LABOR LAW PRACTICES IN EPZ AND NON-EPZ INDUSTRIES: A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON RMG SECTOR IN BANGLADESH

Abstract

Bangladesh is being considered as the hot spot in the readymade garments (RMG) market by many foreign purchasing officers. In the same line, RMG sector creates about 4.2 million employment opportunities in our country where most of them are women. This sector is now the biggest foreign currency earner of Bangladesh. Conversely, it is also true that this sector is experiencing disputes and violent protest by the workers in recent times especially after the Rana Plaza collapsed on 24 April 2013 loss of 1,136 lives and the fatal fire at Tazreen Fashions which caused 112 died, Ready Made Garment (RMG) sector had reached a crucial juncture. It is also manifested that noncompliance with the Bangladesh Labour Act, 2006 and job dissatisfaction of the workers is the key factor for the labour unrest. The RMG sector consists of EPZ and Non-EPZ areas. It is a matter of experiment that whether the working conditions of EPZ and Non EPZ is alike or not? The main objective of this research is to make a comparative study between EPZ and non-EPZ industries in terms of practicing labour law of complying with the labour law of the country.

It is also true that this sector of Bangladesh is experiencing disputes and violent protest by the workers in recent times. The RMG sector of our country consists of EPZ and Non-EPZ areas.  The study design followed qualitative and quantitative (mixed model). The data were collected from both primary and secondary sources. Primary data were collected from 60 sample surveys, 4 KIIs and 2 case studies from both EPZ and Non EPZ RMG and secondary data were collected from books, journal articles and website sources.

This study is conducted to analyze the prospects, problems and solution of problems of Readymade Garments Industry in Bangladesh. The findings of this paper show that Bangladesh has a great opportunity to earn a great foreign currency through developing readymade garments industry. The study also suggests some measure for the removal of ongoing crisis of garment sectors. Basically, based on the collected data this study found that the satisfactory level of the EPZ worker little bit higher rather than the worker of the Non-EPZ industry. Sometimes worker of the EPZ is getting more facilities and sometimes the worker of the Non-EPZ is getting more facilities that’s why the satisfactory level is different from each other.