Members of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) will implement the new wage structure for their workers from December this year as per the recommendation of the government-formed wage board, said the trade body yesterday.

"We are getting ready to implement the new wage structure," BGMEA President Faruque Hassan said at a press briefing at the BGMEA office in the capital's Uttara.

The announcement comes as workers have been demonstrating in the garment industrial belts of Ashulia and Gazipur for several days, demanding a minimum wage of Tk 23,000.

On April 9, the government formed the minimum wage board for the garment workers to recommend the new salary structure.

The owners' representative to the body has proposed Tk 10,400 as the minimum monthly salary for the apparel industry. Currently, the minimum wage is Tk 8,000, which came into effect in December 2018.

The board has until November 30 to unveil the new minimum wage.

In order to press home their demand for a significant spike in salaries, workers are staging demonstrations in apparel manufacturing hubs across the country.

Hassan said factories are getting closed almost every day because of the ongoing labour unrest.

If the situation prevails for some more days, owners will be compelled to close factories under the labour laws that also stipulate "no work no pay".

He could not give the number of the factories that have been shut owing to the latest flurry of unrest.

"Owners are trying hard to run factories despite the unrest," he said, adding that two workers have died during the unrest.

The BGMEA chief sought cooperation from the government and law enforcing agencies to save industries from the unrest.

Many owners have been compelled to discontinue production as outsiders are instigating workers and they are coming out of factories, he said.

Former BGMEA President Anwar-ul Alam Chowdhury Parvez echoed Hassan.

"Genuine workers are behaving responsibly and they are continuing to work. But there is a section that is trying to take advantage of political unrest."

The apparel industry, the second largest in the world, is passing through a bad patch because of the fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war, he said, adding that the Middle East crisis may also hurt the sector.

AK Azad, chairman and chief executive officer of Ha-Meem Group, one of the top apparel exporters, said the new wage structure will come into effect on December 1.

He also said outsiders are instigating workers Ashulia and Mouchak and they, along with a section of workers, are vandalising factories.

The minimum wage board will sit for another meeting today.

The unrest comes at a time when garment shipment from Bangladesh is on the decline owing to the US dollar shortage, an elevated level of consumer prices in the export destinations, and higher cost of production and energy shortages at home, among other factors.

Garment export to the US, the single largest export country for Bangladesh, declined 21.77 percent year-on-year in terms of value in the January-August period of 2023. In terms of volume, it declined 29.10 percent, according to the BGMEA chief.

The sales in the European Union fell 13.71 percent in value and 15.07 percent in volume.