About three years ago, long before the present nascent revolution in the garment industry started to develop, I wrote a series of articles for a national daily on the true reason behind the sporadic violent protests by the workers.
What we tend to forget is that even before the arguably greatest industrial accident ever took place, leaving over a thousand dead in a building collapse, garment industry workers had been intermittently out on the street giving vent to their frustration. I made some cogent observations before pronouncing a warning that no nation can achieve development while there is a constant refusal to pay labourers and workers justly.
I also pointed out that the problem of an oppressively low wage was not confined to the realm of the ready-made garment industry only but is a pervasive and omnipresent phenomenon in the industrial sector.
In fact, as I reiterated similar statements in different articles time and again, the issue of an insufferably low wage is actually present in the agricultural, transportation and other small sectors the politicians have been too busy fighting one another to notice.
I shall endeavour to exemplify some of these cases, sector by sector, before restating a very important corollary – the absence of universal wage controlling regulations is contributing immensely in ensuring that there remains a gulf of difference between the standards of lives led by different groups of people so that mass poverty is sustained while a handful of people enjoy extraordinary affluence.
The goal of this piece is to awaken our policy makers to the essential fact that either there is a deplorable lack of ability and insight in those who have been entrusted with relevant responsibilities and authority, or they are deliberately and artfully choosing to ignore the inconvenient truth that the enjoyment of abundance by a few continues at the expense of suffering of millions.
Unjust wages and payments are forms of economic oppression and deliberately allowing them to persist in the society through discriminatory policies or through an inadvertent lack of awareness can in no way be tolerated under any condition.
Before I go further, it is necessary to point out that the term minimums and living wage are not very easy to define. However, it would be completely justified to assume that it is an amount that is not demoralisingly low and is adequate for a family of a reasonable size to lead a life in which the idea of entering the posh sweetmeat shops of the capital is not considered absolutely preposterous.
Let us look at a representative list of the types of workers and laborers who are systematically deprived of a just reward for their toil. Domestic servants serving in the rich and the middle-class households in our country are nonchalantly denied a reasonable remuneration. Most of them serve day in and day out without any holidays and leisure residing at the masters’ house.
A very large fraction is not even granted a salary; they are given just food and shelter and are forced to toil like donkeys. This is nothing but a very mortifying example of modern day slavery. The second instance is that of the CNG three-wheeler drivers.
They endure the heat and the pollution of an almost unlivable city staying on the road and yet the mammoth share of what they amass by the end of the day is taken away by the vehicle owners.
Rickshaw-pullers go through even worse ordeals, exposed as they are to the inclement atmosphere of the metropolis. Another extremely important example is the alarming oppression of the farmers in the agricultural sector.
If you are buying some grain in the city bazaars for Tk50 per kilogram, the greater share of that money is being siphoned off by middlemen leaving a dishearteningly low share for those who actually toiled under the merciless sun so that many people who have been cultivating for generations now are floating to the cities to accept slavery as a domestic servant, a CNG three-wheeler driver or a rickshaw-puller.
The middle class and the rich, of course, love to take advantage of the helplessness of these impecunious individuals and can exploit their miserable situation by asking them to agree to accept terribly unfair conditions of employment.
Not a single government of any party has shown any sustained interest in alleviating the misery of the poor by enacting regulations which would protect the rights of the deprived. Not even once have we witnessed a political party making the pledge that it would stand by the poor if elected.
Instead we hear about “digital” Bangladesh and so called “progresses” which seem to do our poor no good. The truth is, before “analog” Bangladesh becomes “digital”, there are problems which must be given more priority and the oppression of the poor is one such issue.
Thinking about “digital” Bangladesh before people even have enough to eat twice a day is like dreaming of running before one can walk. A lot more must be said on the topic of low wages and I intend to write another piece to expatiate on it further.
