The anti-discrimination Grameenphone employees have organized a human chain and rally in favor of those deprived of all other legal rights, including the suspension of salaries and allowances of the employees employed by Grameenphone after years of pending cases. Hundreds of activists joined the protest rally in front of the GP House located in front of Bashundhara residential area in Vatara of the capital on Monday.
Under the leadership of Grameenphone Employees Union Vice President Rasulul Amin Murad, Communication Secretary Adiba Jerin Chowdhury and other union leaders Azahar Islam, Shahriar Murtuza, Shahjahan Shah, Asaduzzaman, Habibur Rahman and others were present in the program.
Rasulul Amin Murad expressed his anger and said that the audacity shown by the Grameenphone authorities without implementing the judgment of the Appellate Division in the High Court is disrespectful and disgraceful to the independent sovereign Bangladesh and the government. We urge the current Interim Government to take disciplinary action against the Grameenphone authorities after investigating all the illegal and conspiratorial activities including illegal retrenchment, illegal lock-out and unfair labor practices of the Grameenphone authorities and to take measures to reinstate the 202 workers who were victims of illegal retrenchment and to direct them to their respective jobs.
Speakers in the rally said that 213 workers were illegally fired on May 25, 2012 by Grameenphone Ltd. without giving them any opportunity to defend themselves for the crime of filing a trade union application. Out of them, 22 activists have been fighting the legal battle in different courts for the past 13 years, without any compromise against this injustice and discrimination. On the other hand, the protestors claimed that the operator has been deliberately delaying the legal process for years in collusion with the previous government.
It was informed in the gathering that despite the business expansion and profit of Grameenphone Ltd. increasing at a significant rate during the COVID-19 pandemic, on April 23, 2020, the general branch of the Directorate of Inspection of Factories and Institutions issued a letter to the Inspector General to stop the layoffs/dismissal of workers (Memorandum Number: 40.01.0000 .102.27.030.18.779) was reported. But on 21-June-021, when the entire country was at a standstill due to the second wave of Corona, 159 workers were retrenched all at once in defiance of government directives. Although a case of the said workers was pending before the Hon’ble High Court Division. But the tax authorities obstructed the normal legal process by not respecting the judgment of the Appellate Division through another case. This is a clear violation of Article 111 of the Constitution of the Government of Bangladesh.
