The government has reformed the tripartite committee to prepare a draft report for further amendments to the labour law in line with the recommendations of the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the European Union (EU).
The Ministry of Labour and Employment on November 27 issued a gazette notification in this regard, abolishing the previous one issued on September 20, 2022.
The 17-member committee comprised 11 government officials from the ministries of labour, commerce, textile and jute, and industries. The committee also has three representatives from owners and workers each.
The ministry asked the committee to submit the report to the labour secretary. However, it did not mention a timeframe in this regard.
Labour and Employment Secretary A H M Shafiquzzaman said in a recent press conference that by March next year, Bangladesh committed to bringing further amendments to the labour law, which was previously reviewed in 2018.
He said the country made the pledge at an ILO session, called '352nd Session of the Governing Body', held in Geneva from October 28 to November 7.
Earlier, at the 108th ILO session in mid-June 2019, labour representatives from Italy, Japan, South Africa, Pakistan and Brazil sought formation of an enquiry commission against Bangladesh.
Dhaka was accused of discontinuing the ILO's convention no-87 on freedom of association and right to organize, convention no-98 on right to organise and collective bargaining, and convention no-81 on labour inspection.
The complainants also proposed forming a commission of enquiry against Bangladesh for non-observance of the conventions.
Later, in November 2020, the ILO asked Bangladesh to develop a time-bound roadmap to address all the concerns mentioned by the complainants, sources said.
Subsequently, Bangladesh developed the time-bound strategy under four priority areas with a series of specific actions set against the timeline.
The four priority areas are: labour law reform, trade union registration, labour inspection and enforcement, and addressing acts of anti-union discrimination, or unfair labour practices and violence against workers, the sources also said.
The EU and the US pressed Bangladesh to amend the labour law, easing trade union rules, simplifying union registration, and lowering the worker threshold required to form trade union.
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