Minimum wage news and archive

Bangladesh clears charges against 48,000 garment workers amid calls for reform

Bangladesh’s interim government has withdrawn criminal charges against more than 48,000 garment workers, a sweeping decision that workers’ rights groups have hailed as a landmark moment for the country’s embattled apparel industry. The cases, many filed during wage protests in late 2023 that turned violent, had long been criticised as tools of...

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What the new minimum wage means for garment workers in Bangladesh

On Tuesday, 8 November 2023, the Bangladeshi government announced the new minimum wage for garment workers: from December, they will receive 12,500 taka (around 114 US dollars) instead of the previous 8,000 taka (68 US dollars). At first glance, the increase seems to be okay, as it is up by 56 percent. However, if one compares the monthly...

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Why Bangladesh’s minimum wage demand of 23,000 taka is justified

Bangladesh has been in the news recently — minimum wage discussions have turned sour with enraged garment workers taking to the streets for the second week. Two workers have died and sentiments are flaring up on both sides. What is the issue? While garment workers and their unions demand a minimum wage of 23,000 Bangladeshi taka (around 209 US...

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Walmart lifts US wages in stores again amid tight labor market

Walmart announced Tuesday it will again raise pay for hourly staff, an indication of persistent tightness in the labor market for front-line employees despite layoffs in the tech sector. The retail giant, the biggest private employer in the United States, is boosting the pay range at US stores to between 14 and 19 dollars an hour from the prior...

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Real living wage increases by 10 percent in ‘largest year-on-year rise’

Employees working for companies under the Living Wage Foundation are set to see their ‘Living Wage’ rates rise to 10 pound 90 pence an hour across the UK and 11 pound 95 pence in London. The move will be applicable to almost 400,000 people working for over 11,000 companies linked to the foundation in what is set to be the largest year-on-year...

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TUC calls on government to implement 15 pound minimum wage

The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has called on the UK government to increase the minimum wage to 15 pounds from 9.50 an hour, through a plan that aims to support pay growth and struggling employees. In an open letter, the organisation said that the UK needs to transition the economy to high-wage, high-skilled and secure jobs and shift its...

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Police clash with garment factory workers in Bangladesh

Bangladesh police used rubber bullets, water cannons and tear gas against thousands of garment factory workers this Wednesday, after they tried to block a road leading to Dhaka’s international airport on the fourth consecutive day of protests demanding an increase in the minimum wage. Yesterday, one worker was fatally shot and dozens of others...

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Black Friday for H&M: global protests for living wage during Cyber Week

Promises are great. If they are kept. Swedish fashion giant H&M promised on 23rd November 2013, five years ago after the collapse of the Rana Plaza building, in its “Roadmap towards a fair living wage” to have “pay structures in place to pay a fair living wage by 2018” to all its workers globally (at the time, around 850,000 people in 750...

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Amazon raises minimum wage to 15 US dollars for all US employees

Amazon is increasing its minimum wage to 15 US dollars an hour for all full-time, part-time, temporary and seasonal employees in the United States, after a report by nonprofit organization New Food Economy exposed the e-tailer is one of the American companies with the most employees receiving SNAP benefits, also known as food stamps. In Arizona,...

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Bangladesh raises minimum wage for garment workers

The minimum wage for Bangladeshi garment workers will rise by 51 percent from December, the country’s Ministry for Labor and Employment is quoted by Reuters as saying. According to the news agency, the new minimum wage has been set at 8,000 taka (approximately 95 dollars) a month, up from 5,300 taka (63 US dollars). The last time garment workers...

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Karen Millen, Shoe Zone named for failure to pay minimum wage

Karen Millen and Shoe Zone feature among the list of around 180 employers named and shamed by the department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) for underpaying more than 9,000 minimum wage workers by 1.1 million pounds (1.5 million dollars). Along with recovering backpay for 9,200 workers, the government also fined the employers...

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Cambodia: minimum wage for garment workers reaches 140 US dollars

Smiling faces among Cambodian garment workers: After tense negotiations by textile unions, the Cambodian government agreed to raise the minimum wage for garment workers by almost 10 percent to 140 US dollars a month from 2016. This is still short of union demands, which had initially asked for 177 US dollars per month and then came down to 160...