Give workers what they are due, regardless of EU concerns

After the recent US memorandum on workers' rights and international labour standards raised concerns that Bangladesh could face potential trade penalties, the country's continued access to duty preferences to the European Union has now also come under scrutiny. In a recent report, the EU reiterated that GSP preferences can be removed from countries that don't uphold labour rights, and expressed concerns relating to anti-union discrimination and the current state of trade unions in Bangladesh.

Given that the EU is the largest destination for our RMG exports, and it has, in the past, removed tariff preferences granted to countries like Cambodia due to rights violations, the administration cannot take these concerns lightly. What is more pertinent is the fact that Bangladeshi workers and labour leaders have been expressing these concerns and protesting for workers' rights for a long time—only for their demands to fall on deaf ears.

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Can the goverment ignore new US labour policy?

In the most recent fiscal year, RMG export earnings increased by more than 10 percent to fetch almost $47 billion. Yet, it cannot be said that the fruits of this success are trickling down to RMG workers, who are still protesting for a fair minimum wage. Unfortunately, the government has almost always chosen to side with factory owners on this. Instead of listening to workers' legitimate demands, these movements have been regularly suppressed by the police using brute force. In the most recent protests, four workers were killed, three of them due to police shootings.

These are clear human rights violations, as has been pointed out by the media, rights organisations and experts from within the country long before the EU came into the mix. Instead of having a knee-jerk reaction to "unwelcome" comments from external actors, the authorities should now consider the merit of these concerns on the basis of our labour standards and the constitutional rights given to our workers. We should also not forget that the EU has been a long-standing trading partner of Bangladesh, whose support has contributed to the development of our RMG industry.

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We wouldn't be worried about US labour policy if we upheld labour rights

At the end of the day, the government has a responsibility to protect workers' rights, regardless of whether there is pressure from our trading partners to do so. It's high time the administration revisited the country's labour law to protect the rights of workers to fair wages, to union representation, and to protest without facing harassment, dismissal, violence and even death. There can be no alternative to giving our workers what they are due.

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