Women's hostels at EPZ

The government has taken a good decision to set up dormitories or hostels for women workers at the Export Processing Zones of the country. We hope the prime minister takes similar initiative in the other industrial sectors too.

On Thursday Prothom Alo published a report about this decision taken by the prime minister at a meeting. If residential facilities are provided for the women workers, both the workers and the investors will benefit.

The efficiency and service of workers improve if their quality of life improves. The industries created in the sixties had residential quarters for the employees next to the mills and factories, along with medical facilities and schools. But sudden privatisation and the greed of the owners have done away with those facilities. This has resulted in intermittent labour unrest and a slump in productivity.

We hope that these residential facilities will gradually extend from BEPZA to the other industries outside of the zone too, including the readymade garment industries. Sustainable industrial development requires bright and healthy workers. In industrial areas such as Dhaka and Chittagong, the workers stay in poor living conditions. They workers live in slums far from their workplaces and their children grow up in a pitiful environment. All these problems must be solved.

As the present wage structure of the workers does not permit them to live in any better circumstances, it is for the government to come forward. A law should be passed making it compulsory for the industry owners to make dormitories for the workers. Negotiations can be done with the buyers and the buyer countries for assistance in this regard. Rather than seeing this as an expenditure, it can be seen as an investment in discipline and productivity.