[🇧🇩] Reforms carried out by the interim/future Govts.

[Saif]

Tension mounts among govt officers over reform

Administration cadre officials and other cadres are now facing off over the public administration reforms aimed at freeing the civil service from political influence and inter-cadre discrimination and making it more service-oriented.

www.newagebd.net

Tension mounts among govt officers over reform
Sadiqur Rahman 25 December, 2024, 23:54

Bangladesh Administrative Service Association and the BCS Administration Welfare Multipurpose Cooperative Society Limited hold a meeting, protesting at the reform of public administration, at the BIAM Foundation Auditorium in Dhaka on Wednesday. | New Age photo

Administration cadre officials and other cadres are now facing off over the public administration reforms aimed at freeing the civil service from political influence and inter-cadre discrimination and making it more service-oriented.

Officials belonging to 25 Bangladesh Civil Service cadres other than the administration cadre have long been pressing for eliminating the discrimination against them regarding promotions and in-service facilities.

The administration cadre officials, meanwhile on Wednesday, announced that they would submit a memorandum to the public administration reform commission today, intensifying the tension in the civil service over its reform as officials of other cadres are scheduled to hold human chains across the country, protesting at what they termed as dominance of the administration cadre in the civil service jobs.

Since the Public Administration Reform Commission disclosed its draft recommendations on December 17, civil servants under the administration cadre and the rest 25 cadres have faced off against each other, claiming their fair shares in the administrative services.

Public administration teacher at Dhaka University, Professor Ferdous Afrina Osman, called the ongoing tension in the civil service as frustrating and observed that dominance of a single cadre was discriminatory.

Saying that promotion in the civil service must be free from political influences, she told New Age that the only way to keep promotion free from political influence was a proper evaluation of the candidates.

‘Only the deserving civil service officials irrespective of the cadre should get promotion,’ she added.

On December 17, the reform commission said for promotion to the rank of deputy secretary it would recommend 50 per cent quota allocation for the administration cadre and 50 per cent for the rest of the 25 cadres.

Currently, for promotion to this rank, the administration cadre enjoys 75 per cent quota and the rest 25 cadres get 25 per cent quota.

The disclosure of the draft recommendations have stirred up discontent among both the administration and other cadres, leading to increased tension among the administration cadre officials and those of other cadres. The administration cadre officials fear that the recommendations, if accepted, will reduce their promotion quota, while officials under the rest 25 cadres think that the recommendations fail to reflect their demand for a merit-based administrative service.

On Wednesday, several hundred present and former officials of the administrative cadre assembled at the BIAM Foundation Auditorium in the capital in a meeting in protest at the commission’s reform proposal. It was jointly organised by the Bangladesh Administrative Service Association and the BCS (Administration) Welfare Multipurpose Cooperative Society Limited.

After the meeting, the officials announced that they would submit a memorandum to the public administration reform commission today, administrative service association member secretary Muhammad Mahbubur Rahman confirmed the matter.

Speakers at the meeting complained that narrowing representation from the administration cadre was a conspiracy to destabilise the country by misdirecting public administration reforms.

Some of the speakers also demanded the resignation of the reform commission chief within 48 hours starting from Wednesday afternoon.

They said that narrowing the administration cadre’s representation would be a violation of a government circular, published on February 10, 1998, which was endorsed by the High Court as legal on February 13, 2002.

Moreover, they termed the application of the quota system in promotion to the deputy secretary rank as a discriminatory practice.

Dhaka district deputy commissioner Tanvir Ahmed told New Age that the administration cadre officials now demanded that the reform commission should recommend the abolition of the quota system and establish the Bangladesh Administrative Service exclusively with the administration cadre officials.

Asked how the civil servants from other cadres would get their promotion of the other cadre officials, Tanvir Ahmed said, ‘Their ranks must be upgraded as per the respective departmental promotion ladders.’

Earlier, on Sunday also, a significant number of administration cadre officials gathered at the Secretariat to press their demand.

On Tuesday, members of the Inter-Cadre Council to Eliminate Discrimination, a platform representing officials from 25 BCS cadres other than administration, staged a protest through a one-hour ‘pen-down strike’ to protest against the administration cadre’s dominance.

The council’s coordinator, Mohammad Mofizur Rahman, told New Age that officials of the 25 cadres would hold a human chain in front of their offices today.

The council is also scheduled to hold a rally in Dhaka on January 4 and has also announced further programmes, Mofizur said.​

 

[Saif]

Labourer sector reform: Informal workers seek recognition

The informal sector labourers, accounting for an overwhelming 85 per cent of the country’s labour force, keep their hopes high that the interim government would fulfil their...

www.newagebd.net

Labourer sector reform: Informal workers seek recognition
Sadiqur Rahman 25 December, 2024, 23:56

The informal sector labourers, accounting for an overwhelming 85 per cent of the country’s labour force, keep their hopes high that the interim government would fulfil their longstanding demand for inclusion in the formal sector as part of its labour reform initiative.

