AS elsewhere in the world, Bangladesh is also observing the historic May Day in memory of those workers who gave their lives 125 years ago in the United States on this day at Chicago’s Hay Market to establish their right to work for sensible hours. Workers’ rights in different areas have been established, secured and promoted world-wide ever since. In the context of Bangladesh, one can say that the country is not too poorly served by Labour Laws and regulations at least on paper. Trade Union practices providing collective bargaining of workers with their employers are generally allowed in the industries and services here. But in practice, the records are not that straight as it should be. Still, the workers, specifically employed in the non-formal sector; are subjected to various discriminations so far as their wages and other benefits are concerned. This needs to be addressed rationally and in uniformity. Labour courts in Bangladesh promote and protect workers’ rights and enforce laws such as compensation to be paid to workers by employers for the breach of Labour Laws on their part. Bangladesh has been a signatory to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and remains committed on the whole to ILO policies. However, full-fledged trade union practices here seem to be in existence in the industries and services with new ones – particularly the export-oriented garment industries – remaining largely unserved by such unfettered trade union activities. But there are also powerful arguments in favour of such exemptions. Here again this legal coverage is particularly limited to the formal job sector. That is the informal job sector, particularly the agro-labourers remain outside the coverage of legal frame work as far as their terms of employment–e.g., wage, work hours and other packages are rather undefined or loosely defined. Here again the employers and the government are equally disinterested to settle up the things under a legal coverage. The legal interests of the persons, male and female; should be protected under a set of well defined law and regulations and also be enforced universally. However, in the backdrop of the last year’s tragic event of the collapse of Rana Plaza in Savar and the death of hundreds of workers the issue of ensuring safe working conditions in the garment industry still remains considerably unaddressed. This is unacceptable. The government and all other stakeholders must do a great deal more than what they have done so far, to ensure safe working conditions in all the garment industries. Workplace safety and security issues along with compliance requirements and bindings thereto should be promptly addressed by all the stakeholders in the backdrop of the threats coming from the Western buyers and users. There is, perhaps, hardly any chance to bypass such realities. This is imperative not only to guard against the repetition of such tragedies but also to secure the longer term interests of this sector and the national economy to retain foreign buyers who seem bent on turning away.
