It should not have happened

THE suspension of Bangladesh from US's Generalised System of Preference (GSP) scheme has given rise to the all-too-familiar blame game in our national politics. The government in its initial reaction to the US decision did not miss the opportunity to point the finger at what it said "campaigning" by "a section of people, inside both Bangladesh and the USA," for this situation.
Whoever may happen to be in the so-called 'section,' one cannot but simply wonder at their power to influence the US government's decision! And if the US policymakers were really so impressionable, one would perhaps then lose all one's respect for the world's lone superpower.
If truth be told, the US government's decision to delist Bangladesh from the GSP programme has a history; it did not come out of the blue. In fact, Bangladesh's eligibility as the beneficiary of the GSP scheme had long been under the review of US policymakers.
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL–CIO), the largest federation of trade unions in the US, filed a petition in 2007 to remove Bangladesh from the list of GSP beneficiaries and it proved instrumental in the US government's decision. But it was also not for the first time that AFL-CIO had been putting such pressure on their government.
It filed its first petition to the United States Trade Representative (USTR) in 1990 for, what it alleged, Bangladesh government's refusal to apply its labour laws to the Export Processing Zones (EPZs). And again in 1999, it filed a second petition for what it called Banladesh's failure to meet deadlines for adopting and enforcing labour rights in the EPZs. But Bangladesh Export Processing Zone Authority's (BEPZA) decision to review performance of the Workers Rights and Welfare Committees before allowing them the full exercise of free association and collective bargaining prompted AFL-CIO to file a third petition in December 2004. And it again filed yet another petition in 2005, alleging continued violation of internationally recognised workers' right in the EPZs.
Finally, in 2007's petition, the AFL–CIO suggested that Bangladesh be removed from the list of beneficiaries under the GSP programme because its labour laws were only on paper and that it was not implementing those.
More specifically, it said Bangladesh had not been taking steps to afford internationally recognised worker rights that include "(i) the right of association, (ii) the right to organise and bargain collectively, (iii) freedom from compulsory labour, (iv) a minimum age for the employment of children and (v) acceptable conditions of work with respect to minimum wages, hours of work and occupational safety and health.
So, questions against Bangladesh's enjoying GSP status were being raised by powerful quarters within the US itself since long. And the course of history also shows that those quarters were engaged with successive Bangladesh governments on the labour rights issue.
Therefore, the government cannot now say it was caught unawares by the US decision. On the contrary, as things had been brewing for more than two decades during the rules of successive democratically elected governments, they should been seized with the problem in good time. As both Awami League and BNP held power by turn during that period, neither party can now wash its hands of the issue. From that point of view, the responsibility for Bangladesh's failure to retain its preferential status in trade under GSP falls equally on the shoulders of both the major political parties. However, the recent tragedies like the devastating fire at Tazreen Fashions and the collapse of the Rana Plaza, killing hundreds of workers, did leave their telling impacts on the international community. The bad press that those incidents drew, locally as well as internationally, was also to a large measure behind precipitating the US decision.
In the given circumstances, it will be pointless now to cry over the spilt milk. The government, if it is really keen on retaining its GSP status with US, should face facts and not hold some imaginary quarters responsible for the unfortunate US action.
But there is yet another dimension to the whole issue. We should have put our own house in order so far as it involved ensuring safety of workers at their workplaces, providing them with a decent pay package, and granting them the internationally recognised labour rights long before a third country could point those out to us as our failures. We must be on our toes to avoid similar embarrassments in the future.

The writer is Editor, Science&Life, The Daily Star. E-mail: [email protected]