Rahman claims nearly 600 garment factories closed amid wage unrest

By Tom Whitfield

Nearly 600 Bangladesh garment factories had been declared closed, according to a claim Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer Shafiqur Rahman made on 2 November 2026.

Garment workers were also protesting in Dhaka for a minimum monthly wage of Tk 30,000. Rahman, the Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer and an opposition leader in parliament, made his closure claim in a Facebook post on Monday morning. The report was published at 1:10 p.m. that day.

The post did not name the factories or their owners. It did not say who declared them closed. It also provided no closure dates, reasons, factory headcounts, cancelled orders or production losses.

Those omissions limit the claim’s commercial value. A declared closure can indicate temporary idle capacity, permanent shutdown or another operating status, but buyers cannot distinguish among them from the post. Rahman also issued no factory list against which to check supplier exposure.

He said: “It appears that conspirators and vested interest groups are trying to incite unrest and destroy the garment industry. The government must take a firm stance on this.” The source presented no evidence for that allegation. It also recorded no government response to his call.

Reported protest activity and broader damage claims

Workers had protested in the capital for several days. On Sunday, 1 November, clashes broke out between police and garment workers during a blockade in Dhaka’s Mirpur area. On Monday, 2 November, workers and police were involved in chases and clashes in Savar’s Ashulia, on the outskirts of Dhaka.

Rahman said unrest in the garment sector was continuing. He cited reports of vandalism and arson attacks on industrial establishments in different areas. The report did not provide dates, locations, damage estimates or law-enforcement findings for those incidents.

The political leader also said: “No owner or worker can establish their rights by destroying industrial establishments. We believe no worker would be involved in such activities.” The source named no owner or worker, and did not establish who carried out the reported attacks. Rahman urged factory owners, workers and other parties to remain alert.

What does this change for Bangladesh garment buyers?

No buyer names, shipment delays, cancelled orders, factory headcounts, or affected product lines appear in the report, so the commercial effect cannot yet be sized. For now, it changes the verification task rather than confirmed purchasing plans. Wage demands can affect factory labor costs, but the source gives no current wage, bargaining position, productivity data or agreement timetable. The wage protest and alleged violence therefore require separate checks.

Sourcing teams should ask suppliers for plant-level status before removing capacity from forecasts. They should also separate the Tk 30,000 wage demand from claims of sabotage and damage. A factory closure may reflect a labor dispute, but the source does not establish that connection. Treating every closed site as sabotage would repeat the source’s unsupported causal leap.

The sourcing verification still required

Rahman argued that the approaching winter usually brings promising prospects for the garment industry. He said a deep-rooted conspiracy to destroy those prospects could not be ruled out. The post supplied no evidence connecting the alleged closures to a coordinated campaign. Its strongest claim remained a political allegation without documentary support.

Before acting, buyers need a defined record:

• Factory status: names, owners, closure dates, declaring authority, operating status and reasons.
• Incident evidence: dates, locations, damage reports and official findings.
• Order exposure: affected capacity, product lines, shipment timing, buyer allocations and headcount.
• Labor process: the wage proposal, bargaining status, worker representation and any agreed timetable.

These are verification steps, not additional facts established by the report. The sourcing decision is narrow: do not write off nearly 600 factories until documented. The compliance decision is equally narrow: log the wage demand and alleged violence as separate claims, preserve that distinction, and seek supplier and official records. No confirmed sourcing shift or compliance breach follows from the post alone.