A NORTH-EAST university professor has called for Bangladeshi factory workers producing cheap clothing for the UK to be given a pay rise.

Currently garment workers in Bangladesh are paid a minimum of 3,000 taka a month, the equivalent of around £24.

But Professor Doug Miller, an expert in the rights of fashion workers who is based at Northumbria University, believes that Bangladeshi garment workers need to earn a minimum of 8,200 taka, which is the equivalent of around £65 a month to have a living wage.

Prof Miller reached his conclusion after working with the Centre for Policy Dialogue, a Bangladeshi think-tank and Dutch consultancy, Bernschot, to calculate a more realistic living wage that takes into account the food and living costs faced by workers.

The research concludes there is a huge gap between the monthly income factory workers need in order to live and the wage they are currently paid.

The researchers are recommending that the Bangladeshi minimum wage needs to be adjusted, using a formula they have developed.

Their recommendations have now been submitted to the Bangledeshi Minimum Wage Board.

The global garment sector has long been viewed as a 'sweatshop' industry reliant on low-paid workers in developing countries, some of whom continue to work in dangerous conditions.

Prof Miller said: "Establishing a new minimum living wage is one thing - creating the conditions under which this might be paid is another. The majority of brands and retailers do have living wage commitments in their corporate codes of conduct but, because we are dealing with a multi-buyer outsourced supply chain, the least they could achieve would be to ring fence a living wage labour cost in their commercial transactions."

He was recently invited to assist the Global Union of garment workers to negotiate compensation schemes for workers in the least development countries.