Ready-made garment workers blocked the Dhaka–Tangail highway in Gazipur on Saturday morning, 14 November 2026, to demand a higher minimum wage.
The blockade began at about 9:00am in the Chandra Palli Bidyut area and stopped traffic in both directions. Many commuters left their vehicles and walked.
What happened today
Md Amzad Hossain, the Superintendent of Gazipur Industrial Police, told The Daily Star at 11:30am that workers from 11 nearby factories had joined the protest over wages. The factories later declared a holiday for the day, he said.
What came before
Workers at two factories demonstrated on Thursday 12 November. They were Tropical in Chandra Palli Bidyut and Apex Lingerie in Purba Chandra, both in Kaliakair. Police broke up that protest with tear gas shells and sound grenades. Several workers were injured, according to The Daily Star, which cited factory workers and police sources. No source gives a number of injuries or says how serious they were.
One worker died earlier in the unrest in Gazipur, Bangladeshi media reported.
The wage dispute
Garment workers across the sector have been protesting since 31 October. They want a minimum monthly wage of Tk 30,000. The current minimum is Tk 12,500 a month, which is about $102. The demand is more than double that.
Al Jazeera puts Tk 30,000 at about $241. Reuters put it at about $243. The exact dollar value moves with the exchange rate.
A Minimum Wage Board was formed after the protests began. At a meeting on 9 November, workers’ representatives proposed raising the minimum to Tk 32,000, with the top grade at Tk 48,000. Factory owners did not hand in their own proposal and were given four working days to do so.
The board agreed on 4 November that a revised wage structure would start in December, with the first salaries under the new scale paid in January 2027. The size of the increase is still undecided.
How big the industry is
The garment industry employs about four million people, around half of them women, and accounts for more than 80 percent of Bangladesh’s export earnings, according to Al Jazeera.
The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), the owners’ body, said protests disrupted operations at 529 factories and affected nearly a million workers on one day, Sunday 1 November. The Daily Star reports that the demonstrations have forced hundreds of factories to close.
No source in this report gives a value for lost exports.
Who is who
Tarique Rahman, the prime minister, called an emergency meeting of senior officials as the protests spread, Al Jazeera reported.
Ariful Haque Choudhury, the labour minister, urged workers to return to work. Salahuddin Ahmed, the home minister, met factory owners.
Babul Akhter is a workers’ representative on the wage board and general secretary of the Bangladesh Garment and Industrial Workers Federation. He asked for the new wages to apply from January 2027 salaries, urged demonstrators to go back to work, and called for the release of arrested workers and the withdrawal of cases against them.
Mahmud Hasan Khan is president of the BGMEA.
What to watch
The wage board is due to meet again on 16 November, when owners are expected to present their counter-proposal. The board has said it will decide without them if they miss the deadline.
The question that matters for workers is how far the new minimum rises above Tk 12,500, and when the first higher payment arrives.
Sources: The Daily Star, 14 November 2026; Al Jazeera, 2 and 3 November 2026; Reuters via Yahoo News, 4 November 2026; The Business Standard, 9 and 13 November 2026; The Daily Star, 10 November 2026; United News of Bangladesh, 1 November 2026; Prothom Alo, 4 November 2026. Full URLs are listed in the front matter.
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