Every year, we revisit the sad event where workers were shot dead by US police in 1886. Their demand for an eight-hour work day was met by gunshots. It is ironic that this year’s observance in Bangladesh of the Day that established workers’ right to specific working hours is clouded by the death of nearly 400 people trapped under the rubble of a shoddily constructed factory building in Savar. With numerous more maimed and injured, the question may well be asked, have we progressed much in way of ensuring workers’ rights since that fateful day in 1886?
Workers’ plight in the country remains sad, to say the least. The Rana Plaza incident highlights not only the dilapidated conditions in which they must toil away, everyday, but brings to light the fact that workers in the $19 billion dollar per annum export-driven industry have no rights worth the name. They are barred from forming unions that could act as a collective bargaining agent to take up issues of contention with the management. Appalling working conditions coupled with unscheduled long hours of work characterise a typical day on an average factory floor; health and sanitation issues are hardly considered important; and meagre wages are doled out for a life in the slums.
While May Day has been observed each year with much fervour and fanfare, it takes an incident like the fire at Tazreen Fashion or the collapse of Rana Plaza to shatter our comfort zone and point out just how much yet remains to be done for ensuring the rights of not just the industrial workers, but also of the struggling masses as a whole. Let the event of April 24 galvanise the nation to demand a guarantee for all workers’ rights in the country.
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