RMG workers block road

Workers of three readymade garment factories, two in Gazipur and one in the capital, yesterday staged separate demonstrations over a host of demands.
The Dhaka-Mymensingh Highway was blockaded for two hours by the workers of Moonlit Garments in Gazipur in protest of wage discrimination against them.
Joydevpur police said several hundred vehicles were gridlocked on the highway around 9:00am due to the protest that cooled after their intervention.
Moonlit's workers said the authorities pay them as per the new wage scale being implemented from November. But junior workers benefit more than the senior ones according to the new pay scale, they claimed.
They also alleged that the authorities have reduced wage rate for extra hours' duty for both senior and junior workers.
A correspondent from Gazipur reports Moonlit's administration told the workers that they would look into the matter.
Officer-in-charge Abdur Rashid of Joydevpur Police Station said they chased the workers who put the blockade even after the authorities assured inquiry into the matter.
Additional police have been deployed in the area to avert any untoward incident, he added.
Workers of ABC Dyeing Factory in the capital's Kadomtoli staged staged a sit-in protesting closure of the factory.
ABC's authorities declared the factory shut for an indefinite period on Monday following unrest by workers over wages. Tuesday was the weekly holiday of the factory.
Officer-in-charge Aiyubur Rahman of Kodomtoli Police Station told The Daily Star that the workers began the protest at the factory gate around 8:00am.
They had been demonstrating for the last few days over wage discrimination, said the OC.
Labourers of Korea-owned factory, NTKC, in Gazipur went for one-day work abstention putting a five-point demand.
The demands include case withdrawal against 158 workers, removal of the production manager, and increasing pay for extra hours' work.
A Gazipur correspondent reports the workers withdrew their protest programme after the authorities accepted three of the demands.