The New Nation - Internet Edition

The government deserves kudos for constituting a committee to suggest modalities of introducing trade unions (TUs) in the country's vibrant garment sector, which has been facing repeated violence for not so mysterious reasons in recent years. But the question remains a difficult one to find a way of organising trade union keeping in view the real problem, the politics of the country.

It needs to be recalled that a tripartite agreement was concluded with similar objective in 2006 following series of incidents of violence in garment industries in the industrial zones of Savar, Joydevpur, Tongi and Gazipur when BNP was in power. Nothing however, was heard about TUs in the sector which employs nearly five million workers, mostly women, during two years of Caretaker government under the state of emergency.

The question which has been haunting the relevant people is, whether the proposed trade unions would act as responsible Collective Bargaining Agent (CBA) and help promote labour welfare and in the process contribute to create healthy working atmosphere or would be dominated by party politics, extortionists or NGOs leading to gradual ruination of the sector, that works as a major pillar of the country's economy. Not only that, the garment sector has transformed lives of lakhs of poor women of our country.

Another important question which is being raised in the relevant circles in the sector is, whether the proposed TUs would come as saviour of the sector or act as nemesis as happened in recent years in some factories and establishments.

The committee which has been given the important task of suggesting modalities of introducing TUs in the garment sector need to attach top-most priority to the fact that in the name of trade unions the garment industries do not become helpless victims. Unless investors feal safe, secure there will be no flourishing garment sector.

The trade union laws should be modernised to protect the interest of both the owners and the workers. Old fashion leftist idea of looking at owners who create jobs as the exploiters and the criminals, wont help.

In some instances the trade unions are being used by grabbers of industries.

The example of The Bangladesh Observer, which was once a leading newspaper house, is cited by many as an extreme example. The owners of The Observer House were driven away by a section of workers resulting in gradual ruination of the once reputed newspaper house. No doubt, some union leaders became hugely rich.

They also recalled the experiment of so-called self-management system introduced in one Bengali newspaper which comes out from Tejgaon industrial area. But the experiment of self-management system in line with Yugoslavia proved a big failure which led to retrenchment of its journalists and employees and even temporary shutdown of the daily.

After witnessing sorry fate of the Bangladesh Observer most newspapers of the country do not allow trade union activities at all. Even the ones that call themselves 'progressive' and financially well off do not tolerate trade unions in their own establishment.

The banking sector is another example where trade unions are dreaded. Specially in public sector banks.

The example of healthy trade unionism must be encouraged as essential for healthy management and workers relationship. Special care has to be taken for creating conditions and making legal changes for healthy trade unionism to grow. There is a suggestion that trade unions should be organised with the participation of both management and workers for common good of the workers and the industry. Confrontational unionism should be discarded.

It is also very important that party politics should be totally banned for the union leaders. The politics of grabbing is a fact of life in our country.

The concerned quarters are of the view that the proposed TUs in garment industries should substantially contribute towards increased productivity and also promote welfare of the workers. The rate of labour productivity in our country, they said, still remains quite low compared to other countries including China and Vietnam. Due to low productivity, they said, despite availability of cheap labour, investment flow to our country remains slow.

In our view, trade union laws are to be reviewed generally for promoting genuine trade unionism so that the trade unions are not dreaded by investors as a threat for secure productive investments. The Labour Ministry has become totally redundant and unhelpful for maintaining working relationship between the workers and the trade unions.

Corruption among a section of trade union leaders is a fact not to be ignored. The accountability of the trade union leaders should be part of new thinking in reorganising trade unions. The law should be equally applicable to corrupt management and corrupt union leaders. It will be interesting to find out how some trade union leaders have become rich while destroying the industries.