Water transport strike withdrawn

The owners of water vessels have withdrawn their strike considering overall situation and getting assurance from the government.

The strike was withdrawn following a meeting among the owners this afternoon, Badiuzzaman Badal, senior vice-chairman of Bangladesh Inland Waterways (passenger carriers’) Association, told The Daily Star.

“We discussed the overall situation and after that we got assurance from the government regarding this,” he said.

Earlier in the day, the sufferings of commuters continued for the second consecutive day following the strike enforced by the owners of water vessels.

The launches remained anchored at Sadarghat launch terminal since yesterday afternoon, Alamgir Kabir, joint director of Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority at Sadarghat, told The Daily Star earlier today.

“The owners’ association is holding a meeting over this issue,” Alamgir said.

The river communications across the country came to a halt around 12:01am yesterday as water transport workers went on work abstention to press home their 11-point demand.

Their demands include full implementation of the pay scale of 2016, stopping extortion and robbery at vessels, and giving appointment letters and identity cards to transport workers.

In the afternoon yesterday, the water transport workers postponed their strike. But around 7:30pm, the launch owners enforced a counter-strike protesting the “workers’ repeated strikes”.

On April 16 this year, the federation had started work abstention to press home their 11-point demand, but called it off later following a meeting among the leaders of workers, owners and government officials.