EU urges Bangladesh to quickly amend EPZ Labour Act

Bangladesh wants to formulate a new law once the new rules are in effect.

"We would like to underline once again the importance of accelerating the date of amending the EPZ Labour Act, a key point expressly raised in the past years and in all our recent meetings in Dhaka," a letter, jointly signed by EU's director general of trade Ewa Synowiec, director general of employment Jordi Curell and deputy managing director for Asia and Pacific Paola Pamaloni, said.  

The Bangladesh government earlier submitted to the EU a road map for implementation of the latter’s nine-point action plan given to Bangladesh by 2026, known as the National Action Plan (NAP).

Although the plan called for amending the EPZ Labour Act by February 2023, the government objected to the introduction of trade unions.

"Waiting for the implementation of the EPZ Labour Rules is not needed. We therefore look forward to a concrete adjusted timeline for amending the EPZ Labour Act," said the three EU officials.

After the EU's EBA monitoring mission returned from a visit to Bangladesh in March, the EU said in a recent letter to the latter’s foreign secretary Masud bin Momen, "Following the mission, essential concerns on the labour aspects remain, namely, to meet the commitments in the National Action Plan fully and on time."

In some areas, for such actions as amending the Bangladesh Labour Rules and the EPZ Labour Rules, the timelines have already passed for months. In others, Bangladesh has indicated that it may not meet the timelines as committed in the NAP, such as those on the deployment of all envisaged new labour inspectors, Bangla media reported.

"We list some key points of the National Action Plan that we already raised during the mission. We recognise that these issues are complex, also against the background of the pandemic. Nevertheless, it is of paramount importance to be able to show also to our stakeholders- including the European Parliament and the 27 member states- that the commitments made by Bangladesh are being fulfilled on time,” the EU said.

"This timely fulfilment of the commitments in the National Action Plan has also been pointed out as being key by the committee on International Trade of the European Parliament in its session on 20 April 2022," it added.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)