Speakers at a program on Sunday urged the government to take necessary steps to implement labour laws properly in the country, strengthen monitoring and safety measures in factories for ensuring decent work for workers, and announce minimum wages for workers keeping balance with other countries to achieve sustainable development goals (SDGs) by 2030.
They also underscored the need for bringing workers under social safety net, training for workers for technological skill development, and remove all barriers to do trade unions in industries.
They made the remarks at a roundtable titled “Ten years of Rana Plaza Tragedy: Present Situation of Garments Workers and Way Forward” at Hotel Bengal Blueberry in the capital.
The roundtable was organized by Bangladesh Textile & Garment Workers League (BTGWL), United Federation of Garments Workers (UFGW), Bangladesh Revolutionary Garments Workers Federation (BRGWF), Bangladesh Garments and Industrial Workers Federation (BGIWF), and National Garment Workers Federation (NGWF).
BTGWL president Z M Kamrul Anam moderated the function while NGWF President Amirul Haque Amin presided over the roundtable and UFGW representative Shehely Afroz Lovely presented keynote papers there.
“We expect that there won’t commit such incident of Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh in future. The inspection for factories and establishments department should be more active, transparent and skill up to ensure safety in factories,” said Neeran Ramjuthan, program manager labour administration and working conditions of ILO Dhaka.
He added that ILO has been working in Bangladesh to ensure a decent work place for workers in industries for many days. “We will continue our support to ensure decent work, and worker rights. Safety and health issues should be focused on all industries not only RMG sector,” he also said.
Speaking there, Danish Ambassador to Bangladesh Winnie Estrup Petersen said open discussion among government, employers, and employees is very important to make a decent society.
“Trade union is a backbone of our society. Social dialogue should be strengthened in Bangladesh. Trade Union is very import here,” she also said.
Swedish Ambassador to Bangladesh Alexandra Berg von Linde said their country has a history of 140 years of trade union.
“The chance of negotiation with all parities is needed in all sectors. Sweden is working to develop partnership with Bangladesh in terms of economic and social development,” she also said.
Director of Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies Nazma Yesmin said there is no alternative way of improving living standard of workers in Bangladesh to achieve SDGs by 2030.
“In the next amended labour laws, the government should lay emphasis the issues of rehabilitation of workers, health, and decent work. The labour laws should be workers friendly,” she also said.
RSC-RGM Sustainable Council representative Sefat Ahmed said they visited 10,000 garment factories, and trained up 2 million workers on safety issues in the last three years.
“We are now working 1822 factories garment factories. However, 511 factories have succeeded tremendous on safety issues. We are supporting technical and consultation issue,” he also said.
Member of Parliamentary Standing Committee on Labour and Employment Ministry Shamsunnahar Bhuiyan MP said the country can’t attain LDC graduation leaving workers behind. So, worker rights must be ensured soon.
As chief guest, chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on Labour and Employment Ministry Mujibul Haque Chunnu said: “Once people did not think about safety issue. The Rana Plaza collapse taught us. We have to work together to ensure safety, and decent work place in all industries of the country.”
He also called upon international buyers to increase the prices of Bangladeshi products to ensure safety in work places in the country.
The Rana Plaza building collapsed on April 24, 2013. Some 1,138 people were killed and around 2,500 workers were injured in the incident.
There are around 4,000 garments factories in Bangladesh.
About 40,000 workers are engaged in the industry. Of them, 60% are women.
