Revisiting the essence of May Day

Another May Day has passed, yet the essence of May Day is to be realised in Bangladesh. The labours of Bangladesh are still striving to achieve the goal, i.e., to establish a “socialist economic system”, “with a view to ensuring the attainment of a just and egalitarian society, free from the exploitation of man by man”, stated in Article 10 of the Constitution of the People's Republic of Bangladesh. It is beyond debate that there are numbers of loopholes both in the existing law and in the implication mechanism, e.g., Labour Inspectorate. Nevertheless, there are some positive steps that need to be addressed before opening the Pandora's Box of criticisms and short-falls. These positive steps include 2013's amendment of the Bangladesh Labour Code, introducing insurance system for the construction workers, direct medical help for the workers through Labour Welfare Foundation (Sramik Kallyan Foundation), increasing wages of garments workers and relaxing the unwritten embargo on forming trade unions in garments factories. In addition, after Rana Plaza incident some steps towards improving the occupational health and safety scenario have also been taken in the garments industries.
The above positive steps will seem tiny beside the heap of lacunas, steps that have gone wrong and loads of vacuums in the labour field of Bangladesh. Keeping the spirits of May Day in mind, it is an ongoing debate that the existing labour law and the implication mechanism are available to the workers of the formal sector, not to the workers of informal sector, e.g., farmers. Even within the formal sector, the Labour Code is only applicable for the workers who work out of Export Processing Zones (EPZs), not for those who work in the EPZs. For the workers working within EPZ, a different set of law and rules apply.
The major difference is the absence of right to form trade union in the EPZ, even though, it seems, they enjoy better welfare benefits than those who work outside. There are questions regarding the definition of 'worker' itself, that is, it does not represent the total community of formal workers even. Such discrepancies have amounted to 'legal' discrimination. The lawmakers may argue that they have introduced a code of labour laws replacing nearly 65 separate laws and in 2013; they have also amended that code to address the concerns raised by the trade unions and civil societies.
However, they might have failed to notice that the code they introduced, in the first place, was a 'cut and paste' job except a few updates here and there. Secondly, the language of the amendment of 2013 was so vague that it is considered not more than an 'eye-wash'. For example, firstly, the amendment has not eased the registration of trade unions; secondly, it has discouraged formation of trade unions in sectors like – health sector; thirdly, if the government wants, it can scrap any strike in the name of “serious hardship to the community” or “prejudicial to the national interest”.
Fourthly, workers at any factory owned by foreigners or established in collaboration with foreigners would be barred from striking during the operation's first three years, and finally, under the new law, unions would need government approval before they could receive technical, health, safety or financial support from other countries.  
Even the increase of wage in the garments sector is not beyond criticism. The argument here is that the government increased their salary without considering the garments workers' socio-economical factors, like – their house rent, utility bills, price of their basic commodities etc. On this point, one may say: “bad is better than worse”, but the harsh reality is - whatever amount is increased that is not enough to meet their basic necessities to enjoy their 'right to life' as protected by the Constitution of Bangladesh.
Not only the wages, the situation of laws and rules related to occupational safety and health (OSH) and the state mechanism to look after the OSH situation are undoubtedly at its worst. It is pertinent to mention here that Bangladesh has only ratified category or sector specific Conventions on OSH. The country has not ratified key international labour standards on OSH Policy, namely the Promotional Framework for OSH Convention, 2006 (No. 187) and the OSH Convention, 1981 (No. 155).  
Incidents like – fire at Tazreen Garments, collapse of Rana Plaza etc., have caused lives of thousands of people, not only those who lost their lives instantly, but also those who survived with permanent injuries and we also have to include those persons who were depending on their earnings. We can term the deceased or the injured victims as direct victims and their dependents as indirect victims. The injured direct victims and the dependant indirect victims – both are dying slowly. At first they died through the accident and the second death they are facing is through the absence of any law regarding the fixation of amount of compensation and the distribution of that amount. We also do not have any policy or law to ascertain who will pay the amount of compensation: the owner of the garments? the buyer? Or the ultimate companies like – Primark or ASDA who will be selling those garments in their country?  
In the given situation, we can only echo after Kofi Anan and say, “we need to keep hope alive” and strive to attain the goal set by our Constitution in Article 10.

The writer is Legal Adviser, United Federation of Garments Workers and Prosecutor, International Crimes Tribunal, Bangladesh.