Labourers must get payments
Friday, 6 March 2009
It is my personal opinion, that the common labourer is the kind of creature that many of us only remember exists on or around the 1st of May-May Day-not before or afterwards.
Who has built all these tall and large structures-from multi-storied buildings to industries to roads and bridges? It is the common labourer, not those big name companies. I asked a couple of these labourers the other day, how much they earn? They said it was between Tk.180-200 per day (for work from morning till sundown). They were digging at a construction site. This is pittance in exchange for the labour they put in actually. One is forced to understand that the communist and socialist movements didn't come for nothing. Our fellow humans saw the neglect and apathy that the haves have against the have-nots. Perhaps their solutions were not hundred per cent foolproof and probably had enough scope for mischief by those at the helm of affairs but surely those who thought up those ideas were sincere and meant well.
In our country, the labourers and their activities are so commonplace that to be sensitive about their plight may invite scorn from our better-off fellow beings. But truly, one should realise that our mortality is the greatest leveller and no matter how well-off one is one cannot eat sixteen times a day. In other words, wealth may give status but all that is man made and there is no guarantee that one would live a longer and healthier life than those we look down upon.
Badruddin Ahmed
Park Road, Bogra
Who has built all these tall and large structures-from multi-storied buildings to industries to roads and bridges? It is the common labourer, not those big name companies. I asked a couple of these labourers the other day, how much they earn? They said it was between Tk.180-200 per day (for work from morning till sundown). They were digging at a construction site. This is pittance in exchange for the labour they put in actually. One is forced to understand that the communist and socialist movements didn't come for nothing. Our fellow humans saw the neglect and apathy that the haves have against the have-nots. Perhaps their solutions were not hundred per cent foolproof and probably had enough scope for mischief by those at the helm of affairs but surely those who thought up those ideas were sincere and meant well.
In our country, the labourers and their activities are so commonplace that to be sensitive about their plight may invite scorn from our better-off fellow beings. But truly, one should realise that our mortality is the greatest leveller and no matter how well-off one is one cannot eat sixteen times a day. In other words, wealth may give status but all that is man made and there is no guarantee that one would live a longer and healthier life than those we look down upon.
Badruddin Ahmed
Park Road, Bogra