GrameenPhone Employees Union (GPEU) is going to receive UNI Global Union’s Freedom from Fear Award 2013 for having organised workers against the job cuts by the mobile phone operator in May last year.
UNI Global Union is a platform of 20m service sector workers around the world, covering 150 countries through 900 affiliated unions.
The award will be handed over at the forthcoming meeting of the UNI World Executive Board in Dublin, Ireland on November 12-13.
In a letter on Friday last week, UNI General Secretary Philip J Jennings informed GPEU about it.
In May 2012, Grameenphone decided to cut 250 jobs, prompting GPEU to take stance against it and launch a campaign “Break the silence, get organised and form a union.”
The country’s leading mobile operator GP has never approved GPEU’s operation and even the organisation is yet to be registered formally.
Rather, the GP management has formed a counter-organisation named Grameenphone People’s Council (GPPC).
However, the GPEU members are holding all the posts of GPPC after the election in May this year.
“In the face of numerous threats and challenges to protect the rights of jobs of workers and particularly those of GPEU leadership, the union succeeded in organising 1,600 employees and formed the GPEU, for which recognition is pending,” the letter read.
Moinul Kader, a senior leader of GPEU, told the Dhaka Tribune: “This is a matter of honour for GPEU as we are going to receive this prestigious award for the first time in Bangladesh,”
“It is the formal recognition of the GPEU’s international standard unionisation practices from a global organisation which will motivate us to work further to ensure employees’ rights in Bangladesh,” he added.
Moinul, also the president of GPPC, said the GPEU has been able to draw international attention in this short period of time and the organisation was honored to attend the three international conferences aboard in past two months organised by different international workers’ bodies.
UNI congratulated the GPEU for negotiating the workers’ agenda with management and achieving “a great breakthrough in reaching an agreement with management on 5% profit sharing.”
With the amendment of labour law, it has been made mandatory that 5% of profit will be for workers of any industry. But many of the organisations are now following the new provision.