Labour rights activists believe that the inclusion would usher a watershed moment in the country’s labour rights campaign as it would mark the first step towards ensuring labour rights of the thousands of workers counted so far as informal sector labourers.

The interim government, which replaced the now ousted Sheikh Hasina regime from August 8, has launched a reform campaign in several sectors, labour sector one among them. It has tasked a 10-member labour reform commission, formed on November 18, with submitting its recommendations to the chief adviser within 90 days.

According to the Bangladesh Labour Force Survey 2022, around six crore or 84.9 per cent of the total working population in the country are engaged in informal employment that includes a highly varied range of work.

Most familiar of the informal sector jobs include agriculture labourers, domestic workers, construction and utility sector wage labourers, self-employed workers, including street vendors, hawkers and rickshaw pullers. Informal sector workers sell their cheap labour without any formal contracts with the employers and without any regular benefits.

Rights activists for domestic workers and municipality cleaners, while saying that they are marginalised among the informal workers, demand that the reform commission recommends their due recognition.

‘We eke out a living by selling our labour but we are not valued as workers. We hope that the interim government will recognise our due status,’ said Zakia Sultana, president of Grihakarmi Jatiya Forum, a platform for domestic workers.

The country’s massive 96.6 per cent of 2.48 crore employed women are engaged in informal employment.

Zakia added that informal workers’ long-due demand for recognition remained unheeded because the previous governments did not create any mediums to facilitate the discussion.

‘The labour reform commission is supposed to work as the much-expected media,’ she said.

She further said that domestic workers often avoided being pregnant, fearing job loss. ‘They are not given maternity leave. So when someone gets pregnant and gives birth to babies her plights become endless. In absence of day-care facilities at the slums where they live, mothers of newborns or small children face extreme challenges as they are not allowed to take her children to the employers’ house.’

Domestic workers, particularly those who work as live-in helps, do not have fixed work hours, weekends and standard wages.

Although the Domestic Workers Protection and Welfare Policy was enacted in 2015, it brought hardly any positive impact on the domestic workers’ rights situation as it was not translated into a law.

Municipality cleaners, doing a critical service to keep the environment of cities and municipality towns, also face an increasing level of job insecurity.

Gajan Lal, senior vice president of Bangladesh Harijan Oikya Parishad, a platform of the Dalit community from which many earn livelihood as cleaners of cities and municipality towns, has said that most of the cleaners work on an ad hoc basis, and so can neither bargain on their wage nor demand increment.

‘Moreover, newcomers, mostly from the Muslim community, have made the temporary cleaning jobs more competitive,’ Gajan Lal said.

While talking about increasing livelihood insecurity of vendors and hawkers, Bangladesh Hawkers Union vice president Monzur Moin has said that they are in a constant risk of eviction.

While the authorities regularly run eviction drives, they do not provide alternative livelihood sources to the hawkers, says Moin. Moreover, as their occupation is not formalised, they cannot take their demands to the government in a systematic way.

‘The hawkers as informal sector workers do not have the right to trade union. We expect that the labour sector reform will recognise all engaged in the informal sector to ensure their legal protection,’ the hawker leader said.

Socialist Labour Front president Rajekuzzaman Ratan commended the formation of the labour reform commission as a reflection of the informal workers’ long-due expectations.

‘For the first time in the history of Bangladesh, a reform commission has been formed to address the discrimination in the labour sector. We hope for the best,’ Ratan said.

Recently, the interim government has added 15 new industrial sectors to the existing list of 42 sectors under wage regulations.

The newly included sectors are private clinics, hospitals and diagnostic centres; fertiliser factories; brickfields; private airlines; electric and electronic goods manufacture; ceramics; cement; batteries; poultry; commercial amusement parks; dry fish manufacture;, stone crushing; IT parks; colour and chemical factories; and milk products and dairy farms.

Labour rights activists allege that while some industries, such as type foundry industry, which no longer exist or have become insignificant in the changing economic scenario, are still in the wage regulations list, many new sectors involving significant numbers of workers have yet to find their place in it.

Chief of the labour reform commission, Syed Sultan Uddin Ahmmed, observes that informal sector workers remain deprived of fundamental rights and social dignity.

‘The commission will highlight all the discriminations that the informal workers are facing. Steps must be taken to ensure their social dignity, security, and humane and sustainable livelihood,’ Sultan said.​