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Historical development of labour law
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In British-India industrialization paved its way during the
last part of eighteenth century.
Workers condition of work,
environment, OHS situation was
worst. That time the few labour laws
existed in the sub-continent was not
enough to protect the rights of the
working people. Most of the labour
laws we inherited from British-India
and Pakistani period. First labour
law came in this subcontinent was
Worker's Compensation Act, 1923.
Workers got their TU rights after a
long struggle under Trade Union Act,
1926. At the time of Pakistani
period 2 separate laws was there,
Trade Union Act & Industrial Dispute
Settlement Act, these 2 laws merge
into Industrial Relation Ordinance,
1969. Major labour laws enacted in
the year 1965, such as Factories
Act, Shops & Establishment Act,
Employment of Labour (SO) Act. Later
on, so many amendments made on
labour laws. Moreover, separate
rules were also enacted for better
implementation of the law.
Bangladesh government set up a
separate Inspection Authority to
supervise and monitor the
implementation of labour laws.
Present situation
Our labour laws are presently scattered in different
statutes. In other words, labour
laws are yet to be codified. The
necessity of such codification had
been felt by many since long.
Besides, the existing labour laws
suffer from some inherent flaws and
require to be updated to meet the
present demand of the for proper
dispensation of justice. Actually we
inherited the laws and the legal
system of our country from
British-India. The British enacted
laws to, primarily, suit their
colonial purposed. Now ours is
liberated country and its outlook
and demand have changed drastically.
Therefore either the existing laws
should be adequately amended or new
laws are enacted, suiting the
present demand of the society. Out
of 44 statutes of our labour laws 2
are from the nineteenth century and
another 13 from the between the
beginning of twentieth century and
the partition of the sub-continent
in 1947. Another 23 statutes were
enacted during the Pakistan period
(1947-1971), the reset i.e., six
statutes have been enacted since
liberation. These scattered laws
need to be unified. Keeping this in
view in 1992 a National Labour Law
Commission was formed. The
Commission opted for recommending
the enactment of a Labour Code. The
successions for a Labour Code,
however, seem to have been shelved,
at least for the time being.
Nevertheless, occasional attempts
have been undertaken to revive
interest in the proposed Labour
Code. The National Trade Union
Leaders of the Labour Law Review
Committee was reconstituted in
August 1998. Earlier the
International Labour Organization-ILO
office in Bangladesh also submitted
its comments on the Draft Labour
Code prepared by the Commission.
More recently a 7-member review
committee has been formed by the
government to re-asses the proposed
Draft Labour Code.
However, after the emergence of the new state of
Bangladesh, no such initiative has
ever been taken by any of the
successive governments and the issue
has always been given back seat by
them. Surprisingly, the new
recommended Labour Code, 1994 of the
National Labour Law Commission is
still awaiting government's approval
and subsequent enactment. Without a
complete Labour Code, to end the
violation of workers' rights will
remain a far cry.
Worker's rights situation
____________________________________________
Workers' rights are highly violated in the country. Mass
people are not aware of the rights
of working people. Even the policy
makers are not that much concerned.
Civil society shows negligence
towards the rights of the workers.
The Constitution of the country
guarantees rights to organize but
unfortunately there are so many
restrictions to form and join Trade
Union in several types of industries
and areas i.e. Govt. Employees,
Export Processing Zones (EPZ), Rural
Electrification Board, and all types
of security and confidential staffs,
Security Printing Press, employees
of education/research institutions,
hospitals and clinics, NGO's, Army,
Police etc.
To meet the end of these violation and deprivation
awareness should be raised among the
workers themselves. Trade Union
activists should be given more
knowledge and power to build their
capacity in collective bargaining
and motivational activity.
Lack of union's legal advisory
system
__________________________________
Multiplicity, in house union system, political tailing and
lack of one single National Trade
Centre, trade unions becoming weak
day by day. Membership dues
collection for union and rate of
dues are very small size. For
financial inability members are not
getting so many services from the
union. One of important service they
required to get legal advice at the
time of facing grievance handling,
preparing court cases, protection of
their rights etc. At present union
has no such legal advisory system.
BILS can provide such services by
establishing a small legal cell.
Professional legal support is costly
____________________________________
Legal advice and legal support is always a costly service
not only in Bangladesh but almost
everywhere in the world. Workers
income rate are very poor, their
social security scheme are also
weak. Working class are always
facing serious problem when they get
some problem on their job. Workers
jobs are always on risk. The
employers have so much power to
terminate the job of workers. To
face the legal court cases
professional lawyer's services they
need but their services are very
costly. Workers have no ability to
pay for that.
New labour code
__________________________________________________
The country’s constitution guaranteed all the fundamental
rights of the citizen and every body
are equal in the eye of law,
irrespective of color, sex, class,
profession and religion. Bangladesh
is a member of ILO since 1972 and
obtained membership of the UN in
1974. It has ratified 7 out of 8
core ILO Conventions. Employers are
use to ignoring the law. Most of the
ratified ILO conventions are not
fully implemented. The present
labour law of the country should be
updated; a complete labour code
should be passed. A step was taken
in this regard in 1994 and a labour
code was proposed. Trade Union
federations of the country made
their recommendations and
suggestions to make the code a
complete document for protecting
workers' rights, but the government
is still to pass the code. |
