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Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Anisul Haque said that any factory can form a labor welfare association (trade union) from now on.
He said this to reporters after a meeting with a US commercial delegation at the Secretariat on Monday (April 22).
Anisul Haque said during the discussion of the meeting, they (the delegation) mainly discussed with me about the labor law of Bangladesh, the rights of workers and what we are doing about it. The important question they had was, what is the current situation of the revision of labor law in Bangladesh, what is being done? They wanted to know about 11 issues and how much progress has been made in this regard, they asked.
'Their first question was about the threshold (rate of consent of workers to form a trade union). That is, the percentage of workers required to form a trade union. First, around 2016, it was 30 percent. When we went to the International Labor Organization (ILO) conference in 2017, it was decided to bring this threshold to 20 percent. Then I said, we will reduce it further, but gradually. This time when the amendment was made, the first proposal was to bring it down from 20 to 15 percent. But there was a caveat, it would apply only to factories employing three thousand or more workers. But that limit has also been lifted, he said.
The minister said, when there was a problem with the labor law, it was brought back from the President, after that we decided in the discussion… We will do it for everyone, there will be no cap. We have also informed the US representatives. Thereafter Bangladesh Labor Act, Bangladesh Economic Zone Authority as the case may be, shall apply. Earlier, the Bangladesh Export Processing Zone was supposed to apply to the Labor Act. We have made that amendment. These were the 11 things they wanted to know.
He said, we told them about what we have already completed. I have also said what I have worked on. For example, on labor rights. It is a work in progress. Workers' rights will increase day by day, not decrease.
However, Anisul Haque said that what is being received from any country is not taken into consideration in giving rights to the workers. He said, “We will not think about workers' rights depending on whether a country will give us or not.”
“This government will ensure that the workers always get more than what they are entitled to and implement the rights so that they can enjoy them,” added the minister.
When asked whether the US delegation was satisfied, the minister said, after the discussion, the US representatives told me that they were satisfied.
