WORKER rights in Bangladesh continue to remain unprotected as reported in the most recent Global Rights Index of the International Trade Union Confederation. This is disconcerting. In the index made public on June 2, Bangladesh is ranked among the 10 worst countries with a score of 5, suggesting that the country has no guarantee for worker rights. For nine consecutive years, Bangladesh has had the same score and been ranked in the index鈥檚 lowest rung. The report does not come as a surprise, considering many instances of worker rights violations in recent months. On June 4, a worker of a knitwear factory in Gazipur committed suicide after being denied sick leave and fellow workers alleged that the management not only denied him sick leave but also subjected him to corporal humiliation. Workers of the TNZ Group have been on the streets on and off since early March, demanding their wages in arrears and severance benefits that the employers failed to pay before closing the production units.
An absence of a national minimum wage, a demand ignored for long, has created a situation in which employers easily deny workers a living wage. A majority of workers in informal sectors, meanwhile, work without legal protection. The rights index has emphasised worker right to unionise, their collective bargaining capacity and their general right to assemble. In February, more than 800 workers at Transcom Beverages, the exclusive PepsiCo franchisee in Bangladesh, went on strike in Dhaka, Chattogram and Gazipur. The police responded high-handedly and detained 23 workers. The report also observes that collective bargaining capacity for workers is also rare in Bangladesh. Although the labour law stipulates that the sector-specific minimum wage would be reviewed every five years, it has almost never been initiated without the workers taking to the streets. Even when a wage review board is constituted, the workers鈥� real representation on the board has not been ensured. Workers in export processing zones are denied the right to go on strike or unionise. In the apparel sector, union activities are allowed but often conditionally or are limited because of bureaucratic hurdles, weak enforcement of laws and employer interference.
The observation of the global rights index is similar to what the labour reforms commission has described in its report submitted to the interim government in April. The commission has sought comprehensive legal reforms to end the longstanding exclusion of informal, agricultural and domestic workers from statutory protection along with the formation of a national minimum wage board. The government should take early steps to implement the recommendations of the commission to improve labour rights situation.