Labour leaders at a roundtable threatened to launch a massive agitation if the authorities concerned failed to pay due compensation to the Rana Plaza victims and their families by April 24 next.
Ready-made garment (RMG) industry workers' leaders, journalists and columnists and NGO activists have called upon the government to take necessary steps in the payment of compensation in line with ILO standards by the deadline, when the country will observe the first anniversary of the industrial tragedy.
The demands were placed at the roundtable discussion organised by Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies (BILS) at National Press Club in the capital.
Marking the International Women's Day, the discussion was arranged under the topic "Disasters and Accidents at Workplace: Women's Multiple Sufferings."
Speaking on the occasion, general secretary of IndustriAll Bangladesh Council Roy Ramesh Chandra said the compensation must be delivered in accordance with the Article 121 of ILO Convention, which had been calculated on the basis of Loss of Future Earnings.
According to the said ILO article, minimum 50 per cent of the average monthly wage and seven per cent more in consideration of inflation every year will be added to the amount. The calculation will be made considering 60 workable years for a worker.
"Basing on the calculation, a worker killed in the Rana Plaza incident will get more than Tk 7.2 million and the compensated amount must be cleared by the coming April 24. Otherwise, we'll have no alternative but going for massive movement locally and globally," Mr. Roy said.
Noted columnist Syed Abul Maksud said the government should set a benchmark in line with international standard keeping Rana Plaza tragedy at the front, so that the standard can be followed in the future if any industrial accident occurs in the future.
He also proposed announcing April 24 as National Workers' Solidarity Day, marking the world's worst industrial disaster in the century.
At the discussion, Rana Plaza's wounded victims, mostly women, shared their painful and bitter experiences they had to go through since the tragedy of the building collapse.
Along with a PowerPoint presentation, BILS programme officer Kohinur Mahmud said women's right to workplace safety had not been established, although 157 years had passed by since the United Nations declared March 8 as International Women's Day in 1857.
Citing the labour force survey-2010, she said around 17 million women were currently working in various fields of the country.
"1706 female workers were killed in 2013. It indicates how insecure our female workers at the workplace are," she said.
Lawmaker Shirin Akhter, also vice-president of BILS, said female workers have been facing multiple sufferings in socioeconomic perspectives, which has put them in a difficult situation in order to survive.
BNP senior leader and BILS secretary general Nazrul Islam Khan termed the incidents at Tazreen Fashions and Rana Plaza 'killing incidents', saying the ill-fated workers were forced to work in a vulnerable atmosphere, leading to those disasters.
He said the government should immediately take measures to bring some changes to the existing labour laws to prevent such incidents from occurring in the future.
The speakers also called upon the government to disclose the amount collected for the Prime Minister's Fund, which was created after the incident of Rana Plaza collapse.
Nearly 1140 people were killed and hundreds others injured when a nine-storey commercial building housing five apparel units collapsed on April 24 last at Savar, near the capital.
