol pumps and type foundry were fixed, according to the wage board data.

The labour ministry on Sunday asked its department concerned to take initiative to review the wages of workers employed in these 11 sectors on a priority basis as their last wage structures were reviewed over five years ago, ministry officials said.

The ministry in its monthly coordination meeting also asked Department of Labour (DoL) for collecting the names of the representatives of owners and workers of these 11 sectors immediately to form a wage board, they added.

According to the labour law, minimum monthly wages for the workers of the industrial sectors must be reviewed in every five years.

When asked, a labour ministry official said DoL has already sent the names of owners and workers' representatives of petrol pump and jute press and baling sectors to the ministry to form the wage board.

The meeting was informed that DoL has recently received the names of owners and workers' representatives of match industry, the names of workers' representative of sawmill sector and owners' representative of the cold storage sector.

The DoL representative informed the meeting that they are yet to receive any names of workers and owners' representatives from the rest of the sectors.

A DoL official said they usually send letters to the Bangladesh Employers' Federation and Jatiya Sramik League, seeking the names of owners and workers' representatives for forming the wage board.

According to wage board officials, wages of nine sectors remained under the process.

The sectors are ayurvedic industry, iron foundry and engineering workshop, tea garden, printing press, salt crushing industry, construction and wood, privately-owned jute mills, leather goods and shoe factory and security service sector.

Though the ministry brought the security service sector under minimum wage board regulations considering the size and the number of workers in February 2018, two and a half years have passed since the process of fixing the wage was going on, they added.