AFP/Dhaka

Hundreds of Bangladeshi garment workers set fire to their factory yesterday to demand a better bonus before the country’s main Muslim festival, police said.

Firefighters battled to control the blaze which gutted the warehouse on the ground floor of the factory at Mouchak, 40km (25 miles) north of Dhaka.

“The workers angrily protested at the amount of bonus they got from the owners for the upcoming Eid al-Fitr festival,” local police chief Omar Faruq said.

“At one stage they walked out of the factory and set the godown (warehouse), which was on the ground floor of the factory, on fire,” Faruq said from the site.

Protests over poor wages and benefits have hit Bangladesh’s garment industry, the country’s economic mainstay, since April when a factory complex collapsed and killed more than 1,100 people.

The fire, which started at about 2.30pm at the five-storey Libas Textiles factory, was now under control, said a police officer, Sanwar Hossain.

The April disaster highlighted appalling conditions in Bangladesh’s 4,500 garment factories, where workers toil for 10-12 hours a day for basic monthly wages of around $40.

Fearing large-scale protests ahead of Eid al-Fitr, the government has asked factory owners to pay salaries and bonuses early.

The holiday marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan is due on August 10. About 90% of Bangladesh’s 153mn people are Muslims.

According to local media, some factories have told their workers that they might not be able to make payments on time because of shipment delays and non-payment by buyers.

The country is the world’s second largest garment manufacturer after China, with the bulk of its $21.5bn annual shipments going to top Western retailers such as Walmart, H&M and Inditex.

The government has amended labour laws to allow independent trade unions at the factories, raised minimum wages and signed an agreement with the International Labour Organisation to improve occupational safety.

“We are still facing lack of human resources to bring order to the industry, but a joint effort by the retailers and the producers will help improve the situation drastically in less than a year’s time,” Shahidullah Azim, vice president of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, said.

The government must strictly implement the law and put an end to the impunity of owners in order to heal the wounds of hundreds of survivors in a series of industrial disasters in recent years, said Shirin Akhtar, who works at a non-governmental organisation promoting women’s rights.