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Speakers at a seminar in the city Thursday said the country's working class does not get their legitimate rights realised as their bargaining agents (trade unions) do not play their due role, reports BDNEWS.
They said the trade unions have been turned into NGOs and their activities are now confined to arranging seminar-symposiums and striking underhand deals with the government.
'Karmajibi Nari' organised the seminar on 'The existing labour laws and our duties for their implementation' at the Jatiya Press Club. Among others, Shahjahan Khan, MP, Syed Azad Huque, president of Bangladesh Jatiyatabadi Garments Sramik Federation Salauddin Swapan, and president of Sanjukta Sramik Federation Mokhlesur Rahman spoke at the seminar.
President of Karmajibi Nari Shirin Akhter, coordinated the seminar while its coordinator Shaila Shahid, presented the keynote speech.
"Most of the trade unions relating to labourers and their rights are formed with a view to going abroad and getting various benefits" said Shahjahan Khan, MP, also the executive president of Bangladesh Sarak Paribahan Sramik Federation.
"After independence, we could not create leadership on which, the labourers could keep their trusts. Due to lack of confidence, the labourers and activists could not join hands with the leaders," Khan, also a member of the parliamentary standing committee on Labour and Employment Ministry, said.
He said, "The standing committee is also not capable of playing its due role as its members are not appropriate ones."
SA Huque said it is quite impossible to solve the problems of the deprived labourers under the existing labour laws.
He said, "If a deprived worker goes to the court, he can not continue with case as he is not capable of contesting upto the High Court."
Other speakers said the government did not approve the recommendations of the Commission of Labour Law Reformation, 1994.
They said even if the existing labour laws were implemented, over 80 per cent problems of the labourers would be solved automatically.
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