Nearly a thousand women working in the garment sector held a massive protest here on Thursday demanding minimum wages on a par with other workers in the State.
The State government had fixed minimum monthly wages of ₹11,557 for 73 of the 82 scheduled employments, including garment workers, listed under the Karnataka Minimum Wages Act, 1948 in February 2018. However, it withdrew the revised minimum wages notification for garments workers in March 2019, leading to several protests. The High Court of Karnataka ordered a tripartite meeting between the government, workers and management representatives to fix minimum wages in the industry.
“The meetings have failed to arrive at a consensus. Government representatives from the Labour Department, instead of siding with the workers, sided with the managements who have proposed to hike wages by only 9%, which amounts to ₹350 per day in place of the demanded ₹478,” said Pratibha, president of The Garment and Textile Workers’ Union (GATWU), that led the protest on Thursday.
She said most of the workers get ₹7,000 in hand, of which transportation costs go up to at least ₹1,000, leaving them with just ₹6,000 a month.
Ravikumar, Deputy Commissioner, Labour Department, who received the memorandum, remained non-committal but assured the protesters that the memorandum would reach the Chief Minister.
