80 percent of workers work more than eight hours a day: BILS

An estimated 80 percent of the workforce in Bangladesh work over the eight hours a day in violation of the country’s labour laws, according to a report by the Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies.

The workers’ rights group announced its findings on Sunday ahead of International Workers Day on May 1. The BILS study examined five popular, labour intensive sectors in the Dhaka metropolitan area: highway transport, the hotel/restaurant industry, re-rolling, security, and private hospitals and diagnostic clinics.

The key findings were discussed at the organisation’s offices during an orientation seminar titled ‘Labour Situation - 2016: Way Forward to Protect Workers’ Rights’.

According to the report, 100 percent of employees in the highway transport work over eight hours a day. The same goes for 92 percent in the re-rolling industry, 98 percent in the hotel and restaurant industry, 42 percent in the medical industry and 80 percent in the security industry.

The following table shows the percentage of workers in each industry who must work on weekly holidays, public holidays and International Labour Day:

	No weekly holiday (%)	No public holiday (%)	No holiday on May 1 (%)
Highway transport	90	98	84
Security	66	88	88
Hotel/restaurant	86	82	82
Re-rolling	100	100	100
Hospitals/Diagnostic clinics	22	50	72

The study also delved into specific details about the industries and their workers.

All of the workers surveyed in the highway transport sector were male. Four percent were under 18 years of age, 64 percent had been in school up to the fifth standard, and 28 percent had studied in the sixth standard and above. Ninety-two percent of industry workers earn between Tk 10,000 and Tk 20,000 a month.

Some 8 per cent of security workers were women, and 4 percent were under the age of 18. Eighty-two percent of employees in the industry studied up to the tenth standard. Eighty-two percent earn over Tk 10,000 a month.

Of hotel and restaurant worker, 22 percent were female, and 6 percent were under the age of 18. Half had no formal education. Ninety percent of workers earn between Tk 7,500 and Tk 17,500.

The re-rolling industry workers in the study were 100 percent male. None were under the age of 18 and 88 percent earned between Tk 10,000 and Tk 15,000.

The workers in the private hospital and diagnostic centre industry were 68 percent female, and 34 percent had passed their HSC exams. Eighty percent earned between Tk 7,500 and Tk 15,000.

Another BILS report released on Sunday was titled ‘Occupational Accident, Violence and Industrial Dispute – 2016’, which tallied data from various media reports.

The study found that 888 workplace deaths and 1093 workplace injuries had occurred in 2016. Of the 699 accidental deaths in 2016, there were 671 men and 28 women. Of the 189 deaths by violence, 153 were men and 40 were women. 

Seven hundred and three of the 1093 injuries were caused by accidents, while violence caused 390.

The industries with the highest number of deaths due to workplace accidents were in the transport (249), construction (85) and fishing (52). The three leading causes of accidental deaths were road accidents (320), electrocution (93) and lightning (44).

Workplace deaths due to violence were highest among transport workers (39), domestic workers (17) and shop workers (15).