Yunus has deprived his workers of their rights! How did he do so? By not giving them what they deserved. Let’s unpack that statement.

Firstly, we are not discussing retirement funds, provident funds, gratuities, or other benefits, all of which the workers have enjoyed. Instead, we are talking about “profits” generated by the workers that should be shared with the workers, as stipulated by Bangladesh’s labor laws. These laws contain a progressive provision mandating that 5% of a company’s profits should be distributed among workers in different phases.

I am uncertain about the presence of such a law in other countries, but I can affirm that the United States does not have one. The concept of profit-sharing has only recently been adopted by a small group of companies voluntarily, while activists promote it as a means to reduce income inequality. Very few countries possibly have enshrined such a provision in their laws.

And, as with many other “good” laws in Bangladesh, this provision in the labor law largely exists only on paper and is mostly  ignored by  companies.

Some individuals commented on a previous version of my post that certain multinational companies, some local pharmaceutical companies with foreign investments, and some banks provide workers with a lump sum as a “profit bonus.” They are probably the cream of the crop but that still isn’t what “profit-sharing” is meant by the laws.

In my seven years of professional experience in Bangladesh, spanning three different companies, not a single penny of the company’s profits was shared with me or any of my former colleagues that I knew. After all, it’s a country where union organizers “disappear” in the garment industries. People struggle getting their normal benefits when they retire and sometimes even the basic salaries on a timely basis. How many of you even heard of the “profit-sharing” provision of the law, let alone receiving it from your employer?

Also, note that we are discussing Yunus as an individual. Allegation is about the company, not Yunus. This discussed as if Yunus allegedly denied his workers their rightful share.  Entity in the midst of the dispute is a company, not an individual. Grameen Telecom, a non-profit section 28 company, which, by law, neither Yunus nor anyone, for that matter, owns, and he merely serves as the chairman of its board of directors. He doesn’t even receive a fee or honourium as a chairman or director. Nevertheless, it is Yunus who stands accused of not sharing profits with “his” employees.

But let’s continue.

Around 2017, Grameen Telecom and some of its current and former employees became embroiled in a dispute. Central to this dispute was a 34% share that Grameen Telecom has held in GrameenPhone, Bangladesh’s largest telecom company, since its inception in the ‘90s. The accumulated revenue generated from the profit accrued as dividends from the GrameenPhone stocks over the years now amounts to over a billion dollars. That’s a lot of money.

Grameen Telecom was established with the mandate that its profits would be exclusively spent on charitable works. Look how “foolish” Yunus has been: he brought funds from countries as distant as Europe and established a company for charity without retaining any ownership stake for his family or himself.

 Grameen Telecom is basically an investor. It only had a small business of retailing handsets. It had hard time generating profit in this business. The small number of employees that Telecom had for its own business couldn’t generate income independently. In the ‘90s, they initiated a business selling affordable cellular phones in rural areas, employing 300 staff. But with the explosive growth of the mobile phone retailing that business was closed down

long ago. Telecom employed approximately 60 employees for handset repairing service as an agent of an international company. That business was closed down.

In recent years, these employees have remained as non-revenue generating staff. All of Telecoms income was from dividends from Grameen Phone.

Now, 60 present and some 100 former employees started  demanding 5% of the accumulated profits generated from dividends.? Consider this from a common-sense perspective. Can couple of hundred employees of a company, who do not generate any revenue  to   the company, forget about profit,  claim share of the profit generated by dividends from another company ?

Only in a utopia, perhaps.

The company’s lawyers rejected the demand on the grounds that, by law, non-profit companies like Grameen Telecom can only spend their profits on charitable activities. In my opinion, that’s a very legitimate legal position. This implies that the Telecom’s employees are not merely requesting what they are owed; they are infringing on what rightfully belongs to the beneficiaries of the company’s charitable endeavors.

At this point, it had become a classic lawsuit involving a dispute between a company and its employees. Despite the mounting political pressure Yunus faced, he chose to address it through the channels of the court. If he had been more “clever,” he could have likely settled the dispute for Tk 5-10 crores ($500,000-$1 million), and the matter might not have escalated this far.

