Tannery workers, leaders and rights activists at a discussion on Wednesday said that tannery workers’ suffering had deepened over the years as the implementation of their minimum wage was delaying.
The Solidarity Centre Bangladesh organised the event titled ‘Workers rights and environmental justice in the tannery sector’ on Wednesday at a hotel in Dhaka city, said a press release.
The speakers raised grave concern over the lack of progress in the sector despite years of advocacy.
Solidarity Centre Bangladesh country programme director AKM Nasim questioned the purpose of declaring a minimum wage if its implementation needed negotiations via committees.
‘This is a betrayal of workers. Legal prosecution must follow non-compliance. Improving workers’ condition is the only path to improving the industry,’ he said.
Speakers criticised the prolonged failure in implementing the declared minimum wage for tannery workers, the deteriorating environmental conditions in Hemayetpur and the absence of maintaining fundamental labour rights.
They warned that continued neglect, particularly by tannery owners and regulatory authorities, had led to a deepening crisis for the thousands of workers in the industry.
Tannery Workers’ Union general secretary Abdul Maleque demanded healthcare infrastructure in the tannery estate in Savar on an urgent basis.
‘Despite the workers’ exposure to over a hundred hazardous chemicals daily, not a single hospital exists within or near the estate,’ he noted.
Labour Reform Commission chair and executive director of Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies Syed Sultan Uddin Ahammed said that if workers died due to negligence, there was a 4-year sentence and Tk 2.5 lakh compensation. But for environmental crimes, there was barely any punishment.
TWU president Abul Kalam Azad emphasised that inaccurate worker data that largely excluded informal and contractual labourers, complicated effective policy intervention.
Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies deputy director Mohammad Nazrul Islam, senior officer Rezoanul Hoque Azom, Internal Labour Organisation representative Mahmudul Islam Khan, Bangladesh Leather Development Forum coordinator Firoze Alam and Department for Inspection of Factories and Establishments law officer Masum Billah, among others, spoke at the event.
