Jute workers without pay for months

It is hard to imagine the plight of some 60,000 jute workers who have not been paid from anywhere between six and 12 weeks. Workers are starving and have had to resort to taking odd jobs in an effort to feed their families. This comes in the backdrop of broken promises made by the authorities about regularising their pay including the implementation of the last wage board passed in 2015. Unfortunately, while the eighth national pay scale has been implemented for most government offices and corporations, the same cannot be said for the 22 state-owned jute mills. The jute secretary states that salaries cannot be paid because funds have not been secured. That is not the fault of workers.

Thousands of workers have been agitating all over the country because they were promised the implementation of the new wage board in October last year. That never materialised because the jute ministry has not implemented the wage board; and what we understand from official sources, it may come into effect sometime next month. The crux of the problem is that implementing the new pay structure will result in Tk 8 crore in losses per day. Workers should not be made to suffer just because bad management and poor planning at various levels have failed to make the jute mills profitable. This situation cannot be allowed to prolong. Thousands of workers and their dependents cannot be pushed to the brink of starvation. Emergency budgetary allocations need to be made by the finance ministry to alleviate their plight.