Suffering of passengers on waterways

The sudden strike and counter-strike called by workers and then owners, shutting down waterways which carry thousands of people all over the country, is a demonstration of how utterly oblivious people in this sector are to public suffering! While workers called off their strike at 4pm on July 24 and other vessels at 7.30pm on the same day, launch owners decided to start their very own strike in the afternoon in protest to the strike called by workers. And seldom has one heard of owners calling a strike, which was withdrawn on July 25 after a meeting between owners and BIWTA. The whole incident could be called comic had their actions not caused so much hassle for people. Thanks to the combined actions of vessel owners and workers, people of many southern districts were unable to come to Dhaka and vice versa.

While authorities were able to negotiate a truce with the Bangladesh Water Transport Workers Federation in the interests of smooth movement of vessels and people, we are, however, totally perplexed by the counter-strike. Perhaps this was a message meant for workers not to get out of line next time. The whole matter of work abstention has come from a number of issues including the lack of progress (according to workers) on implementing the 2016 pay scale. This is 2019 and if there has not been sufficient progress in this area, then this sector will see future unrest, all at the cost of public suffering. We are told demands would be resolved over a series of tripartite meetings that will involve representatives of transport workers and vessel owners and of course, government officials. It is imperative that a binding agreement is reached because the economy and the people can do without these sudden strikes.