WORKERS of state-owned jute mills across the country withdrew their 96-hours strike last night after the Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation (BJMC) agreed to some of their demands. The decision came after a meeting between worker leaders and top BJMC officials on Monday night, following the first day of the second phase of work abstention.
The Ministry of Labour and Employment however only confirmed fixing workers’ wages by May 17 and made no mention of implementing a new wage scale. The workers’ demands, among others, were: paying the gratuities and insurance claims of retired and deceased workers, reinstating workers terminated or suspended during past movements, payment of arrears and other financial benefits to current workers, implementation of the National Wage Scale-2015 and removal of corrupt officials.
There are difficulties in running state-owned jute mills although the private sector ones are doing well and making profits. Exports of jute items developed by privately-owned jute mills are on the rise. Sustained by taxpayers’ money, the publicly-run ones are incurring losses. The main reasons attributed to losses in government-run mills are mismanagement in buying raw jute and corruption. Workers were reported to have shut down several mills protesting delay in payment of outstanding wages. Jute mills had a loss of Tk 4.81 billion during the year 2016-17.
Fund shortage is yet another problem and funds are not made available in time. Productivity in government-run mills is low with the cost of production being high because of old machineries in those mills. Wages of workers are also high in state-owned jute mills compared to the private sector mills.
The public sector jute mills often fail to pay wages to the workers. Unsold products are seen being dumped in godowns. The BJMC, during every jute season, has to seek funds from the government. The jute mills have been incurring losses since the country’s independence. Some jute mills were privatised in the past in an attempt to reduce the government’s financial burden. So it’s about time that politicisation and nepotism in appointing workers to jute mills ended and steps are taken to ensure that they return to economic viability.
