• ​​A Tale of Sweat and Deprivation : Introspection on May Day and the Reality of Bangladesh

today’s glittering world, the glamorous and enchanting buildings and the incredible excellence of technology that we see, the blood and sweat of workers and laborers are mixed in every brick. Yet the cruel irony of history is that those whose hands have built this modern civilization are the most neglected and marginalized today. Every year on May 1, International Workers’ Day is celebrated with great enthusiasm around the world. Colorful banners are displayed on the streets, sky-high slogans are raised in discussion meetings, and the flowers of assurance from policymakers bloom. But at the end of the day, has the darkness of the life of an ordinary worker faded too much?  In the light of my own experience, when I see that at the end of the month, I get five taka seventy-six paisa per day for the salary I earned by working hard, three hundred taka per month for medical expenses (as a family of five members), my colleague gets a salary of twenty-seven taka per day, sometimes I have to go door to door to get even this amount. One of my colleagues has been going door to door for 11 months to get his 10-month salary, and that colleague will retire in three months.

The pain of thinking that a management that has failed to pay a worker his due salary for almost a year, and that management will be able to pay it in the next three or four months, cannot be expressed in words only, but it has to be understood in the heart. This deprivation proves that even though the external glamour has increased, we have not yet mentally overcome the medieval barbarity and become fully civilized.

​In the current context of Bangladesh, a look at the salary structure reveals a horrific and inhuman wage disparity. On one hand, the sky-high salaries and corporate benefits of a few high-ranking officials, and on the other hand, the minimum wage of the main production worker, which is just a farce in the current sky-high inflation market. When the price of every daily essential product in the market increases by 10 to 20 percent, the rate of increase in the wage of the worker is very slow or stagnant. According to ILO Convention 131, the cost of living and the basic needs of the family should be given utmost importance in determining the minimum wage of the worker, but it is often ignored in Bangladesh. The gap in the wage structure of workers, starting from the ready-made garment sector to the tea garden or informal sector, is so wide that it is an understatement to call it social injustice. This glaring economic disparity is not only disrupting the standard of living of the worker, but has become a major obstacle in the way of building a healthy and communist society.

Our so-called developed and imperialist world was never ready to welcome the worker as an owner or as an equal partner. In the mindset of a section of the owners and policymakers, the worker is still just a productive machine. Many are reluctant to even imagine the empowerment of the worker or their participation in the profits. This cruel paw of capitalism has seen the worker only as an object of exploitation. Capitalism, an associate of imperialist powers, has never wanted to see the key to ownership in the hands of the worker, but rather has always wanted to keep them imprisoned in a circle of poverty through wage deprivation and delayed payment. This psychological weakness of not accepting the worker as an ‘owner’ is the biggest weakness of our social structure. However, starting from every industrial revolution to today’s digital revolution, everything is the result of the physical and mental labor of the worker.

Our unequivocal message to policymakers is that it is not possible to change the fate of workers by simply observing the day or formulating policies to please donors. In light of international labor laws (such as ILO Conventions 87 and 98), workers must be guaranteed the full right to form trade unions and an environment for collective bargaining in a fearless environment. It is essential to restructure the wage structure in such a way that a ‘living wage’ or a respectable wage suitable for living is ensured. The state must take responsibility so that no worker is forced to shed blood on the streets to collect his dues. It is the demand of the hour to stop administrative harassment and create strict legal obligations to pay dues as soon as possible. Policymakers must remember that if the backs of workers are against the wall, it will create a suicidal and unstable environment for the country’s economy in the long run.

​At the same time, my appeal to the rights-conscious worker brothers is that rights can be achieved not in isolation but through united struggle. Those turbulent days in Chicago in 1886 have taught us that there is no alternative to solidarity if we are to achieve our demands. Conscious workers should gain knowledge about their legal rights and build collective resistance against any injustice. Remember, the economy of this world is active on our labor; if we stop, this glorious world will stop. Until the just dues and human dignity of the last worker in the world are ensured before his sweat dries, the phrases ‘civilized society’ or ‘developed state’ are nothing but an ugly joke. Let us dream of a world where the gap between the owner and the worker is bridged and a humane society based on equality is established. Let this be our solemn oath on this day of May Day.

​Author: Health worker and labor rights activist.