The government will form a tripartite steering committee to tackle the unrest among the garment workers and oversee the implementation of their new wage structure, said the state minister for labour and employment yesterday.

Begum Monnujan Sufian was talking to the leaders of Bangladesh Garment Manufactures and Exporters Association (BGMEA), Bangladesh Knitwear Manufactures and Exporters Association (BKMEA) and workers' unions at the BGMEA office in Dhaka.

Sufian said the members of the committee would be the representatives from different ministries including labour and finance, wage board, BGMEA, BKMEA and labour unions.

Sufian urged the workers to lodge written complaints regarding wage dissatisfaction and other issues to the committee.

About the recent unrest at garment units in Dhaka and Chittagong, the labour leaders said the problem was not about the implementation of minimum wage of Tk 3,000, but the wage discrimination between the senior and junior workers.

They also called for setting up a separate cell in every factory to deal with the wage-related problems.

The state minister requested the labour leaders to help implement the new wage structure.

Shamima Nasrin, a labour leader, Abdus Salam Murshedy, president of BGMEA, and M Hatem of  BKMEA, also spoke.