Stakeholders of the export-oriented readymade garment (RMG), leather and footwear sectors missed the deadline for providing the lists of their jobless workers, which might deprive many of the beneficiaries of a cash assistance support, officials said.
The Department of Labour earlier set December 10 (Thursday) as the deadline for the sectors' trade bodies and factories to provide their respective lists for implementing a government safety net programme funded by the European Union (EU) and Germany.
The EU and Germany earlier announced 113 million euro worth of fund for the purpose.
Under the programme, workers who lost jobs due to the pandemic will receive Tk 3000 per month for a period of three months beginning from September last while they are scheduled to receive two months' cash assistance by this month, they added.
A worker who was employed until February last in an export-oriented RMG or leather goods or footwear factory and is now jobless due to accident or physical illness, termination or factory lay-off and permanent closure of the factory, would be the beneficiary.
When asked, director general of Department of Labour AKM Mizanur Rahman said though Thursday was the last day to provide all required information on jobless workers in the export-oriented RMG, leather and footwear sectors, they were yet to get details.
"The number of jobless workers we received is not satisfactory," he told the FE on Thursday.
He, however, said the committee formed to implement the programme would sit next week and decides the dates to disburse the cash assistance by this month irrespective of the number of workers they so far received.
Another DoL official seeking anonymity said they received information on more than 4,000 workers from RMG and leather sectors.
He said initially they received a list of about 60,000 workers that mentioned only names of the workers without further details.
Later, it came down to 16,000, people involved with the process. It also was incomplete.
They said export-oriented factories are not willing to provide the details of their jobless workers despite sectors' trade bodies and DoL's repeated request for the same.
Factories don't have the information about the workers--who lost jobs or left or did not rejoin, their current status, they said adding factories are also unwilling to collect the required information.
Responding to FE, Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BKMEA) and Leathergoods and Footwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association Bangladesh (LFMEAB) confirmed that they did not provide any list of their respective sectors' jobless workers' to DoL.
Rezwan Selim, director of BGMEA, said they asked thrice its members to provide the jobless workers' information. He said only 40 factories came up with the list while 16 provided complete required data. Talking to FE, Fazlee Shamim Ehsan, a director of BKMEA, said, "We also asked our members twice, the latest on December 03,"
The information sought is also cumbersome as more than 20 specific details including national identity and mobile numbers, date of birth, bank account or other payment service, status of current employment, date of unemployment are required. Factories are not willing to provide as they don't have all these, he added.
He, however, said that a virtual meeting held on November 25 initially fixed December 20 and 24 as dates to disburse last September and October's cash assistance to workers while money for November will be disbursed in January next.
LFMEAB President Saiful Islam said they were working on preparing the list.
Industry people said the foot-dragging among government agencies to determine the modalities of the programme and unwillingness of factories to provide lists, thus, deprived the poor workers of the support they needed during the most difficult time.
There is no specific data on retrenched or jobless workers during the pandemic.
Official data revealed 20,000 to 22,400 RMG workers were fired until July while BGMEA about 106 factories retrenched a total of 70,000 workers until August.
Centre for Global Workers' Rights (CGWR), in a report in March, said more than one million garment workers in Bangladesh were fired or furloughed (temporarily suspended from work).
Munni_fe@yahoo.com