Labour ACT
Govt misses schedule to finalise rules
The government has failed to finalise the rules and regulations for proper implementation of labour act even after two months of its promised time.
Though the government formed a committee in August last year promising to finalise the rules and regulations within three months, the committee only prepared a draft in the last five months.
Recently the government has formed a committee comprised by government officials and other stakeholders, including representatives of factory owners and workers, headed by labour secretary to review the draft of rules and regulations.
The committee in its first meeting held on Thursday served the draft of rules and regulations under to the stakeholders and sought their opinions within a month.
‘We are working on the issue and the rules and regulations would be finalised within very short time as international community specially the EU and the USA — the major destinations of Bangladeshi products — are closely monitoring this issue,’ labour secretary Mikail Shipar told New Age on Saturday.
He said that the committee would sit further on February 23 on the issue and the stakeholders would put their opinions on the rules and regulations in the meeting.
Not mentioning any time frame, Shipar said after getting opinions from the stakeholders the rules and regulations would be finalised within a shortage possible time.
Replying to a question, he said, ‘There was no lacking on the part of the government to formulate the rules and regulations but we could not finish the work in time as promised earlier because it is a very big task.’
Mohammed Hatem, vice-president of the Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association, told New Age that they would point out their dispute on some specific points in the draft.
Without disclosing the detail he said some issues had been included in the draft which were impractical and also discoursing for investment.
Differing with a point which has been incorporated in the draft that a well-equipped hospital is a precondition for an entrepreneur who wants to establish a garment factory, Hatem said that it was very much impractical and such conditions would not lead anything positive for industrialisation.
Shukkur Mahmud, president of Jatiya Sramik League, who is also a member of government-formed committee, said they would submit their opinions to the committee disputing on the issues which would go against the interest of workers.
‘We have yet to find out the issues in the draft which are against the interest of workers as we could not start the review of the draft yet.’
The parliament passed the amended labour law on July 15 last year in the face of domestic and international pressure following the collapse of Rana Plaza building on April 24 that killed more than 1,100 people, mostly garment workers.
In 2009, the government initiated a process to amend the Bangladesh Labour Act-2006 following the demand mainly from the labour unions to make it consistent with the ILO Convention which was ratified by Bangladesh. The new labour law is also being criticised by labour leaders and right activists.
To finalise the rules and regulations under the labour act the government had formed two separate committees in August — one is rules and regulations’ formulating committee led by the labour secretary and another is a five-member working group led by deputy secretary Md Aminul Islam.
-With New Age input
