Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami’s assistant secretary general Maulana Abdul Halim said that to lead workers, one must first become their servant.
“Workers are friends of Allah, so it is our duty to treat them with respect,” he said at a daylong workshop for Dhaka metropolitan thana-level leaders of the Bangladesh Sramik Kalyan Federation, held at the Institution of Diploma Engineers Bangladesh (IDEB) multipurpose hall in Kakrail on Friday.
Abdul Halim said labor leadership was an important component of the broader Islamic movement. “A leader is never a master — a leader is a servant of the workers. Labor leaders must cultivate ideological qualities,” he said.
He added that the Bangladesh Sramik Kalyan Federation was working to build an Islamic values-based labor leadership as an alternative to secular approaches.
Bangladesh Sramik Kalyan Federation central president Advocate Atiqur Rahman said the organization was founded nearly 57 years ago in an adverse environment and had grown into a “banyan tree” for the country’s workers. “Workers now think of Sramik Kalyan first when it comes to pressing their demands,” he said.
He added: “Just as we fought against autocracy in the past, we are prepared to face any adversity in the pursuit of workers’ rights.”
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report