The government has yet again failed to formulate Labour Law rules which were supposed to be in place on June 30.
“We have sent the draft rules to the Law Ministry for vetting and after their clearance we will publish the gazette,” Labour Ministry Secretary Mikail Shipar told the Dhaka Tribune.
The Labour Ministry sent the draft rules to the Law Ministry on June 18 and it was expected that it would take at best one month to complete all the formalities, he said.
After the collapse of Rana Plaza, the government agreed to bring about major changes in the Labour Act 2006 and accordingly it was amended in 2013.
But over the last two years the government failed several times to announce the changes.
The secretary said nobody has felt the necessity of formulating rules before the Rana Plaza incident.
“It was a huge task as we had to formulate common rules to be accepted by 42 formal sectors,” said Mikail Shipar.
Formulation of rules is one of the major demands of the western governments and buyers who are consistently asking the government to put them in place.
When contacted, Dutch Ambassador to Bangladesh Gerben de Jong said: “The implementation of the rules is crucial to establish a transformed garment sector.”
The Bangladesh National Action Plan for Fire and Building Safety, the Better Work Bangladesh, the Accord and the Alliance are all eagerly awaiting the publication in order to move forward in their efforts, he said.
The ambassador said during the visit of Dutch Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation Lilianne Ploumen last month, she emphasised the need for the speedy completion of processes towards adoption of the implementing rules of the Bangladesh Labour Act.
European Union Ambassador Pierre Mayaudon a few days back said after the Rana Plaza incident the trade relations had a big jolt and the European bloc was then considering to withdraw the quota-free duty-free benefit market access for Bangladesh.
He said many things had been done and they were still waiting for implementation of rules.
After the collapse of Rana Plaza, the government committed to amending labour laws, formulating its rules, appointing 200 new inspectors, inspecting garment factories and facilitating registration of trade unions.
So far, the government has appointed 222 new inspectors; about 3,000 factories out of over 4,000 have been inspected; and over 300 new trade unions have been registered in the last two years.
