ILO Governing Body 352nd Session - Report by the Government of Bangladesh

ILO Governing Body, 352^nd session

28 October – 7 November 2024

Report by the Government of Bangladesh on progress made on the implementation of the road map taken to address all outstanding issues mentioned in the article 26 complaint concerning alleged non-observance of Conventions Nos 81, 87 and 98

GB.352/INS/14

EU Statement

Chair,

I have the honour to speak on behalf of the European Union and its Member States.

The candidate countries North Macedonia*, Montenegro*, Albania*, Ukraine and Republic of Moldova, the EFTA countries Iceland and Norway, members of the European Economic Area, as well as Switzerland align themselves with this statement.

1. The EU and its Member States are committed to the respect, protection and fulfilment of human rights, including labour rights. We promote universal ratification and effective implementation of fundamental ILO Conventions and support the ILO in developing and promoting international labour standards and supervising their application.
2. We welcome the timely submission by the interim Government of Bangladesh of a progress report on the implementation of the ILO Roadmap on the Labour Sector in Bangladesh (2021-2026), shared with the tripartite constituents and discussed at the Tripartite Implementation and Monitoring Committee meeting in September.
3. We thank the Office and fully support the continued engagement of the ILO in promoting labour rights in Bangladesh and monitoring the implementation of the Roadmap.
4. The EU and its Member States are also mindful of the recent political changes and the current context of an interim Government having started its work in August. We welcome the clear commitment expressed by the interim Government to improve the labour rights situation based on international commitments by recently creating a labour reform commission, and we stand ready to deepen our cooperation. We also acknowledge the interim Government's effort to mediate the 18-point agreement between employers and labour leaders that helped to address the protesting workers’ grievances over the last month. We would like to emphasise the importance of its full implementation.
5. We remain concerned by the fact that Bangladesh has only partially implemented the labour reforms it has committed to. We reiterate our call for their timely delivery and comprehensive implementation.
6. We expect the interim Government to speed up the reform of the Bangladesh Labour Act and of the Export Processing Zone Labour. We urge the interim Government to adequately consult and involve the social partners. It is particularly crucial to remove existing restrictions on freedom of association in all sectors and to facilitate the registration of trade unions and the right to collective bargaining.
7. We urge Bangladesh to lift the remaining obstacles to the unionisation of workers, as well as the systematic refusal of workers’ rights regarding wage payments, overtime and working conditions.
8. The 2023 cases of workers and labour activists being injured, killed, harassed or intimidated for association with trade unions or in connection with wage demands and protests have still have not been investigated. Investigations must swiftly be conducted, to hold those responsible to account and to effectively implement preventative measures - including through meaningful social dialogue.
9. Continued and intensified efforts are needed in training, including on any use of force to meet the principles of legality, necessity and proportionality, for the relevant law enforcement authorities to deal with strikes and protests and more broadly to respect human rights, including labour rights.
10. While acknowledging some efforts in this regard, further work is necessary to ensure independent and free inspections. We encourage the interim Government to continue working on full functionality of the labour inspectorates, with a sufficient number of adequately trained labour inspectors.
11. We reaffirm our strong commitment to continue our cooperation with Bangladesh, in partnership with the ILO through the Team Europe Initiative on decent work, and we encourage the interim Government to speed up progress and tackle the open questions and challenges, even in difficult circumstances. We will continue to closely monitor the progress in the implementation of the roadmap.

We support the decision point.

Thank you, Chair.

*North Macedonia, Montenegro and Albania continue to be part of the Stabilisation and Association Process.