Set standards for compensation
Speakers at a workshop yesterday underscored the need for minimum standards for providing compensation to garment workers who fall victim to workplace accidents.
It is a matter of sorrow that industry workers are being compensated without their real loss being measured, they told the workshop titled “Fixing effective compensation for workers injured or dead at accident in workplace”.
The Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST) organised the event at Cirdap in Dhaka marking the sixth anniversary of Tazreen Fashions fire.
The compensation amount was increased to Tk 2 lakh from Tk 1 lakh in the latest amendment to the labour law but no minimum standard was set, which is depriving the workers, said speakers.
Presenting a keynote paper, Taqbir Huda, a BLAST research fellow, said the High Court passed verdict on three compensation cases where loss of earnings, treatment cost, damage of property and non-financial loss were taken into consideration. “We want to see the reflection of the verdict in the labour law,” he said.
The decided compensation amount is inadequate, said Nizamul Haque, law adviser of BLAST.
Workers are being deprived from getting adequate compensation due to divisions among the workers' associations, said Abul Kalam Ajad, a workers' leader. Workers will have to raise their voice to fix the standard, he said.
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