The country’s Generalised System of Preference (GSP) to EU countries may face hurdle as global unionists alleged that Bangladesh showed anti-union behavior last year, sources said.
Citing last December’s Ashulia incident, they alleged that Bangladesh showed anti-union behavior and urged the European Union (EU) to investigate Bangladesh’s GSP status.
Industrial Global Union, UNI Global Union and International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) with their European affiliates have evaluated the progress recently and said Bangladesh failed to address the commitments regarding labour issues of Sustainability Compact.
Earlier on January 18 last, the groups in a joint letter to the European Parliament made the similar call.
The Sustainability Compact was signed among the EU, Bangladesh, the US, Canada and the International Labour Organization (ILO) to improve labour rights and factory safety in the garment factories after the Rana Plaza building collapse that killed more than 1,100 workers in 2013.
“It is time to initiate a GSP investigation,” the evaluation report said.
The investigation process is lengthy and provides ample time for the government of Bangladesh to take the measures necessary to comply with the GSP, said the report.
“We are confident that EU-based brands, which benefit from the lower tariff on these goods, would become fully engaged in finding solutions, along with trade unions,” they said.
Despite the sustainability compact and international assistance towards improving industrial relations, the government of Bangladesh has demonstrated that continued dialogue mechanisms have failed and will do little if anything to improve conditions of more than four million garment workers, the report added.
Year on year, Bangladesh has failed to meet its commitments to the compact, according to the report.
This situation worsened further with the arbitrary arrest and detention of at least 35 trade union activists and workers in December last year.
More than 1,600 garment workers were dismissed and union leaders threatened and intimidated by police. An ‘IndustriALL campaign’ helped secure the release of the detainees, but the charges still remain.
Quoting the ILO ‘special paragraph,’ the assessment also found that compact commitments on freedom of association and collective bargaining have not been met, with half of all union registrations denied.
In addition, the government has still failed to hire the necessary number of factory inspectors cited in the compact.
The assessment also criticised the national initiative’s ongoing garment factory safety measures, saying there is little evidence that the crucial remediation efforts under the national initiative are in process, and the financing of the remediation of the factories under the national effort is unclear.
Meanwhile, the government has continued to ignore unions’ complaints over hazardous working conditions in sectors like ship-breaking, it added.
IndustriALL’s assistant general secretary Jenny Holdcroft, in a statement, said, “The European Union is Bangladesh’s most important trading partner. It must not and cannot turn a blind eye to the deteriorating conditions for workers and trade unions in the country.”
He added: “An investigation into Bangladesh’s preferential trading status with the EU would send a powerful message to the government of Bangladesh to clean up its act.”
However, Mahmud Hasan Khan, Vice President of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), disagreed with the rights groups’ evaluation of worsening situation.
He said the situation has improved in terms of safety and labour rights in the last one year.
“Labour right situation in Bangladesh largely improved. It is a continuous process. We are working for more improvement of the situation,” the BGMEA VP said.
