RMG workers work more than allowed time: SANEM

A recent survey shows the workers of garment factories worked more than allowed time in the months of January and February.

However, legally, they were supposed to work eight regular working hours with two hours of overtime.

This was revealed in a research by the South Asian Network on Economic Modelling (SANEM) in collaboration with a USA-based non-profit organisation, Microfinance Opportunities (MFO), on the quality of life of apparel workers in Bangladesh on Monday, a press release said.

Around 1,300 selected garment workers were surveyed every week since April 2020 under the project “Garment Worker Diaries”.

These workers were employed in factories spread across the five main industrial areas — Chattogram, Dhaka City, Gazipur, Narayanganj and Savar of Bangladesh.

Three-quarters of the survey respondents are women, which roughly represents the composition of the labour force in the RMG sector as a whole. This press release has been prepared from the survey data collected in January and February of 2022.

Excluding the one-hour lunch break, the workers worked 268 hours on average in January.

Female workers worked 267 hours on average, while male workers worked 270 hours, excluding the one-hour lunch break.

In the 24 working days of February, the workers spent 259 hours on average in the factory. They worked 235 hours on an average in February, excluding the one-hour lunch break.

Among them, female workers worked 234 hours on average and male workers worked 235 hours on average.

For the work in January, female workers got a salary of Tk 12,000 on average in February, the same as in January.

Male workers got a salary of Tk 13,000 on average, a Tk 500 increase over the January amount.

In February, 54 per cent of workers were paid through mobile financial services (bKash, Nagad, Rocket, etc) and 46 per cent were paid in cash.

January of this year was the busiest month for garment workers in Bangladesh since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Workers spent 295 hours on average in the factory during the 27 working days in January, which is higher than usual.