Wage struggle 2023
Wages unpaid during the pandemic
Wage protests and crackdown
Wage struggle for 16,000 BDT
Wage protest crackdown
The first wage increase since Rana Plaza
Rana Plaza collapse
On 23 April 2013 large structural cracks were discovered in the Rana Plaza building. The shops and the bank on the lower floors immediately closed. But warnings to avoid using the building after the cracks appeared were ignored by the garment factory owners of five factories on the upper floors.
Garment workers were ordered to return to work the following day. If there would have been unions in the five factories in the building who could have collectively voiced the right to refuse unsafe work. If workers would not have been earning poverty wages, they might not have chosen to enter the factory over the threat to lose one month of wages. Poverty wages, lack of freedom of association and on some cases actual violence meant workers felt forced to enter an unsafe building.
The building collapsed just an hour later, killing 1,138 people. The incident could have been entirely avoidable.
