updated August 16

Bangladesh’s 3.5 million apparel workers—who are mostly women—left their shops and took to the streets in August to demand that the minimum wage increase to $72 per month.

The current wage of 12 cents an hour, the lowest in the world, is a major draw for garment brands to source manufacturing from Bangladesh, with apparel making up over 75 percent of all exports.

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Excerpt from article:

OLYMPIA – Traditions Café & World Folk Art closed more than an hour ago. Still, owner Dick Meyer motions in a couple of people who were peeking through the windows.

The shop is geared to both the curious and the socially conscious, and features “fair trade” products by craftspeople, artisans and growers from more than 60 countries.

Tens of thousands of Bangladeshi garment workers demanding higher salaries were met with rubber bullets and tear gas during a recent protest ooutside Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh.

Garment workers are currently paid a minimum of just $24 a month following a 2006 agreement among manufacturers, unions and the government, but business is booming piling increasing amounts to work onto employees...

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THE INDIAN seed industry, dominated by multinational companies, is a major employer of child labour, surveys have revealed. More than half a million children in India are growing cotton and vegetable seeds under hazardous conditions, including long working hours and exposure to pesticides.