THERE is an urgent need to set standards for labour practices across sectors, as experts at a discussion that the Solidarity Centre and the Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies organised in Dhaka on October 5, as the labour law and related regulations fail to universally protect workers. The discussants have also highlighted the loopholes in the labour law and urged the government, which assumed office after the fall of the Awami League government, to prioritise democratic reforms in labour-intensive sectors. In such a situation, experts have held brief for the redress of concerns of export-oriented industrial sectors. Labourers in the informal sector remain completely outside the legal purview. Workers in the sectors that fall under the jurisdiction of the Labour Act 2006 also do not have guaranteed trade union rights, workplace or health safety because the authorities are not strict about enforcement. The labour courts are there to resolve wage disputes and other labour rights violations, but the courts proved ineffective in ensuring a speedy disposal of cases. In the informal sector, workers do not have a place for grievance redress. The legal loopholes should be reviewed and amended so that basic labour rights are ensured irrespective of sectors.
An absence of a national minimum wage has also created wage disparity in export-oriented industrial sectors. The minimum wage for apparel workers was increased from Tk 8,000 to Tk 12,100 in 2023, but the increase is inadequate considering the unprecedented inflation, especially food inflation. The minimum wage for non-apparel industrial workers, including leather, footwear, shrimp and pharmaceutical industries, is far lower than what the apparel workers earn and ranges between Tk 6,700 and Tk 8,050 even when they all equally contribute to export earnings. Although the leather and jute industries ranked as the second and third highest export-earning sectors, workers in the sectors struggle as their monthly minimum wage stands at Tk 7,100 and Tk 8,000. In the first five months of the year, tea exports saw a 33 per cent increase and the government provides a 3 per cent incentive to encourage tea export, but the worker鈥檚 daily wage is as low as Tk 170, that too after the most recent increase in 2022. Labourers in informal sectors such as construction or brick kilns generally work on terms arbitrarily set by their employer with barely any legal protection.
The government should, therefore, consider the concerns of the labour rights organisations, review the law and address the enforcement failures. It should seriously consider forming a national wage commission to review the wage structure both in the formal and the informal sector and take a stand against the poverty wage structure, which has worryingly come to be the norm. In reviewing the labour law, the government should also consider setting up a national labour rights commission, as demanded by labour organisations, so that the basic labour rights are protected in all sectors.
