Not the protest itself, of course. There is nothing particularly amusing about people having to take to the streets to demand a salary that they need to survive. 

What I find fascinating is the number of university graduates who seem to have taken this personally.

Apparently, a garment worker asking for Tk30,000 is now a direct attack on the dignity of someone with a bachelor’s degree.

I have seen people argue that garment workers are uneducated, that their jobs do not require the same qualifications as those of university graduates, and that paying them Tk30,000 would somehow be unfair to people who spent years studying. 

Some of these arguments are coming from people who earn Tk15,000 a month themselves.

And I genuinely do not understand the thought process here.

You spent years preparing for university, paid tuition fees, attended classes, completed assignments, survived examinations and finally graduated. You entered the job market expecting that all those years of education would lead somewhere. Instead, you found yourself working long hours for a salary that barely allows you to get through the month.

You are understandably unhappy, you feel underpaid and you might even be wondering whether all those years of studying were worth it.

Then a garment worker asks for Tk30,000.

And suddenly, instead of asking why you are earning so little, you are asking why they should earn so much.

The garment workers are not asking for your job nor are they applying for the position you have been trying to secure. They are not demanding that your employer reduce your salary and transfer the difference to their accounts. They are only asking their employers to pay them more for the work they already do.

Yet somehow, a section of our university educated population has decided that this is a competition. I suppose it is easier to be angry at someone else’s demand than to confront the people who have been underpaying you all along.

The Tk12,500 question

Tk12,500 is the existing monthly minimum wage for garment workers in Bangladesh. The workers are demanding that it be raised to Tk30,000. Between those two figures lies an entire life that people often seem to forget.

There is rent to pay, food to buy, electricity and water bills, transport costs, medicine and school expenses. There are parents who need financial support, children who need to eat and families that cannot simply wait until the next salary revision to deal with an emergency.

Think about someone who earns Tk12,500 and pays Tk5,500 in rent. That only leaves Tk7,000 for everything else. 

I am not particularly good at household budgeting, but I am fairly certain this is not a situation that can be solved by cutting down on the occasional cup of coffee. And yet, people are debating whether these workers deserve Tk30,000 solely because they did not attend university.

Tell me reader, since when did a university degree become the minimum requirement for being able to afford a decent life?

Don’t get me wrong, I am a graduate who feels frustrated about my salary as well. A degree is expensive, and the expectation that education will improve your financial circumstances is hardly unreasonable. But that is why I find this entire argument so strange.

If you are earning Tk15,000 after graduating, you have every reason to question the employer paying you that amount. You have every reason to question an economy in which young people are expected to be grateful for salaries that barely cover their basic expenses. 

You can be angry about the lack of opportunities, the low starting salaries and the endless expectation that fresh graduates should work for exposure, experience and the privilege of having something to put on their CVs.

At the same time, you can also want a garment worker to earn Tk30,000. These things are not mutually exclusive.

A degree does not make your labour inherently more deserving of fair compensation. Neither does the absence of one make someone else’s labour less valuable. 

The garment industry employs around four million people and accounts for more than 80% of Bangladesh’s export earnings. It is one of the biggest reasons the country earns foreign currency through exports. Behind those numbers are people who spend their working days cutting, stitching, finishing and packing the clothes that eventually end up in shops across the world. They are also the reason why you are able to thrift great quality clothes for a fraction of the price.

Sure, running a garment factory is not without its difficulties. Manufacturers have to deal with production costs, energy shortages, international competition and pressure from global buyers. These are legitimate concerns. But workers have financial realities too.

Why is it that every time wages are discussed, the conversation immediately turns to what employers can afford, while what workers need to survive becomes a secondary consideration? Why is the affordability of a salary treated as a business concern, but the affordability of life treated as an individual responsibility?

And this is not a problem exclusive to garment factories.

Across Bangladesh’s private sector, low salaries have become so criminally normalised that employers barely seem embarrassed to offer them. Fresh graduates are told they lack experience, employees are told the company is going through a difficult period and workers are asked to be patient, loyal and understanding. There is always a reason why a salary cannot be increased, and somehow that reason is never in short supply.

I am not suggesting that every demand can be met overnight or that every factory has the same financial capacity. But there is a difference between negotiating a realistic wage and expecting people to continue living on an unrealistic one.

And perhaps graduates should take a moment to think about why this conversation bothers them so much.

I suspect some of it comes from the disappointment of realising that a degree does not guarantee the life we were promised. We were told to study hard, get into a good university, build a career and eventually become financially independent. Many of us are now discovering that the final part of that arrangement is considerably more difficult than advertised.

It is frustrating. It is humiliating at times. And when you see someone without the qualifications you spent years acquiring demanding a salary higher than yours, I can understand why that might sting.

But what exactly are you hoping to achieve by arguing that they should earn less?

If anything, it should make graduates ask why their own employers are comfortable paying them so little. Why does a university education so often lead to a job that cannot support an independent life? Why are workers across so many industries told that their demands are unrealistic, while the cost of living continues to make increasingly realistic demands of them?

You can demand better working conditions for yourself without dismissing someone else’s struggle. You can disagree with road blockades, condemn vandalism and still recognise that the people protesting have legitimate grievances. You do not have to agree with every action taken during a protest to understand why it is happening.

Most importantly, you do not have to choose between the person sitting in an office and the person standing beside a sewing machine.

They are not each other’s enemies.

A garment worker asking for Tk30,000 is not the reason you earn Tk15,000. A university graduate asking for a better salary is not the reason a factory worker earns Tk12,500. Neither of you is taking money out of the other’s pocket.

Perhaps that is the simplest thing we need to understand.

I want graduates to earn more. I want garment workers to earn more. I want teachers, domestic workers, delivery riders, shop assistants and everyone else who works for a living to be able to afford a life beyond getting through the next payday.

I do not think that is an unreasonable thing to want from a country that keeps telling its people how much it wants to develop.

So the next time you see a garment worker demanding Tk30,000, perhaps resist the urge to explain why they deserve less. You might instead ask why a country that earns billions from the work of its people finds it so difficult to pay those people enough to live.

And while you are at it, ask why your own salary is so miserable.

You might discover that you and the garment worker have more in common than you thought. Neither of you is asking for the other’s money. Both of you are asking not to be underpaid.

That should not be a particularly difficult thing to understand. Especially after four years at university.

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Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard and TBS Graduates