The government has started to execute five actions out of the fourteen outlined by the United States in a bid to regain GSP (generalised system of preferences) facilities, including establishing of a directorate for labour, withdrawal of cases against Babul Aktar and Kalpona Aktar and ensuring transparent investigation of the Aminul Islam murder.
US President Barack Obama suspended GSP facilities on July 22 in the wake of the Rana Plaza collapse that killed 1,129 workers.
“We are executing some points of the US action plan which have been incorporated in the recently passed labour law bill in parliament,” Commerce Secretary Mahbub Ahmed told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.
He added that the commerce ministry is now coordinating the implementation of US, EU and private sector action plans to improve safety standards for workers.
In a joint statement by the officer of the US Trade Representative, the Department of Labour and the State Department, the Obama administration called on Bangladesh to implement an action plan in order to have the trade benefits restored.
The statement said safety standards of garments workers could be recovered by executing the commitments made in the National Tripartite Plan of Action on Fire safety and Structural Integrity signed among workers, owners and the government in presence of the representatives of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in Dhaka in May.
Bangladesh should impose rigid penalties including cancellation of export licenses and banning garment factories that violate labour fire and building safety standards, it said.
The government has agreed to create the relevant database and hotline mechanism for fire safety of all garment factories for monitoring labour, fire and building inspections in individual production units.
The labour ministry has already taken initiatives to recruit labour and fire inspectors of factories as the statement also asked for establishing an effective complaint mechanism, including a hotline, for workers to confidentially and anonymously report fire, building safety and workers’ rights violations. Later the labour ministry will train the inspectors as per the US action plan.
Officials of relevant government agencies are yet to take any initiative regarding the increase in sanctions for labour violations which are sufficient to deter future misconduct, public reporting on the outcome of union registration applications, establishing an effective complaint mechanism for labour violations and ending violence and harassment of labour activists and unions, said the statement.
The labour ministry has taken an initiative to register labour unions that present applications and meet administrative requirements which ensure protection of unions and their members from anti-union discrimination and reprisal.
The home ministry recently withdrew all eight criminal cases against workers’ leaders Babul Aktar and Kalpona Aktar and the social welfare ministry is taking steps to provide registration for the Bangladesh Centre for Worker Solidarity. The home ministry will advance a transparent investigation into the murder of Aminul islam and report on the findings of this investigation, as per the US action plan.
The home ministry will take the initiative to train industrial police officers who oversee the RMG sector on workers’ freedom of association and assembly in coordination with the ILO.
In addition,the labour ministry will take an initiative to execute a time based action plan on freedom of association as the US action plan has also asked for freedom of association and collective bargaining rights for workers in factories within export processing zones (EPZ), and amendment of the EPZ law in coordination with the ILO.