The country’s under paid 40 million workers engaged by informal sectors are denied their lawful labour rights.
Labour leaders said that they are not even aware that they are entitled to better and decent wages.
The government, they said, was yet to make a law to protect their legitimate rights.
Eid brings them no joy to the families of the informal sector workers. For them the day of Eid, is no different from any other day of hardship.
They see no hope of solving the problem of low and irregular wages.
No appointment letters or laws are there to protect them against exploitation by employers, on whose whims depend whether or not they would work.
They never heard of job security, let alone festival allowance.
Women workers get the worst deal in the informal sector. They even do not dream of maternity leave or benefits.
And old women and men have no choice but to work even if their health does not permit.
They cannot bargain with their employers for better wages or facilities.
Unaware of their constitutional rights they cannot even get organised to protect their legitimate interests.
They have no voice to protest at wrongs and exploitation.
‘There is no hurry,’ labour and employment minister Khandakar Mosharraf Hossain told New Age when he was asked if the government was going to enact a law for informal sector workers. ‘Is anybody from the agriculture sector is putting pressure [for a law])? Is there any trade union [for farm workers]?’
‘It is necessary to enact separate laws for the workers of each of the informal sectors, including the agriculture sector. But enactment of a law for a single informal sector would create problems as workers of other sectors would come up with similar demands,’ he said.
The minister told New Age on September 11 last year, ‘We are thinking of bringing the workers in the informal sector, especially the agriculture workers, under a legal framework.’ He had said that the demand of the labour organisations to fix a minimum national wage was also under consideration.
In its 2008 election manifesto, the Awami League promised elimination of gender bias in wages, a national minimum wage and formation of a permanent wage board.
‘But the government neither framed laws for the informal sectors nor fixed a minimum national wage, Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies assistant executive director Syed Sultan Uddin Ahmed told New Age Monday.
The government ‘is unenthusiastic’ and the owners are ‘unwilling’ to bring the informal sectors under a legal framework, he said.
Eid brings no joy for the workers in both formal and informal sectors whose miseries are mounting with soaring cost of living, he said. ‘Many formal sector workers are not paid regularly, let alone festival allowance.’
The government mediated the minimum wage for the garment sector workers and but deferred its implementation till November depriving the garment workers of the benefit in this Eid, he said.
Workers in the informal sector include agricultural workers, construction workers, day labourers, workers in small engineering workshops, hired fishermen, salespersons, service workers and transport workers who do not have job security.
Bangladesh has a 49.5 million strong labour force above 15 years in age, including about 12 million women. The agriculture sector employs the highest number of workers, accounting for 51.9 per cent of the total work force, according to the Statistical Pocketbook Bangladesh, 2009, published by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics.
The approximate ratio of the number of workers in the formal and informal sectors in Bangladesh is 20:80.
The government already implemented the recommendations of the National Pay Commission with a rise, on an average, of 80 per cent of the salaries of the employees in the government, semi-government and autonomous bodies.
According to the constitution, the state is responsible for ensuring equal opportunities for all citizens. The state shall adopt effective measures to remove social and economic inequality between man and woman and to ensure equitable distribution of wealth and of opportunities among the citizens in order to attain a uniform level of economic development throughout the country, says the constitution.
Bangladesh is a signatory to the UN Declaration on Millennium Development Goals with a target of a worker’s daily pay at least at $2.
Bangladesh Farm Workers Association president Shamsuzzaman Selim said the workers in the rural areas ‘are the most deprived group’ as there ‘is no provision’ or practice to pay festival allowances in the sector.
There ‘is no standard wage’ in the rural areas, he said.
He called upon the government to bring farm workers under a legal framework to give them recognition as workers.
Selim said the government should introduce rations in the rural areas to provide the poor with six essential commodities, including rice, flour, sugar, edible oil and kerosene, at nominal price instead of free distribution of food. ‘Most of the rural people consider free rice given under different programmes as alms,’ he added.
