TNZ Apparels workers receive one month’s wages owed; factories will reopen tomorrow

At least 3,620 workers and 120 employees of five factories of TNZ Apparels Limited in Gazipur received their one-month unpaid salaries three days ahead of schedule.

The money was transferred to their accounts last night (November 14).

“The salary was to be paid on Sunday (November 17), but we received it in our bKash account on Thursday evening. Our owners kept their word. We are all happy,” said Alamgir, a factory worker who received his salary.

Hedayatul Haque, chairman of TNZ Apparels Limited, said the factories would reopen tomorrow (November 16). He hopes that the workers will join in the work and help offset the owners’ losses by participating in the factory’s production.

According to Factories and Establishments Inspection Department sources, TNZ Apparels Limited has 5 factories in Mogarkhal area of ​​Gazipur city. Among these factories, TNZ Apparels Limited has 2,800 workers, Basic Clothing Limited has 420 workers and Apparel Art Limited has 400 workers. In addition, Expo Cartoon has 40 employees and MNS Yarn Dyeing has 80 people. In the first three cases, workers had to pay salaries for the months of October and September and in the last two, staff had to pay salaries and service allowances.

According to police and local sources, on November 9 from 9:30 a.m., around 2,000 workers from five factories of TNZ Apparels Limited launched a protest by blocking the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway in Mogharkhal area of ​​Gazipur metropolis , to demand unpaid wages. This caused terrible traffic jams on the Dhaka-Mymensingh and Dhaka-Tangail highways. People traveling on these two highways faced endless suffering. The transportation of goods has been affected. The movement lasted three days. Later, Labor Ministry Secretary AHM Shafiquzzaman announced that the government would pay workers’ salaries.

Later, an agreement was reached between the government and employers during a meeting with workers’ representatives at the ministry. Last Monday evening, a compromise agreement was unanimously signed by 31 union representatives from TNZ Apparels Limited, BGMEA executives and Ministry of Labor officials at a tripartite meeting at the Labor Building. It was agreed that workers’ September wages would be paid on November 17 and October wages on November 30. The authorities will quickly open the factories of TNZ Apparels Limited.

Additionally, if someone blocks the road again before November 30, the money will not be paid. Later, when workers announced the lifting of the blockade, traffic on this road started after 10 p.m. Monday, November 11.

TNZ Apparels Limited Chairman Hedayatul Haque said, “With the help of the government, we paid Tk 8 crore in the first installment on Thursday, ahead of schedule. The workers received this money without doing any work. They will also receive the money given to them. in the next installment without doing any work.

He regretted and said, “We have invested more than Tk 350 crore. We paid more than Tk 125 crore to the bank as interest. We are not a failing institution. Salary payments were stopped due to the delay in obtaining export money. We applied for a loan of 8 million takas to pay workers’ salaries, but the bank did not give us this money. That’s why we got in trouble. »

He also said: “We have an export development fund. We wanted to take Tk 11-12 million from it to pay workers’ salaries. We didn’t get that money either. In addition, we have other institutions, if they wanted. If we had cooperated responsibly, we would not have had to face this situation. For these reasons we could not pay the money even after giving a date several times.

He lamented that he tried to manage money from various sources but no one came to help him.

He expressed his gratitude to the advisor as well as Secretary Ministry of Labor and Employment Shafiquzzaman, Additional Secretary Sabur Hossain, Additional Secretary BGMEA Rafiqul Islam and Deputy Commissioner Gazipur Nafisa Arefin for their cooperation in resolving worker discontent.