THE absence of a minimum wage commission has for years left more than 85 per cent of the workers and employees, who work in informal sectors, to face wage discrimination and deprivation. The government鈥檚 sector-wise minimum wage boards for 42 industrial sectors and the National Wage Commission for state-owned industries cover only 15.1 per cent of the work force. This is appalling. The government has recently brought two more sectors 鈥� cement and ceramic 鈥� under the fold of formal industrial sectors, taking the number of sectors under the wage purview to 44, and has initiated the process for setting minimum wages for workers, but labour rights activists believe that this is no solution. While the absence of a national minimum wage standard leaves majority of the work force outside the legal wage framework, it also renders the existing wage system discriminatory. The discrimination is more pronounced in rural areas as the Labour Force Survey 2022 shows that informal labour in urban areas accounts for 13.16 million, which is 74.8 per cent, but informal laobur in rural areas accounts for 46.64 million, which is 88.2 per cent. Experts, however, believe that minimum wage for workers is not a labour issue. It is, rather, a social and economic issue and a minimum wage is an effective device for poverty alleviation and social justice.
A national minimum wage commission, instead of a sector-wise wage system, is what is needed to ensure a balanced society. The informal economy is said to be, worryingly, thriving on high unemployment, under-employment, poverty, gender inequality and precarious work, which is why experts believe that the government is reluctant at sorting out the issue. The minister of state for labour says that the government now works to create jobs and skilled human resources and would work to ensure decent employment in all sectors afterwards. This by implication points to the government鈥檚 reluctance at ensuring minimum wages. This having been the case, workers in various sectors are reported to be hardly benefiting from labour courts because of inordinate delay in case disposal and the reluctance of owners to comply with the court verdicts taking the advantage of loopholes in the law. Thousands of workers are reported to be waiting for justice as the 13 labour courts and the only appeals tribunal are burdened with a backlog of 21,061 cases, which include 14,289 cases that have been pending for more than six months. Such a situation doubly victimises the workers. They are first victimised at work and then in the legal process. The minister of state for labour, again, seeks to say that workers are getting justice from the labour courts expeditiously, noting that workers in other countries do not get justice as quickly as workers in Bangladesh do. This squarely indicates the government鈥檚 tendency to sidestep the problems.
The government must, therefore, institute a minimum wage commission, instead of sector-wise wage commission, for minimum national wages to remove wage discrimination and to add to its efforts for poverty alleviation and social justice. The government must also look into delays in legal redress for wage-related issues to stop double victimisation of workers.