The AFL-CIO Reacts to Recently Passed Amendments to the Bangladesh Labor Law of 2006
On July 15, the Bangladesh Parliament passed legislation amending the Bangladesh Labor Law of 2006. In doing so, the Parliament changed 87 sections of the existing law. Many of those changes were not substantive and fail to address the concerns raised by workers' rights advocates. In our view, the changes made by the Bangladesh government did not bring the country’s labor law into compliance with ILO fundamental rights, conventions and standards. Indeed, unions and workers' rights advocates worked to fix the portions of the proposed law that actually weaken, rather than strengthen, protections for workers.
While there are some positive changes in the law with regard to building and worker safety, these must be fleshed out by implementing regulations before their impact can be known. Unfortunately, the law does not establish a time limit when such regulations must be put in place. More troubling, the vagueness of the legislative provisions allows for regulations that can actually inhibit, rather than promote, the exercise of workers' rights. Given the problematic history of government actions in Bangladesh, both the lack of specificity in the law as amended and the absence of firm deadlines to issue regulations are worrisome.
The AFL-CIO concerns fall into two general categories: deficits in fundamental rights protections and failures in standards/benefits. Key criticisms are as follows:
Concerns About Rights
- The law does not make union registration easier to accomplish. The government office responsible for registration of unions will continue to enjoy broad discretionary authority to accept or reject union applications.
- The amended law still does not make it possible for union leaders who are terminated from their job to retain their membership in their plant-level union during the period in which they are contesting their termination in court. This lack of protection can effectively decapitate a union and severely endanger its existence. Union proposals to remedy this situation were ignored by the government.
- The labor code still does not apply to the hundreds of thousands of workers in the country’s export processing zones. The ILO has found that current law that regulates labor relations in the zones violates core labor standards.
- The amended law requires that government permission be obtained prior to international affiliation of a trade union, or for prior authorization in order to obtain financial assistance from foreign groups. International trade union solidarity constitutes one of the fundamental objectives of any trade union movement and underlies the principle laid down in article 5 of ILO Convention No. 87 that any organization, federation or confederation shall have the right to affiliate with international organizations of workers and employers.
- While workers routinely engage in wildcat strikes to protest employer failure to adhere to labor law provisions, they often do so because they have no other way to resolve disputes. In that regard, Article 211 of the labor law (in conjunction with other articles) creates numerous obstacles to the exercise of the right to strike, only one of which the government amended. This amendment, which requires a vote of two-thirds of the total membership of the union to authorize a strike (down from three-fourths), is still far too high. A requirement of the majority of those voting, together with a reasonable quorum requirement, would be consistent with Convention 87. The labor law also continues to prohibit workers’ right to strike in newly formed foreign-owned or -invested enterprises for a period of three years.
Concerns About Standards
- A worker “dismissed” for alleged “misconduct” will no longer receive any severance benefits from her or his employer under the amended law. Workers have been entitled to this benefit since 1985. The law as now amended provides an economic incentive for an employer to use the misconduct excuse to fire a worker.
- The amended law allows an employer 30 days to make a severance payment to workers instead of the 10-day period in prior law. Given that very few Bangladeshi workers have any savings, the extended period is a direct threat to worker and family well-being.
- The new law exempts the export sector and companies with 100% foreign investment from having to establish or contribute to a Workers' Participation Fund or a Workers’ Welfare Fund. Though widely ignored, this provision, requiring employers to contribute 5% of net profits, has been in effect since 1968. There is no possible interpretation of this change that is beneficial to workers.
The government of Bangladesh largely ignored recommendations made by the country’s unions on changes to the labor law, and the lawmaking process was cloaked in mystery during its final stages. The AFL-CIO believes that the amended labor law passed by the Bangladeshi Parliament does not address key freedom of association issues. Many of the law’s provisions are so vague that implementing regulations can further undermine compliance with core ILO standards. The U.S. government should make it clear to the Bangladesh government that it does not consider the law a step forward in the effort to restore trade benefits under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program.
