Khulna jute mill workers postpone demo

Workers of nine state-owned jute mills in Khulna postponed their ongoing demonstration as no shutdown notice from the government arrived in the production units until Tuesday evening.

State-owned Jute Mills' CBA Non-CBA Sangram Parishad announced postponing the agitation programmes on Tuesday night.    

The workers had been staging sit-in demonstrations and were scheduled to go on an indefinite hunger strike from Wednesday afternoon.    

Platinum Jubilee Jute Mill's Collective Bargaining Agent (CBA) President Shahana Sharmin shelved the agitations around 8pm. Similarly, eight other factories cancelled their protests and said production would continue as usual on Wednesday.

"We are yet to receive any letter or phone call from the ministry regarding factory closure. Therefore, we postponed the programmes," said Shahana.

The government on Sunday formally announced that it was likely to stop operating the state-owned jute mills under the Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation on July 1, and that around 25,000 workers would leave their workplaces with a "golden handshake".

More than 10,000 workers took position in front of their respective mills on Monday protesting the decision in Khulna.

In another development later that day, a meeting of the workers with the Ministry of Labour and Employment ended without any solution.

Labour leaders subsequently decided to continue demonstrations until the government did not back off from the closure decision.