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Historic May Day: Some questions

KAZI LIAKAT HOSSAIN
***It must be understood that better employer-employee relations can only ensure productivity and welfare of the workers. They cannot always think in terms of agitation, strikes and gherao-jalao tactics ingrained into their minds by a section of labour representatives who are acting at the behest of vested quarters.***
THE historic May Day is being observed today throughout the country and elsewhere in the world as a mark of respect to the workers, who shed their blood for the establishment of the rights of the working class in 1886. On this day 116 years ago, the workers at the Hay Market of Chicago City, USA, sacrificed their lives for ensuring eight-hour working day for them.
Three years later, the Second Socialist International in Paris decided to designate May 1 as the day for expressing solidarity of working people in memory of Hay Market martyrs. A number of countries around the world observe the day as a national holiday with rallies and meetings.
The new major steps in the labour front was the establishment of International Labour Organisation (ILO) (three decades after the decision to observe May Day internationally). The ILO was established in 1919 to promote social justice for working class everywhere. It formulates international policies and programmes to help improve working and living conditions, create international labour standards to serve as guidelines for national authorities in putting those policies into action.
The problems of labour and consciousness about labour rights did not come overnight. In fact, the history is as old as civilisation. The society came to be divided between the rich and the poor representing the exploiter and the exploited.
The exploited humanity gradually turned into slaves. They were
put to hard labour and labour was looked down upon. At one stage although slavery was formally abolished, vestiges still remain. The dignity of labour is yet to be fully recognised.
Labour movement has a proud heritage in this part of the world, now Bangladesh. The country is a signatory to the ILO Convention and has a number of lagislations for labour welfare. The government is also keen on improving the lot of the working class and the concern
extends even to spheres where the labour is not organised.
Self-styled labour leaders particularly after the emergence of Bangladesh have sprung up only for lip service to the labour force. On this great day, some searching questions haunt the minds of those who really feel for the just cause of the working class. Why extraneous elements have found place as representatives of the labour class? Why and how they seized opportunity to create a place of their own outstripping the actual leaders from their own workplace? Why the Bargaining Agents failed to occupy their rightful position and are not representing the real workers? Why the governments in the past were
and also the present one is fiddling with the fate of the hapless lot by creating or allowing to create more than one Union? What is the achievement of the government in creating confidence and restoring industrial peace and harmony? The answers to all these questions will understandably be in the negative. Yet the questions need to be answered.
It is now nearly two years that the present democratic government is at the helm of affairs of the
state, but there is no industrial peace.
With the closing down of the biggest Adamjee Jute Mills, so many workers have been made totally jobless. This decision of present government has been unwise and criticised by the conscious people of the country. Labour management relations are at their lowest ebb. Let the workers' representatives emerge from the same workplace. The harmful concept of borrowed leadership concept must be changed for the restoration or creation of congenial atmosphere conducive to uninterrupted operation of all industrial establishments.
The labour unions in question in most of the cases become unreasonable and come up with fantastic demands only to help in the closure of the units.
It must be understood that better employer-employee relations can only ensure productivity and welfare of the workers. They cannot always think in terms of agitation, strikes and gherao-jalao tactics ingrained into their minds by a section of labour representatives who are acting at the behest of vested quarters only to cause industrial breakdown in our country.
The wages invariably have to be linked with productivity and the demand for higher wages cannot reasonably be pressed without increasing output. There, of course, should be a guaranteed minimum wage. The working atmosphere has to be made conducive, peaceful and of course safe for women workers.
The efforts to remove economic and social causes swelling the number of child labour have to be intensified. The celebration of May Day should inspire all those connected with labour movements, to act in a manner that does not jeopardise production at any level. Without hard work and dedication, establishment of social justice will never be attained. The so-called champions of labour welfare must also realise the gravity of the situation and help in resurrecting the fragile economy of Bangladesh at a time when the foreign aid and investment climate is not so favourable, and thus ensure lasting welfare of workers through work.