Various labour organisations and industry experts have urged the government to allocate special funds in the upcoming national budget to help distressed jute mill workers and shrimp farmers survive the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. "More than 26,000 shift workers and temporary employees of nine state-run jute mills along with the Khulna-Jashore industrial belt have lived
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
14 May 2021
India: Striking health workers in Punjab sacked
Around 1,400 striking National Health Mission (NHM) workers, including staff nurses, medical officers, homeopathy Ayurveda doctors and ministerial staff, were sacked by the Punjab government on May 10 for refusing to end their week-long strike.
About 3,000 NHM workers walked out on strike to demand higher wages and permanent jobs. The sacked workers, who were fired through the draconian Disaster Management Act, were from seven districts in Punjab.
Last September over 30,000 NHM contract workers held a national stoppage over the same demands. Although many have had ten years’ service, they are paid meagre salaries and are denied entitlements available to regular government employees.
BJMC Temps: Leading miserable lives
Factories have not paid them dues since closure last year
Star file photo
More than 32,000 substitute and temporary workers of the state-run jute mills, which were closed on July 1 last year for modernisation, are leading miserable lives as they have not received their dues yet.
Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation (BJMC) owes these workers Tk 323 crore in arrears from 2015 to 2020 due to implementation of the new pay scale in January 2020 as per Productivity and Wage Commission-2015.
These workers are also yet to receive wages of eight weeks from 2020, when the factory was closed due to national lockdown, and six weeks wages from 2019, when there was a protest demanding implementation of the new wage scale.
Incentive spending on remittance may go up
Overall expenses for subsidy, incentive and cash loan to fall
The government may increase its allocation for incentive expenses for remittance in the next fiscal year as it looks to retain the surge of the flow of the cheapest source of foreign currencies for Bangladesh.
It had earmarked Tk 3,060 crore in the original budget of the fiscal year of 2020-21 to pay incentives to the beneficiaries of remittance. The allocation has been raised by 47.06 per cent to Tk 4,500 crore in the revised budget.
The government now plans to set aside Tk 4,000 crore for the next fiscal year to help the economy absorb the shock stemming from the coronavirus pandemic.