‘No day is special for us’
Taher Ali was toiling with a heavy sack of sand on his shoulder in the scorching summer heat. He was working at a construction site near Panthapath area, in Dhaka city.
The day labourer looked clueless when asked whether he knew anything about the May Day, the day observed to pay solidarity with working class people in this part of the world, following sacrifice of workers in Chicago of the US.
“What should we do with a special day? No day is special for people like us,” said Taher.
He continued, “We have to work from dawn to dusk to earn bread and butter for our family members. My seven-member family would simply starve the moment I stop working.”
Many labourers like Taher do not know what the May Day is all about; they do not even care if there is a day at all reserved to honour them.
However, Faruk Sheikh, driver’s assistant of a city bus service, is not fully ignorant of the day. He said he heard about the day from someone but was not ‘very moved’ by the day’s history.
“I get up early, say, at 5:00am, everyday and work until midnight with a little bit of rest during lunch that I have sitting on the seat of the bus. Now if you really call it a rest, you may,” he told Prothom Alo when asked about his working hours.
The Day is being observed around the world since 1886. In Chicago on this day, workers demonstrating for a maximum of 8 hours of work a day instead of 12 hours, came under attack by the police and several died.
On the history of the May Day, Faruk said, “What does this day mean to many a day labourers like me, who still have to work much more than 8 hours a day?”
Akmal Hossain and Firoza Begum, a couple working as a security guard and a cook at a restaurant respectively, also said they do not have any limit on the work hours.
They added that most of the labourers cannot imagine that they would have to work only 8 hours or be paid for overtime duties.
According to labour leader Moshrefa Mishu, the most pressing issue for the labourers at the moment is fixation of a minimum wage.
“There should be a specific law that sets a minimum wage for informal workers as well,” she told Prothom Alo, adding that the informal workers like other labourers should get a day off every week and their working hours should be well defined.
More than 80 per cent of the workers in five labour-intensive sectors in the capital works for more than 8 hours a day, finds a research carried out by Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies (BILS) last year. The sectors are transport, hotel and restaurant, security guard, re-rolling, and hospital and diagnostic centre.
More than 17 per cent workers have to work more than 15 hours a day, the report said.
Against this backdrop, BILS executive director Syed Sultan Uddin Ahmed said the May Day has become a ceremonial phenomenon.
“At least 85 per cent of the labourers in Bangladesh are informal sector workers. There is no safety for them, though our neighbouring countries such as India and Pakistan have enacted laws to ensure rights of the informal sector workers,” he pointed out.
Sultan insisted that minimum wages for all the labourers, including drivers and domestic help, should be ensured. “The voice of the workers should be heard by the policymakers.”