Grameen Telecom’s lawyers presented another strong argument: the revenue resulting from the stocks held in GrameenPhone did not belong to the Telecom’s employees. The original profit was generated by GrameenPhone, so if anyone were to deserve it, if at all, it would be the GrameenPhone employees. They got their 5% of profit in Grameen Phone.

The employees, or their representatives and lawyers, should have realized by then that they were likely to lose in a fair court of law. So, they resorted to a desperate, albeit deceptive, strategy. They filed a case before a company court, arguing that since Grameen Telecom no longer operates the business of selling affordable cell phones, it has outlived its purpose and should cease to exist. They applied to dissolve the company itself, and the court took cognizance of this argument.

At that point, it was no longer a matter of what the employees deserved; it was a cheap yet dangerous tactic unrelated to their demands. They understood that Yunus was already under pressure, and their aim was to exert additional pressure to make him cave.

By this time, Grameen Telecom had realized that it was embroiled in a battle whose fate had already been written. Both parties began negotiating outside the court and reached a settlement of Tk 437 crores ($47 million), with each employee receiving approximately Tk 1.5-2 crores ($162,000-$216,000).

Please read the previous sentence once again.

This, my friends, is what the employees of Grameen Telecom may not have deserved but received anyway—something you may not even contemplate rewarding your employees with if you are an employer or dream of receiving from your employer.

How many of you even hope to earn Tk 2 crores in your lifetime from your salaries, let alone receive it as a 5% share of your company’s profits?

After the agreement was reached by all parties involved and sanctioned by the high court, the money was immediately disbursed to a joint account. I even heard accounts that some employees promptly spent the money on purchasing apartments. The case has been settled.

However, the news of a settlement unsettled the government. Realizing that a valuable tool of harassment was slipping from its grasp, the government finally emerged from the shadows and nakedly intervened. The government, supposedly concerned about the well-being of the workers, was now angry that these very workers were content with a settlement that exceeded their expectations, instead of continuing to be pawns by keeping the lawsuit alive.

Stories began to circulate in the partisan media that Yunus had resolved the case against him through “bribes.” The “dues of the workers” you are now so concerned about overnight became “bribes.” The lawyer representing them also allegedly received “bribes,” even though he received a share of the settlement money as per an agreement with his client. A legally-binding contract, sanctioned by one of the highest courts in the land, had overnight become “bribes.” You should commend yourselves for your remarkable political communications skills.

In the meantime, the Detective Branch of the police abducted two of the workers’ leaders involved in the negotiations. I was told of allegations that they were even tortured in custody.

The high court that had approved the settlement ordered, suo moto, the reopening of the very case it had resolved. How marvelously independent your courts are! Cases that had already been dismissed were reopened, while the workers’ leaders who had been previously abducted appeared publicly and offered their “admission” against Yunus. On top of that, a new wave of cases, some involving criminal charges, were filed.

Ironically, one of the recent cases filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) against Yunus involves allegations of “money laundering.” According to the same provision in the labor law, a portion of the 5% profit to be shared with employees should be reserved for an employees’ welfare fund. In this case, it amounted to Tk 26 crores ($2.8 million), which was disbursed to an account controlled by the employees’ union. That money was branded as a “bribe given to the union” in stories, while the ACC is labeling it “money laundering.”

In other words, after paying “the dues” that Yunus was accused of not having paid, those dues have now been labeled as “money that was laundered.” This is what you might call the double-edged sword of justice!

About a year and a half ago, I met Dr. Yunus for the first and only time in my life, along with a journalist colleague. Despite the settlement agreement visibly starting to unravel, he appeared content with it. He dismissed our questions about the potential political implications and said he still wanted to pursue a legal recourse. We were left utterly astounded. “Does this guy even realize the trouble he is in?” I recall asking my colleague afterward.

Since our meeting, the situation has deteriorated to the extent that even a wholehearted optimist like Yunus started to fear the extreme. His friends and well-wishers may have decided to intervene, recognizing that if left to his optimism, it would be too late.

And when global leaders like Barack Obama and a majority of the all living Nobel laureates in the world issued a statement claiming that Yunus was facing judicial harassment, you are now angry that they are criticizing your cherished justice system? Look at you!

Writer: Nazmul Ahasan, English Editor at BenarNews

Source; Collected from Facebook