International Labour Day (known as May Day) fell on 1st of May. It is a day observed by all states including Bangladesh.

The day has a historic significance which dates back to May 1 1886. On this International Labor Day several Labor unions all over the US decided to go on strike. They demanded a workday of eight hours to be accepted as a standard all over the US. In Chicago a bomb explosion planned by revolutionist led to the deaths and injury of over 100 people. Ultimately the protests proved fruitful and effective thus standardizing eight-hour work days as the new norm in many countries across the globe.

The day is important because it reminds everyone, especially the employers, that workers should be looked after for benefit of productivity. Their working conditions must be fair, transparent and humane and must have a plan for their career that will encourage them to work better. For women workers, paid maternity leave and child-care centres must be attended to and if possible, child-care centres within the industrial units.

The workers are engines of economic productivity and they must not only be exploited for profit-making motive, just because they are poor, helpless and need the job for their living.

The social corporate responsibility towards workers must be based on the ILO’s rules and regulations and must consist of a set of rules that would take care of their needs.

ILO does not deal with only with working conditions. It covers a wide range of issues related to worker’s skill and development, vocational training, and career promotion while in employment.

ILO and its Conventions

ILO is an intergovernmental body. It aims for social justice through the care of workers. If workers are subject to injustice, hardship and deprivation, unrest will occur and productivity will be less.

The basic concept of ILO is cooperation among three parties—government, employers and employees/workers. Tripartite system is the real strength of ILO, because it gives moral and legal authority of ILO’s decisions. It also implies that three parties must compromise to establish a set of working conditions for the interest of all parties.

Conventions /Standards are set by ILO for member-countries to comply with them which are minimum conditions for workers and countries can improve upon the conditions through domestic legislations.

ILO’s policy is to insist that economic growth must improve social development and the distribution of national income must be equitably distributed so that there should not a wide gap income-wise between rich and poor in a country.

Bangladesh and Labour laws

There are many pieces of legislations to regulate the working conditions of labour in the country. The Factories Act 1965 and the Minimum Wages Ordinance 1961 have been incorporated in the Labour Act 2006.. The Labour Act 2006 was enacted amending and consolidating all laws relating to employment of labour and industrial relations including child and adolescent workers.

There is no minimum wage for workers in Bangladesh except for garment workers and as a result workers are often exploited. The total labour force in the country is about 60 million, including both male and female workers. About 60% per cent are engaged in agriculture and agriculture-related industry and only 25% in service industry.

Bangladesh needs to deal with three issues: (a) Child Labour, (b) Working conditions of garment workers and (c) Worker’s collective right in the Export Processing Zones.

Child Labour

The Labour Act 2006 defines an adolescent as a person who is above 14 years and below 18 years of age. It is therefore implied that a child for the purposes of the Act is any person below the age of 14 years. However a child who has completed 12 years of age may be employed in such light work so as not to endanger his/her health or interfere his/her education and the hours of work shall be so arranged so as not to interfere with school attendance.

Ninety-three per cent of the total child labourers are engaged in the informal sector which is not within the ambit of the Labour Law. As a result, a large number of children are subjected to exploitation.



With 7.4 million children engaged in over 300 types of jobs in Bangladesh as of 2011, 49 of which are considered hazardous, child labour is still alarming in Bangladesh.

Some 3.2 million children, of whom 1.3 million of aged between 5 and 17 years, are engaged in 49 types hazardous works that jeopardise the health, and safety of children. These children have never attended any school.

A wide range of government, bilateral and multilateral and NGOs and civil society interventions have been taken in the country to help protect the rights of children. The Children Act of 1974, the National Children Policy of 1994, Labour Act 2006, the National Plan of Action for children 2005-2010, the National Child Policy of 2011 expands the provisions of the earlier Children Policy of 1994 as well as ratification of 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and ILO conventions are testaments to address the seriousness of the problem.

The main objective of the national plan of action on implementing the policy was to provide guidance and direction in initiating concrete interventions to make meaningful changes in the lives of children by withdrawing them from all forms of labour including the worst forms.

However, a study by two Professors of Economics in Canada in 2005 has a put a different perspective from that of ILO. They said that the worldwide ban on child labour by ILO is misguided because it could deprive families of money that could be used for children’s food. What is required that the children must be given opportunity for education either before or after work.

Garment Workers

The industry employs more than three million workers in Bangladesh, most of them women.

Many write-ups have been published in national dailies on unrest of garment workers. One golden thread running through all these articles is that long-standing frustration as a result of poor pay of workers and bad management practices by a few owners has given vent to such untoward incidents.

It is reported that although Tripartite agreement between the Government. Employers and Employees of garment industries are being implemented, the workers have demanded more than Tk.3, 000 as minimum wage because they cannot sustain themselves with the price spirals of basic daily necessities. Furthermore, much improvement of working conditions has been yet to be done such as paid maternity leave and child-care centres within the premises of garment factories.

It has been reported in the media that the issues relating to workers of garment industry are related to health, safety, working hours, wages and weekly holidays. Often garment workers become violent or stopped work because these issues are not adequately addressed. They allege that employers do not care about their needs.

The most devastating tragedy took place on 24th April, 2013 when in Savar a building “Rana Plaza” where five garment factories were located collapsed killing 316 as of day -3 of the rescue and many more are reportedly to be trapped inside the rubble. Furthermore 112 people died and 150 injured on 24th November 2012 in a fire at factory, Tazreen Fashions, a garment factory outside Dhaka (Savar).

The two tragedies demonstrate that drastic reforms need to be adopted by the government with regard to the procedure of labour safety inspection of factories and the right of the workers to have trade unions to protect their welfare is to be given.

According to Clean Clothes Campaign, an anti-sweatshop advocacy group in Amsterdam, many of the fires could have easily been avoided if the factories had taken the right precautions. Many factories are in cramped neighborhoods and widely flout safety measures.

The majority of Bangladesh’s ready-made garment exports go to Europe, but nearly 25 percent are sent to the United States. Labor rights groups have urged top foreign buyers to sign an agreement that includes a binding commitment to ban subcontracting to at-risk facilities, finance renovations and fire-safety training and make audit results public.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Trade Representative’s (USTR) office has said it is weighing possible sanctions on Bangladesh’s duty-free benefits (GSP) under a World Trade Organization rule that allows special treatment to poorer countries as the representatives of the American Federation of Labour-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) presented the case for revoking the facilities.

The Bangladesh delegation led by the Commerce Secretary argued on 28th March 2013 at the US Trade Representative office why the facilities that allow duty-free market access for some of its products should be retained. But the Savar tragedy involving the deaths of hundreds of garment workers is likely to have a negative impact on USTR and the US Ambassador reportedly said so.

Export Processing Zones

Workers had no trading union or collective rights. It is reported that now they have collective limited rights. The foreign owners of industries are reluctant to give union rights for workers for the sake of politics. Most of the owners discharge their responsibility with care and sensitivity but a few are not.



Summing up



The International Labour Day is observed to focus on issues based on the relationship between labour and social justice. All member states are obliged to comply with the minimum standards set by the ILO.



US President Roosevelt in 1942 spoke of four essential freedoms: freedom from want, freedom from fear, freedom of speech and freedom of religion. As a nation, it is important to know who you are, what sort of nation you are or imagine yourself to be.



Barrister Harun ur Rashid, Former, Bangladesh Ambassador to the UN, Geneva