Published : 22 Aug 2026, 08:50 PM
Updated : 08 Sep 2026, 09:34 AM
Outsourced workers have rallied in Dhaka's Shahbagh demanding permanent jobs, higher wages and an end to what they describe as discrimination in government institutions.
The Bangladesh Outsourcing Employees Welfare Council organised the human chain in front of the National Museum around 11am on Saturday.
The group is pressing for a set of seven demands, including bringing daily-wage and project-based workers under the government pay scale and making their jobs permanent.
Bachchu Bhuiyan, convenor of the council, said the demands dated back to the erstwhile Awami League government and accused successive administrations of failing to address the concerns of workers.
He called for a minimum monthly wage of Tk 30,000, arguing that workers could not support their families on Tk 12,500.
“End the discrimination against us,” he said.
Taslim Akhter, a member of the political council of Ganosamhati Andolan, said around 600,000 outsourced employees worked across Bangladesh but did not receive the same recognition or wages as government employees doing work at the same institutions.
“We had hoped for a Bangladesh without discrimination,” she said, adding that temporary workers at government institutions continued to lose their jobs.
The protesters also called for the contractor system in outsourcing to be abolished, claiming it results in Tk 6.6 billion in wasted public funds.
Their other demands include reinstating dismissed employees, clearing outstanding wages and scrapping the temporary labour policy to make daily-wage workers permanent.
The demonstrators also sought a meeting with Prime Minister Tarique Rahman.
