The Twist In Change

A court verdict in England
And a policy change in kingdom
Surface hope in distant
But bring the change seldom.

There have been good developments regarding issues on improvement of working environment at home and abroad for Bangladeshi workers in recent weeks. First development is about compensation of injured worker in shipbuilding industry. A court in England says it clearly, from now onwards, a worker who suffered injuries while dismantling a ship owned by a British company will be eligible for compensation, as reported by the Guardian. In 2018, a Bangladeshi worker got killed while scraping a British oil tanker at a shipbreaking yard in Chattogram. Wife of the victim with the support of rights groups raised the issue of compensation at a British court.(Source: Daily Prothom Alo, March 12,2021) The verdict clearly paves the path for ensuring greater safety for workers at Bangladesh shipbreaking yards. Theses yards have long been unsafe place for workers. Every year accidents cripple workers. In addition, hazardous residues during the dismantling of ships get exposed to the air, causing health risk to surrounding residents.

While many yards embrace automation, the industry still recruits workers at various stages. The industry takes the onus to supply scrap iron to Bangladesh's construction industry. So the verdict appears to protect these workers, lured by higher wages. However, there are skepticism among rights groups about it's effectiveness.

Last week Saudi Arabia changed its controversial sponsorship rules for expat workers.Under the previous rule, a foreign worker in the kingdom could not change sponsor. A deviation resulted in returning home. Female workers faced tortures and had little freedom to rise up against their employers. Previous system cramped foreign workers' future in the country and augmented the cost of going to Saudi Arabia. Change in sponsorship removes obstacles and raises the possibility of increasing the earnings of foreign workers. However,according to a news report , workers can change sponsor one year after joining the job. However, it is not eligible for driver, male servant and house caretaker (Source: Daily Prothom Alo, March 16,2021).Many Bangladeshis take up this kind of job in Saudi Arabia. But for those work as grocery assistant, cleaner, agricultural worker, construction worker, this is indeed a good news. It means they can change their employers while they have VISAS in Saudi Arabia without coming back to home and incurring huge cost.

Saudi Arabia is a top remittance source for Bangladesh. In 2014-15, Bangladesh received $3345.23 million as remittances and the sum declined to $2240 million in 2018-19 (Source: BER 2019). But the amount is still higher than other remittance earning source. Bangladesh received $2833.77 million as remittances from UAE in 2014-15. But the amount was declined to $1865.60 million in 2018-19(Source:BER 2019).

Remittances play a vital role in Bangladesh's economy. Consumer activity and construction work in districts depend on remittances. Low oil prices and sluggish economy of Middle Eastern countries slowed down the remittance flows in recent years. The new change in the "Kafala system" will usher in positive changes in remittance flows.

But there are some twists. Recently, IOM carried out a survey among migrant workers who came back to Bangladesh due to COVID-19. The survey found 50% of the workers took loan to repay old debts or to start a small business at home (Source: Daily Prothom Alo,March 10,2021).

Moreover, there are little signs that things will go back to pre-COVID-19 days pretty soon, hinting lower oil demand years down the line and delaying new recruitment in Saudi Arabia.

So it is not clear when we are going to take advantage of the new change. Not pretty sooner. Those came back home are already debt-stricken and newer ones await revival of Saudi economy.

The UK court verdict casts some shadow too. As per EU ship recycling regulation, EU flag-carrying ships are being dismantled in EU-listed 26 yards from December 31,2018 in a bid to ensure greener and safer scrapingSource: https://ec.europa.eu/info ). None of the Bangladeshi yards are included in that list. As Britain unhooked itself from EU, it fell outside from that obligation. But this latest verdict will make British ship owners think twice before selling their old junks to Bangladeshi yards. Because in any bad event they have to pay huge fines and compensation. So they may prefer to sell their ships to third parties to shirk their responsibility. Or go for the EU-listed yards that are less prone to accidents.

Bangladeshi yards have been getting few or no old EU vessels to scrap from 2019. UK verdict now makes it harder to get old British vessels to scrap. Bad news for scrap metal and construction industry.

Despite the hope the two developments generate, it is less likely that they will bring any significant improvements in remittance earning, protecting workers and shipbreaking industry.