Bangladesh is going to the International Labor Conference in Geneva with the draft copy of amended labor laws to satisfy the international community. The country has introduced changes to the draft of the labor law as per the recommendations of international communities like the ILO, the EU and the US to improve labor rights in the country.

Changes to the labor law have been brought in mainly in two areas. Now, an association of 20 per cent of the workers in a factory is sufficient to form an union instead of 30 per cent.

Second, officials of the Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments would be able to visit and inspect the factories housed inside the Export Processing Zones. Previously this was not possible. With the current amended labor law that was adopted in July 2013 after the Rana Plaza building collapse, it was difficult to collect the consent of 30 per cent workers of a factory to form a trade union. Since then, only 625 trade unions have been formed in the garment sector, a paltry number.

As a result, the international community, particularly rights groups, lobbied to lower the threshold to a reasonable level so that unions can be formed easily. So 20 per cent was agreed to in consultation with the tripartite committee.