LABOUR RULES : Rights orgs in dark as govt set to issue gazette

The government is going to publish a gazette of implementation rules of Labour Act 2006 keeping labour leaders concerned in the dark. The labour leaders say they are unaware whether their proposals have been included in the final draft or not.
The state minister for labour Mujibul Haque on Sunday told reporters that the gazette of implementation rules under labour act would be published by a week and after completing all the legal procedures the final draft had already been sent to the Bangladesh Government Press.
Labour rights groups say the government was supposed to hold a meeting with the labour leaders before finalising the final draft.
‘But the government did not hold any meeting with the labour leaders and we do not know whether our proposals have been included in the rules or not,’ Wajed-ul Islam Khan, general secretary of Bangladesh Trade Union Centre, told New Age on Tuesday.
He said it would be illogical to publish the gazette of the implementation rules of labour act without having discussions on final draft with the labour leaders.
‘Earlier, we received the primary draft of the rules from the government and expressed our reservations on several issues besides agreeing with many clauses but finally the government skipped to disclose the final draft to us,’ Wajed said.
Naimul Ahsan, joint coordinator of Sramik Karmachari Oikya Parishad, told New Age that the SKOP put some specific proposals in a meeting of a six-member committee of ministers led by the then expatriates’ welfare minister Khandker Mosharraf Hossain held in June.
‘The committee members assured us that they would sit with the owners’ representatives to discuss on the proposals and the proposals, which will be covered by the labour law, will be included in the draft,’ he said.
The committee promised that after inclusion of the proposals of the SKOP, the government would discuss with the labour leaders on the final draft but unfortunately the government is going to publish the gazette of implementation rules without having any discussion with the labour leaders, Naimul said.
The SKOP has recently sent a letter to the state minister for labour seeking an appointment for discussing the issue but the junior minister did not give any appointment, he said.
Labour secretary Mikail Shipar has recently said that the proposals of SKOP that were consistent with the law have been included in the rules.
There were some proposals of the SKOP that could not be included in the rules as amendment to the labour act would have been required to include those proposals in the final draft, he said.
Source: New Age