State Minister for Labour and Employment Mujibul Haque yesterday said alternative dispute resolution (ADR) system would play effective role in reducing the backlogs of cases in quickest possible time while dealing with labour courts, reports BSS. "If initiatives are taken to resolve any labour related dispute through ADR before start of the case hearing at the designated court, it would surely bring effective outcome . . .it would lessen the sufferings of the labors, they would get their due payments easily . . . backlog of cases would reduce and faith in labour court would enhance," he said. The state minister was addressing a workshop on labour rights at Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies (BILS) auditorium.
BILS chairman Habibur Rahman Siraj chaired the workshop while its acting secretary general Md Jafrul Hasan and Advocate Md Abdul Mannan spoke on the occasion, among others. BILS advocacy officer Nazrul Islam presented the recommendations while its executive director Syed Sultan Uddin Ahmed conducted the function. Mujibul Haque said the timeframe of trial procedure under labour act has been fixed to 60 days. "Trial procedure gets delayed due to different reasons. But the time of delay, if there any, should also be fixed," he added. The state minister said initiatives would be taken to amend few sections of Labour Act for quick disposal of trial procedure.
The recommendations of the workshop were: amendment of Labour Act enhancing power of Labour Court and increasing the degree of sentence for violating laws and making coordination among the tenure of sentences for different offences; bringing Labour Court under Supreme Court, keeping the system of lodging 'leave to appeal' to Appellate Division of Supreme Court instead of making a writ petition to High Court from Labour Appellate Tribunal. The recommendations also included increasing of labour courts as the existing seven courts are not sufficient for six crore labors and providing facilities to Labour Court chairman as equivalent of district judge.