By IANS,
Dhaka : Indian workers employed in the garment manufacturing sector get the highest wage among South Asians while Bangladesh workers get the lowest, a study published here says.
Indian garment industry workers get the highest wage at 51 US cents per hour. The average hourly wage of a garment worker is $0.51 in India, $0.44 in Indonesia, $0.43 in Sri Lanka, $0.38 in Vietnam, $0.37 in Pakistan and $0.33 in Cambodia, says Global Apparel Manufacturing Labour Cost Update 2008, prepared by US-consulting house Jassin-O’Rourke Group.
Bangladeshi workers are at the bottom. At 22 US cents per hour, a Bangladeshi worker gets a fourth of the 86 US cents that his Chinese counterpart takes home.
The study quoted Dhaka’s labour leaders as observing that the Bangladeshi workers were being deprived while factory owners claimed they could not make much profit because of low payments from the importers.
“Tales of miserable wages for Bangladeshi garment workers are not fresh any more,” said Nazma Akter, a Bangladeshi labour leader, who represents the Garment Workers Unity Forum, New Age newspaper said.t