The 25 cadre officers will observe a full-day strike on Sunday to demand the withdrawal of the suspension orders issued to 12 BCS officers due to their posts on Facebook and to address the issue of inter-cadre discrimination.
This announcement was made during a press briefing by Muhammad Mafizur Rahman, the coordinator of the Inter-Cadre Discrimination Resolution Committee, at the Agricultural Information Service conference room in Khamarbari, Dhaka, on Saturday.
He said: "On Sunday, the 25 cadres will observe a full-day strike nationwide. All services will be halted, except for emergency services. If the issues are not resolved within the next week, we will be forced to take more severe actions. We hope the concerned authorities will take steps to resolve the problems."
He also mentioned that on Sunday, from 10:30am to 11:30am, the officers will stand in front of their respective offices, wearing black badges and holding banners.
Previously, on Tuesdsay, the 25 cadres had announced a half-day strike and sit-in to demand these issues.
However, it was postponed due to the National Martyrs' Day program.
On Monday, the 25 cadres had warned that if the temporary suspension orders and departmental cases were not withdrawn by Thursday, and if no visible initiatives were taken to resolve the inter-cadre discrimination, they would observe a full-day strike on Sunday.
While presenting the main paper during the meeting, Mafizur Rahman said: "The 25 cadres proposed the establishment of a professional ministry and the abolition of quotas for the post of deputy secretary to the Public Administration Reform Commission. We have called for the prioritization of professionalism in civil service across all sectors of society. However, in disregard of public demands, the report of the reform commission shows efforts to further increase the power of a powerful group."
He continued: "If this report is fully implemented, efforts to reform the state will fail, and administrative fascism will become even stronger."
The meeting also discussed proposals to remove the education and health sectors from the cadres, suggesting changes in the recruitment process so that, over time, education and health would be gradually removed from the mainstream.
Additionally, the proposal to exclude the family planning cadre and unjustly remove the statistics cadre from the service was criticized.
These measures are expected to reduce the attraction of talented individuals to these sectors, leading to a shortage of talent.
The meeting also highlighted that one of the key criteria for assessing an individual’s intelligence is mathematical skills.
However, by excluding mathematics and including other subjects, there is a trend to encourage rote memorization, which hinders proper assessment of intelligence.
Furthermore, the interference in the independence of the judiciary and the proposal to increase the power of administrative cadre officers by abolishing the district council are seen as obstacles to the formation of a welfare state.
The committee presented various proposals, including the establishment of professional ministries (where the cadre’s ministry is its own), the abolition of the quota system for the position of deputy secretary in favor of merit-based recruitment, equality among all cadres, keeping all cadres under the same commission, retaining the family planning and statistics cadres, and eliminating proposals such as allowing administrative cadre officers to return to their previous service after entering the Superior Executive Service.
Other proposals included renaming "Administrative Service" to "Land Service" or "Land Management Service," and renaming the Ministry of Public Administration to the Ministry of Human Resource Management or the Ministry of Government Employee Management.
The event was chaired by Agricultural Expert Md Arif Hossain, with the coordinator and co-coordinators of the Inter-Cadre Discrimination Resolution Committee also present.
