A government survey found that there was no safety committee at sixty-six per cent of the readymade garment factories and no participation committee at fifty-two per cent of the RMG units in the country in violation of the labour law. In 2013, the government included the provisions of mandatory safety committee and participation committee in the amended labour law. The Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments, in the January-July period of this year, conducted the compliance survey at 1,236 factories across the country and found that there were safety committees in only 34 per cent of the factories and participation committees in 48 per cent of the units. The labour law stipulates, ‘In every factory where 50 (fifty) or more workers are employed, there shall be a safety committee to be formed and functioned in the manner prescribed by rules.’ The amended labour law also stipulates that the employer of every establishment, in which at least 50 workers are ordinarily employed, will constitute a participatory committee in his establishment in the manner prescribed by rules. According to the labour rules, safety committees in the existing establishments have to be formed within the six months of the effectiveness of labour rules while the committee to be formed within nine months of the starting of a new establishment. It also says that in an establishment, where no trade union exists, the worker representatives of the participatory committee may carry out the activities related to the interests of the workers until a trade union is formed in that establishment. The labour rules under the labour act came into effect on September 15, 2015.‘We are working in the factories and establishments to ensure safety and participation committees as per the rules and employers have started to respond to our call but the progress is slow,’ Syed Ahmed, inspector general of the DIFE, told New Age on Saturday. He said that the DIFE was conducting training programmes in the establishments to sensitise the employers to the issue. Ferdaus Pervez Bivon, vice-president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, said that their monitoring teams were working in the factories so that formation of safety and participation committees there got pace. Following the gazette notification of the labour rules, the BGMEA has sent letters to all of its member factories to form the committees within the stipulated time, he said. ‘It is true that the time is over and many factories failed to form the committees but we are working on the issue and hopefully safety and participation committees will be formed in the rest of the factories very soon,’ Bivon said. According to the DIFE, out of the 1,236 factories surveyed, 816 are affiliated with the BGMEA, 236 are members of the Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association and 184 are not affiliated with any trade body. The compliance report showed that 41 per cent of the factories had no arrangement for workers’ personal safety and 65 per cent of them did not maintain safety record books and boards. According to the report, 38 per cent of the factories did not allow maternity leave and allowances while 54 per cent of them took no approval from factory inspectors for additional working hours at their units.
