Law Letter
Labour law should be revisited
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banglanews.com |
Unlike any other days, today is another ordinary day for Garment's worker Halima. She is preparing to go to her working place. Her three years old daughter is crying for food. She opens the rice pot and sighed, “Enough for today but what about tomorrow??” The existence of workers is indivisibly linked with their work. In simple words, without the work they will starve with their family. Bangladesh is a country with trifling working opportunities. For that reason, if one becomes unemployed or otherwise incapacitated, the whole family suffers. The life of many is entangled with the one who earn. Every day family anxiously waits for his or her safe return. Our Halima may have returned to her daughter safely. But the parent of Shamima and Jakaria were not that lucky!! The infants lost their parents in recent catastrophic blaze in Tazreen Garments in Ashulia. Many others have lost their father, mother, brother and daughters. The authorities are currently investigating matter to find out the possible reasons of fire. Nevertheless, among other factors the definite reasons of the massive causalities and injuries is lack of precautionary measures to prevent fire and inadequate fire fighting facilities. Experts opined that the reasons of this fire are lack of infrastructural measures, negligence from both Government and the entrepreneurs. From this, one may pose a question why the owners are not complying with these important obligations and why the concerned authority deals with rights of the worker remain reluctant? The answer lies within the statutory deficiency and legislative lacunae of the existing Labour Law of Bangladesh i.e. the Shromo Ain 2006 (the Labour Act 2006).
Statutory provisions related to 'Safety of Establishment' in the Shromo Ain
The Labour Act 2006 is a consolidated Act which has incorporated rights and obligations of employers' workers and regulating authorities of government. It provides the rules and regulation necessary to run any establishment, factories. Moreover, penal provisions and monetary compensation can be imposed in case of breach of the Act. In relation to 'Safety of Establishment', the statute has incorporated an individual Chapter and substantial numbers of sections. Chapter VI ( Section 61-78) of the Shromo Ain has provided, inter alia, statutory protections regarding safety of Building and machinery, Precaution in case of fire, Fencing of machinery, Protection in case of work on or near machinery in motion. The chapter also deals with other safety related measures which are necessary to ensure safety of establishment and of workers.
Indeed, the statutory dispensations of the Labour Act are admirable and apparently impressive. Nevertheless, the vagueness of expressions, lack of monitoring and implementation mechanism hinders the process of its effectiveness. And most importantly inadequate penal provisions have made its application and compliances, a futile expectation. The owners are reluctant towards the statutory obligations related to safety of establishment because chances of get redressed are nominal. As a result, number of accidents occurred in different industrial establishment like on in the Ashulia causes more than hundreds death and substantial number of injuries.
The legislative lacunae related to Safety of Establishment in the Shromo Ain
The Present Labour Act is the culmination of number of Act. It is indeed an achievement, since it consolidated the all other Acts and brought uniform paradigm in the Labour Law. Ironically, same contributes to narrow down the scope of the Act. In the process of accumulating the entire subject matters under one code it fall short to incorporate some indispensable issues. These shortcomings have collectively obstructing the broader objectives of the Act that is welfare of the employer and workers. Among other shortcomings of the Act, legislative lacunae related to 'Safety' require special importance. Following are some of the shortcomings in provision related to safety:
The inspectors in absence of any counter monitoring mechanism posses nearly absolute power to clear any irregularities.
In relation to fire precaution the employers are under obligation to take certain measures. Under section 62, the inspectors are required to oversee whether the proper precaution is taken or not. However, there is neither any provision for mandatory inspection of establishment in rooster nor any provision for submission of 'the record book' related to fire precaution from the employers.
The inspector has no definite power to enforce fire precaution if the employer failed to comply with the written order.
There is no provision to mandatorily collect the Fire Clearance Certificate.
There is no specific penal if an employer breach rules and regulation under section-62.
Although, there are some trivial penalty available in section-307 under the heading of Penalty for other offences. The punishment may extent to only fine amounting to twenty five thousands. This trivial punishment has failed to oblige the owners to comply the rules which evident through many blazes or explosion in the industries due to lack of precaution measures.
In section-309 there is greater punishment in case of death or injury caused due to non compliances of the provisions of the Act. However, that also extent to four years imprisonment or taka one lakh or both. The question arises whether it is enough to condemn death of a person by imposing only four years imprisonment or providing taka one lakh. One may argue that, the punishments are trivial due to presence of a fact that it caused during an accident. However, grave punishment will creates mandate among the employers to adopt the rules.
Towards Reforms of Labour Law of Bangladesh
It is a universally recognised that right to work is to be guaranteed in a healthy and safe environment. The preamble to the Shromo Ain 2006 enshrined the principle of safe working condition for the workers. But in reality, the application of these spirited enthusiasms has remained far cry. Statutory insufficiency, monitoring mechanism and implementation of law coupled with administrative reluctance resulted in many catastrophic accidents. Hundreds of workers have died in these due to negligence of employers and reluctance of the government. These lose has creates sense of insecurity and alienation among the workers, particularly in RMG sectors. As a result, the worker discontent, clashes, protest, vandalism, lockout have become everyday's story. It is important that both entrepreneurs and the Government should identify the main reasons for present issues rather than 'bidding in the bushes' by alleging one another. In particular, the government should realise that they will able to suppress the problem with defective legislative dispensation. Therefore, Government should take prompt steps to review the presents Labour law to minimize the legislative lacunae relating to safety measures and ensure proper monitoring and implementation of the law through transparent mechanism. Life lost in the Ashulia and the tears of shamima and jakaria will be wasted if this recorded as yet another accident.
Muhammad Rezaur Rahman
Student of LLM, Northern University Bangladesh.
