The ITUC or the International Trade Union Confederation, which represents 200 million workers in 163 countries, has alleged Bangladesh reported little or no progress to the ILO governing body on the road map to improve workers’ rights agreed in May this year.
Media reports maintained this adding the ITUC has identified 10 areas of inaction by the Government against which it must report progress in March 2022 even as it claimed that Bangladesh in its report used delaying tactics and thus was continuing to put the lives of working people at risk even as it added the 10 points include lack of occupational health and safety modalities for the export processing zones, unfair labour practices and violence against workers, absence of precedent for meaningful and productive consultations in setting up tripartite committee, denial of registration for independent unions, growing intolerance by the security forces for the exercise of trade union rights and activities, shortage of manpower in labour inspection and lack of mechanism on how workers to lodge complaints and access legal support in case of violations.
It may be mentioned here that at ILO’s concluding session held in Geneva in June 2019, worker delegates of Brazil, Pakistan, Italy, South Africa and Japan, reportedly, complained that Bangladesh was not following the ILO convention 98 on right to organise and bargain collectively, convention 87 on freedom of association and right to organise, and the convention 81 on labour inspection even as the labour delegates in a letter to ILO Director general Guy Ryder (as per the article 26 of the ILO constitution), reportedly, requested for establishment of a ‘Commission of Inquiry’ against the Bangladesh Government for its non-observance of Convention numbers 81, 87 and 98, following which, the ILO governing body in November 2020 requested Bangladesh to develop a time-bound road map of actions with tangible outcomes to address all the outstanding issues as mentioned in the complaint, subsequent to which Bangladesh, in May 2021, reportedly submitted the time-bound action plan to the ILO and of the report on progress made with its timely implementation submitted in September.
