City Desk :
Labor leaders and advocates on Tuesday demanded the right to form unions and engage in collective bargaining for workers in Bangladesh’s Export Processing Zones (EPZs).
They urged for a revision of the Bangladesh EPZ Labor Act, 2019, calling for amendments to address these critical labor issues.
The event, titled “Freedom of Association and Access to Justice: Rights of EPZ Workers,” was held at a city hotel in Gulshan, Dhaka.
Organized by the Solidarity Center’s Bangladesh office (SC-B) under the USAID-funded Global Labor Program, the discussion highlighted how the current EPZ labor law deprives workers of key labor rights, creating significant disparities between EPZ workers and their peers outside the zones, reports UNB.
Md Asadul Hoq, president of the Workers Welfare Association at Queen South Tex Mills Ltd in Savar, criticized the restrictions imposed on EPZ workers. “Our place of work is more like a jail,” Hoq said, referring to the provision that prevents EPZ workers from joining external organizations.
“How are we expected to know about our rights and the way of the world if we cannot get in touch with other organizations?” he questioned, adding that workers who try to speak out live in constant fear of losing their jobs.
The Bangladesh Export Processing Zone Authority (BEPZA) data shows that approximately 516,588 workers are employed in EPZs, with women making up 66 percent of the workforce. In the fiscal year 2021-2022, exports from EPZs amounted to $8.5 billion, with 54 percent coming from the garment sector alone.
Golam Quibria, a program officer at Solidarity Center, presented the keynote paper, which pointed out the EPZ law’s failure to protect workers’ rights to freedom of association. He emphasized that the absence of an effective judicial system to enforce these rights leaves workers vulnerable.