Shudir Baran Mazi,

When people all over the country are busy preparing for Eid celebrations, our garment workers have to
take to the streets for salary and bonus assurance. When those workers, whose labor keeps the
country's economy running, take to the streets for salary to satisfy their hunger, the state ignores their
just demands and calls it labor unrest. Some masked patriots and flatterers make delicious speeches on
behalf of the country. My question is why should the workers take to the streets for salary? Why won't
the workers get their fair salary at the end of the work? The name of the employer's discipline is the
harassment that the employers make of the workers' salary at the end of the work. If I talk about my
rights, it is chaos, and the name of depriving me of salary day after day is discipline. Oh! What a
wonderful rule. 122 factories under the country's ready-made garment and textile sector have not yet
paid their workers' outstanding salaries for February. 723 garment factories have not yet been able to
pay Eid bonuses. 30 factories have outstanding salaries for January or earlier.
This is a strange discipline! The worker will sweat his life away in the factory, and the owner will
hesitate to pay the price of that sweat! If he speaks out against this injustice, he will be called a
rioter, and if he plays with the workers' dues, it will be the discipline of the rules! Why do we
have to take to the streets before Eid? Why do we get beaten with sticks instead of the joy of
the festival? Who enjoys the benefits of the economy built on our labor? If demanding wages is
a crime, then what kind of justice is this? Can a society that does not accept the fair rights of
workers be civilized at all? Will we spend our lives protesting in order to survive, to achieve
rights? How long will this game of discrimination continue? We want wages before the worker's
sweat dries, we want their dues before the joy of Eid! We want justice, we want the right to
live! Where clothes made with the blood of workers go abroad, why does an uneaten Eid come
to the worker's home? Why are those who are the backbone of the country's economy
neglected, oppressed and tortured? If a worker dies due to salary (wages) worries, the owner
and the state must take responsibility for that. In no way can the state, government and owner
avoid this responsibility. And if the state, government and owner deny this responsibility in any
way, then it must be understood that this state, government and owner are not friendly to
workers and are not friendly to the development of a dynamic economy.

This is a strange discipline! The worker will sweat his life away in the factory, and the owner will hesitate
to pay the price of that sweat! If he speaks out against this injustice, he will be called a rioter, and if he
plays with the workers' dues, it will be the discipline of the rules! Why do we have to take to the streets
before Eid? Why do we get beaten with sticks instead of the joy of the festival? Who enjoys the benefits
of the economy built on our labor? If demanding wages is a crime, then what kind of justice is this? Can
a society that does not accept the fair rights of workers be civilized at all? Will we spend our lives
protesting in order to survive, to achieve rights? How long will this game of discrimination continue? We
want wages before the worker's sweat dries, we want their dues before the joy of Eid! We want justice,
we want the right to live! Where clothes made with the blood of workers go abroad, why does an
uneaten Eid come to the worker's home? Why are those who are the backbone of the country's
economy neglected, oppressed and tortured? If a worker dies due to salary (wages) worries, the owner

and the state must take responsibility for that. In no way can the state, government and owner avoid
this responsibility. And if the state, government and owner deny this responsibility in any way, then it
must be understood that this state, government and owner are not friendly to workers and are not
friendly to the development of a dynamic economy.
In a free country, what kind of a system is this for subjugated workers? We build industries with
sweat, yet wages are insulting! Bullets, sticks, and torture when we go out on the streets, but
are the workers destined for nothing but deprivation? The country earns foreign exchange by
exporting clothes, but the workers live in a dark hunger strike. When we ask for the price of our
labor, we have to hear threats. Where will this discrimination end? Or is this a permanent
custom? Are we born to work like machines only? Why are we subjected to torture when we
ask for our rights? Year after year, farce is played in the name of promises, but does the wheel
of the workers' fate ever turn? Now is the time to resist, to wake up, to stand firm in
demanding justice! The workers' Eid will be in the light of fair wages, and exploitation will end
in the fire of struggle! The country became independent, but the workers were not free. In
Golden Bengal, the workers' homes still cry out in poverty! Those who brought independence
with their blood, their children today shed their blood and collect their wages! Why do we
celebrate Eid with tears in our eyes? Why do we have to endure beatings with sticks when we
ask for our fair share? Is the state only for the owners? Does the worker have no place here?
How long will the subjugated life last in the land of a free country? Industry cannot run without
workers, so why is there so much poverty in the homes of workers? Big speeches, stories of
development, but the workers do not have fair rights! This chain of deprivation must be broken,
the value of labor and the respect of the workers must be ensured! If the state does not belong
to the workers, then who is this state for? Until rights are established, the struggle will
continue, will continue! We want justice, we want an exploitation-free Bangladesh, we want
the workers to get what they deserve before their sweat dries! The craftsmen who built the
country are still deprived, they work hard to build it, but they are still humiliated. Fires break
out in factories, people burn to death, justice never comes, this humiliation never stops.
Instead of fair demands, sticks and bullets are used, the state does not see them, does not
listen to their cries of pain. What is this freedom? Is this the song of liberation? Do you know
when the cries of the workers are given a certificate on the streets? Still, the light of hope
shines, rights will come one day, when the dignity of labor is ensured, true freedom will smile!
The state's responsibility is to ensure the rights of the workers. But in reality, when the owners
deprive the workers, there is no reaction, whereas when the workers take to the streets to
collect their dues, repression begins. The state, government and the owners must understand
that sustainable development is not possible without ensuring the fair rights of the workers.
The police and the joint forces are not allowed to oppress the workers.
Industry is built on the sweat of workers, and the country's economy gets a solid foundation through
their tireless work. Yet, to get a fair wage, those workers have to join the movement and endure
beatings with sticks—this is an extreme contrast! Even after 53 years of independence, the fact that the
rights of workers are not ensured is a sad reality of our economic and social system. I do not know how
much the authorities will be awakened by this writing, how much will it move their minds, how much
will the fair rights of workers be established, how much the government and the state will be bound by
workers and labor, how much the fate of workers will change, how much positive change will there be in
consciousness, but I am writing from the rights, dignity, and responsibility towards labor of workers. I
also hope for a Bangladesh free from exploitation and based on justice—where labor will have dignity,
workers will smile, and the chain of discrimination will be broken forever.the writer is a teacher at  Haimchar Government College