15pc workers’ consent will be enough to form unions
Law Minister Anisul Haq yesterday said the government is amending the labour law with a provision to form trade unions in factories if 15 percent of the workers give consent.
He said they are bringing down the threshold following advice of the International Labour Organisation.
"We earlier brought down this threshold from 20 percent to 15 percent. But it was supposed to apply only to factories with 3,000 or more workers. Now, this 15 percent threshold will be kept for all factories if the workers agree," the minister told reporters after a meeting with the ILO representatives at the secretariat.
Anisul said the factory owners may have to pay fines five times higher than the existing ones if they violate labour rights when the new law is passed.
Initially, the penalty for such violations was Tk 5,000, but it could be raised to Tk 25,000, Anisul said.
He said they would listen to all stakeholders or international agencies until the labour amendment bill is passed.
The delegation, led by ILO country office director Tuomo Poutiainen, consisted of Tim De Meyer, senior adviser on Standards Policy of International Labour Standards Department, Chayanich Thamparipattra, Trade for Decent Work technical officer, and ILO country office senior programme officers Md Saidul Islam and Ruksana Yasmin Arzoo.
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