Representatives of the government, factory owners and labour leaders have failed to reach a consensus on amendment to the key components of labour act including the trade union registration procedure despite a meeting for three consecutive days.The Tripartite Consultation Council and a technical committee formed under the TCC held marathon meeting on labour law amendment at BRAC CDM in Gazipur on August 10-12.According to the meeting source, specific proposals on amendment given by the owners and workers were not discussed but the government placed a proposal at the meeting.In the proposal, the government asked for changes in 31 areas, but the meeting ended without reaching a consensus among the three parties over most of the proposals, the sources said.The mandatory threshold of 30 per cent membership of workers for forming a trade union was the key concern of the international community including International Labour Organisation and European Union, but the issue remained unaddressed at the meeting.Meeting sources said that the IndustriAll Bangladesh Council proposed to reduce the threshold to 5 per cent but the government and factory owners did not place any specific proposals on the issue.In the amendment proposal the government proposed weaver for the export oriented factory owners from group insurance for the workers, saying that the financial assistance equivalent to the group insurance would be paid to the families of deceased and injured workers from the contingency account under the central fund.The labour leaders opposed the proposal saying that it would not be appropriate to ignore the existing mandatory group insurance system.The government proposed to increase the period of work of an adult worker in an establishment to 11 hours (inclusive of his interval for rest or meal) from existing 10 hours.The labour leaders opposed the proposals.In the amendment, the government proposed to include the definition of festival allowances in the labour act and all parties agreed the proposals, meeting source said.‘We could not reach to a consensus over the all components of amendment to labour act in the three-day meeting at BRAC CDM in Gazipur. It is an ongoing process and more talks will be held to reach a consensus,’ state minister for labour Md Mujibul Haque told New Age on Monday.He said that a fruitful result might come after the next meeting of TCC to be held on August 17.In the International Labour Conference 2016, the ILO had a special paragraph on Bangladesh recommending amendments to the labour act to address the issues relating to freedom of association and collective bargaining.It also suggested that labour organisations in the export processing zones should be allowed to form or join labour organisations outside the zones and all acts of anti-union discrimination should be investigated.The EU warned Bangladesh of the suspension of the Generalised System of Preferences because of violation of labour rights and freedom of association. The EU suggested Bangladesh for providing time-bound action plan to address the concerns raised by the ILO. At the last ILC in June this yea, the government submitted time-bound action plan and promised to produce the draft of the revised EPZ law before an International Labour Organisation committee by the end of November and that of the revised labour law by the end of December this year with necessary changes in the laws in line with the recommendations of the ILO.Bangladesh had also promised that a draft of the new EPZ legislation would be shared by November 2017 after consultation with the ILO.
