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14 April, 2026The ILO Roadmap was established in 2021 because Bangladesh had serious, documented failures on freedom of association, labour inspection, anti-union discrimination and labour law reform. Years on, trade unions are clear: progress on paper has not translated into meaningful change for workers.
In 2025 Bangladesh took notable steps ratifying three ILO Conventions – C155 on Occupational Safety and Health, C187 on the Promotional Framework for Occupational Safety and Health and C190 on Violence and Harassment – becoming the first in South Asia to do so. For workers who have spent years fighting for recognition, these are hard-won gains.
But ratification is not protection. And for the millions of workers in Bangladesh’s garment factories, export processing zones and beyond, the gap between what the law says and what actually happens on the factory floor remains vast.
The legal limit for union registration is 55 days. Many applications take far longer — in some cases, up to two years. A concern IndustriALL affiliates have raised repeatedly across multiple ILO Governing Body reporting cycles, the “Nothijat” filing system leaves applications suspended in bureaucratic limbo, with no resolution in sight. Workers who try to organize don’t just face delays. They face dismissal, harassment and intimidation.
Of 42 reported cases of anti-union discrimination and unfair labour practices, authorities acted on only eleven. Employers, meanwhile, are allegedly actively promoting yellow unions, company-friendly bodies designed to crowd out genuine worker representation.
In the ready-made garment sector is Bangladesh’s largest export industry, employing millions. And yet not a single collective bargaining agreement was active or concluded during the reporting period. The government’s 18-point tripartite agreement, signed in September 2024 and heralded as a major achievement, was already raising concern among affiliates about uneven implementation across industrial areas. These figures suggest those concerns were well founded.
Ratification without protection
Workplace safety figures tell a similar story. IndustriALL previously raised serious doubts about the credibility of the government’s inspection statistics, questioning whether 441 inspectors could meaningfully conduct the 85 daily inspections the government claimed. The numbers now bear that out: 1,190 workers were killed in workplace accidents in 2025, up from 905 the year before. Despite reforms, safety protections remain dangerously insufficient.
Workers in export processing zones continue to be denied the right to form independent trade unions altogether, restricted instead to Workers’ Welfare Associations that fall short of international standards. Reform of the EPZ framework has been slow and insufficient.
IndustriALL affiliates have consistently called for their recommendations to be taken seriously throughout this process.
Atle Høie, general secretary of IndustriALL, says:
“The new Bangladeshi government has just passed a strong labour code and we have hopes that this indicates a change in values towards workers. But legislative reform alone is not enough. What workers need now is full and effective implementation in practice, backed by stronger enforcement, greater accountability, and real protection against anti-union retaliation. Without these concrete actions, the objectives of the roadmap will remain unfulfilled.”