IndustriALL Global Union has urged the government of Bangladesh to sincerely implement the roadmap on labour ahead of the upcoming governing body meeting of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to be held next month.
The report submitted on the roadmap implementation appears to be an exercise of ticking boxes instead of working towards upholding the spirit of the roadmap process, the global rights group said in a statement issued on Tuesday.
The roadmap is a time-bound action plan drafted by Bangladesh for addressing the outstanding issues mentioned in the Article 26 complaint.
The complaint was filed by several workers' organisations to the ILO in 2019 on the non-observance by the Bangladesh government of Conventions 81, 87 and 98 related to labour inspection, freedom of association, right to organise and collective bargaining.
The roadmap prioritised four areas for intervention that included labour law reforms, trade union registration, labour inspection and enforcement and addressing acts of anti-union discrimination/unfair labour practices and violence against workers.
Citing the latest report submitted by the Bangladesh government to the ILO, IndustriALL alleged that concrete details regarding actions taken by the government to guarantee workers' rights and workplace safety in the country are starkly missing.
Referring to news reports, it said the Bangladesh President has withheld assent to the amended labour law bill as it raised the fine for workers to TK 20,000 (US$180), but the penalty for employers which is TK 5,000 (US$45) remained unchanged in the context of strike or lockout.
"This provision results in blatant discrimination against workers and trade unions," added the statement.
In the tripartite consultation process to amend labour laws and rules, including those applicable to Export Processing Zones, IndustriALL's affiliates were neither consulted nor were their suggestions considered, it further noted.
The consultation process without IndustriALL's affiliates' involvement is a farce given that they represent more than 80 per cent of unionized workforce in the readymade garment industry which contributes about 86 per cent to the country's export earnings.
Last year, 27 proposed unions supported by IndustriALL's affiliates filed for union registration but only eight were approved and 19 rejected, according to the statement.
The reason cited by the Department of Labour was that there is less than 20 per cent of the workforce mentioned as the proposed membership, but that is incorrect, it claimed.
About the government report that mentioned 81,210 inspections were carried out from July 2021 to December 2023, the IGU said this indicates about 90 inspections daily.
This is an 'inflated figure' especially considering the number of labour inspectors available, which is 450 according to the report, and the type of work that needs to be done before and after an inspection.
IndustriALL's affiliates indicate that there is a huge backlog of cases in labour courts, and there isn't an adequate number of staff to deal with such volume of cases.
They also informed that recently the courts have started demanding the national identity card and passport size photos for submission of a court case which workers find extremely difficult to comply with every time.
The use of violence by security forces and Industrial Police to crush minimum wage protests, late last year, show that the government of Bangladesh has not delivered on the fourth priority area of the roadmap, alleged the rights group.
At least two workers were killed while many others injured in the brutal suppression of the protests by the police force, it said, adding that the report did not mention any of this and instead mentioned that sensitisation seminars were conducted for Industrial Police.
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