Wage commission for workers soon: Minister

The government will form wage commission for regular industrial workers of all sectors within 'the shortest possible time' and amend the existing labour law, said Labour and Employment Minister Khandker Mosharraf Hossain yesterday.
“The government is pledge-bound to ensure the workers' rights. The main prerequisite for ensuring their rights is fair wage. I will take initiative to form the wage commission within the shortest possible time,” he said.
The minister was speaking at the inauguration of a two-day seminar on rights at work and social protection in the Asia-Pacific region and evaluation of social dialogue in these countries.
Asia-Pacific regional and Bangladesh committees of World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) co-organised the seminar in Dhaka.
Mosharraf said the government has taken initiative to amend the existing labour law to make it time-befitting and a sub-committee has already been formed in this regard.
“The sub-committee has received around 400 recommendations related to the amendment and it will submit proposal to the final committee after reviewing the recommendations,” Mosharraf said.
He called upon the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to arrange more seminars to make the workers aware of the facilities of labour law. “The workers are the primary stakeholders of the law. So the law will become fruitless if they cannot benefit from it,” he said.
The labour minister said around 70 lakh Bangladeshis now work in more than 100 countries, adding that the government has formed a committee to ease the problems the migrant workers face.
He also told the seminar that Bangladesh will preside over the upcoming International Labour Convention.
Around 30 delegates from different countries including Australia, Nepal, India, Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Pakistan attended the seminar.