The Paradoxical Impacts of the Minimum Wage Implementation on Ready-made Garment (RMG) Workers: A Qualitative Study

Abstract

There is no regular mandated increase in minimum wages for workers employed in the Bangladesh ready-made garment (RMG) industry. Workers in the past have relied on optional bonuses added to their monthly incomes to supplement their wages. However, a new minimum wage implemented in January 2019 in the Bangladesh RMG sector increased wages for many workers who are known to work under poor and exploitative working conditions. Qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted with fifteen currently employed RMG workers (female: 13, male: 2), which led to data saturation. The participants were purposively recruited from both export processing zone (EPZ) and non-EPZ factories located in Dhaka and Chattogram, the two largest cities of Bangladesh where the majority of RMG factories are situated. Transcribed interviews were analysed thematically. The findings revealed that working hours, production targets, work pressure, and workplace abuse have an impact on workers’ health and well-being. In line with the Marxist notion of the “accumulation of capital”, we argue that due to the profit maximization mindset of RMG owners and international brands, workers have not received the potential benefit of the newly implemented minimum wage as their conditions have been changed in other ways to offset the increase in salary. The article contributes to understanding how factory owners’ profit maximization mindset dispossessed workers from receiving the real benefits of the newly implemented minimum wage and forced them to continue working within exploitative working environments. The study shows that the impact of minimum wages on poverty reduction is unlikely and outline the need for RMG labour market reform.

Work–family conflict, financial issues and their association with self-reported health complaints among ready-made garment workers in Bangladesh: a cross-sectional study

“…Our results suggest increasing workers’ salaries as a measure to potentially improve workers’ health. However, solely increasing salaries has been demonstrated counterproductive for workers’ health and consequently a profound change in working conditions is needed so that factory owners do not offset the increase in workers’ salaries by, e.g., shortening their breaks or increasing production targets (Kabir et al 2022 ). Global labor platforms and national EU and North-American governments who are in bi-lateral trade and policy relations with Bangladesh can benefit from the findings of this work as industry stakeholders.…”

Financial Capability of Low-income Workers: Insights from Bangladesh’s Readymade Garment Industry

“…2 According to the Micro Finance Opportunity report, a 50 to 60 percent wage gap between regular and living wages is prevalent among RMG workers (Ortega, 2022). Even a wage increase failed in the long run to reduce the poverty of the workers (Fair Wear Foundation, 2012;Kabir, Maple, Islam, & Usher, 2022b). Study finds that increased wage, to some extent, brings improvement in savings and ends meeting capability but at the cost of a reduction in breaks and leaves, wage cut, higher workload during regular working hour, high production target, abusive behavior from management, mental stress, and deteriorated relation between worker and management (Kabir et al, 2022b).…”

“…Even a wage increase failed in the long run to reduce the poverty of the workers (Fair Wear Foundation, 2012;Kabir, Maple, Islam, & Usher, 2022b). Study finds that increased wage, to some extent, brings improvement in savings and ends meeting capability but at the cost of a reduction in breaks and leaves, wage cut, higher workload during regular working hour, high production target, abusive behavior from management, mental stress, and deteriorated relation between worker and management (Kabir et al, 2022b). Increased workload and working in a stressed, scared, and pressured environment negatively impact workers' psychological health (Sinkovics, Hoque, & Sinkovics, 2016;Steinisch et al, 2013), which is no better off for the employee's well-being.…”

“…Increased workload and working in a stressed, scared, and pressured environment negatively impact workers' psychological health (Sinkovics, Hoque, & Sinkovics, 2016;Steinisch et al, 2013), which is no better off for the employee's well-being. With ongoing price hikes of daily commodities and physical and psychological health sufferings, workers fail to realize any financial benefit (savings or meeting emergencies) from their wages (Kabir et al, 2022b). Sufficiency of wage is also questioned as it covers almost half of the monthly expenses and is not paid on time 3 -53 percent received in the first week, 25 percent receive after the first week, and 22 percent after the second week of the month (Moazzem, Khandker, Arifuzzaman, & Ferdows, 2019).…”

“…Lower-income workers' various financial functioningexpense management, savings, borrowing, and budgetingwithin limited resources is the focus of the research. The study population is accordingly the low-income RMG workers; 4 th to 7 th grade workers were selected using purposive samplinga highly used technique in RMG research (Kabir et al, 2022a(Kabir et al, , 2022bMamun & Hoque, 2022;Steinisch et al, 2013) for conducting FGDs and in-depth interviews. Low income is a regular phenomenon for RMG workers, as a report claims a 50 to 61 percent wage gap exists between gross wages and a living wage for RMG workers (Ortega, 2022).…”