Ignored rights, inflated coffers

. PHOTO: AFP

As per the labour laws there are a number of requirements which must be fulfilled by the employers.

1. Normal working hours shall not be more than 8 hours in a day and 48 hours in a week. Extra working time is limited and payable at double the normal rate. A worker must get one day off within 10 days of work.

2. Every permanent worker is entitled to casual, medical, and annual leave with pay. Maternity leave has to be given to female workers.

3. Every worker automatically becomes permanent after 90 days.

4. Services of an worker can be terminated only with full benefit and pay.

5. The workers are entitled to 2 % profit share of the company.

The law contains a lot more provisions to safeguard the rights of the workers. These are totally ignored by the employers and the govt.

The employers do not allow the workers to form their labour union and CBA after bribing the officials concerned or sacking the labour leaders. The employers take all sorts of undertakings from the employees at the time of their employment and terminate their employment just before 90 days to avoid making them permanent workers. The government allow these illegal activities of employers at the cost of employees.

The employees have no choice but to accept these conditions under duress in return for their employment. The laws must be modified and enforced strictly to safeguard the interest of the workers.

This problem must be addressed immediately to avoid further deterioration of the present situation.

Kansat", "Shonir Akhra" & then what happened in the garment industries in and around Dhaka must be considered most alarming by every conscious citizen of this country.

This is no time to blame and counter blame each other like the two major political parties.

Farmers, garment workers & the manpower employed overseas are presently the back-bone of this nation which once started off as a basket-case, but came a long way to gaining economic strength. The garment sector is our premier export earner & any attempt to disrupt this sector will mean disaster in many respects with highly negative consequences.

Z. Rahman Gulshan, Dhaka

I felt fascinated when I read about Muslin, the pride of Bangladesh. I have always thought that those times would come again. When will we show our talent in the garment sector? With an enormous earning of $6.89 billion from the garment sector in the fiscal year 2005, Bangladesh has earned the confidence of foreign buyers that has drawn huge orders over the rival countries.

Not only this, Bangladesh has been ranked 65 in the ease of doing business index whereas China and India were ranked 91 and 116. It's the time when every sign seems positive for Bangladesh to raise its head from the decayed position of an underdeveloped third world country.

Khizir Mahmud Malaysia

The violence in the garment sector is highly deplorable. The members of the citizenry witnessed, awestricken, the flare that engulfed the biggest foreign exchange earning sector from Gazipur to Savar to Dhaka. While the marauding workers engaged in the loot, fire and destruction; the owners were on the street blaming the govt. for their failure to contain the convulsion. Reading through and watching the media reports one would be confused as to who is to blame? The most annoying of all was the irresponsible remarks made by the high echelon of the ruling party. Some stalwarts of the ruling party put the blame on the opposition and even smelled foreign conspiracies. In Bangladeshi style of politics, it was no wonder. However, this time we felt that the ruling party would not try to confuse people by blaming the opposition alone and would tell the simplest truth to the nation.

Irresponsible remarks have always been our primary state-of- the art of the politicians, ostensibly to divert people's attention and obviously to hide government's failures. Let's revisit a few examples of irresponsible utterances in the past few years that stunned the nation we saw a minister consoling a bereaved family referring to Allah's wishes ( As if the law enforcers had nothing to do)) after the sad death of a two year child on his father's lap in a terrorist shootout. Oh! what a mockery!. On another occasion, we heard a minister commenting on the migratory birds, “We have not invited the migrating birds, why call them our guests.” The after-effect was random hunting of these birds that took shelter in the wetlands of Sylhet. The remark is a blatant disregard of the existing law that prohibits hunting birds and animals. Thanks to the press for the immediate reaction, the hunting of these migratory birds stopped. The Kansat outburst is yet another example when the government blamed the opposition for orchestrating the popular movement of the peasants. Another example is the outburst of people at Shanir Akhra who had gathered spontaneously demanding regular supply of water and electricity. These irresponsible remarks and utterances give rise to one question are we failing to see the fizz and fizzle of unhappy people?

Coming back to the unprecedented scale of violence, arson and looting in the RMG factories. The government failed to take adequate security measures. The government perhaps preferred to hold their guns back keeping the election in view. BGMEA, on the other hand, termed the violence, as an act of 'outsiders' in the guise of workers plotting to destabilise the RMG sector with an ulterior motive. Whatever may be their line of thought, deprivation of workers, absence of a safe working environment and job security, sparked off the violence. Of late, the workers have been voicing their demands, unfortunately no one seems to take it to cognisance. The result has been violence & destruction; above all, it is the image of the country which is at stake.

It is time we refrained from making irresponsible remarks.

Ulfat Hussain Mirpur Road, Dhaka