Contractual employees and workers of the Bangladesh Railway have blocked the rail line at the FDC Rail Gate signal near Karwan Bazar in the capital, halting train communication with the rest of the country.

The agitating workers blocked the rail line around 10am on Sunday protesting against the outsourcing of workers, confirmed Apurbo Hasan, officer-in-charge of Tejgaon police station.

They have been making demands for permanent employment and the regularisation of their jobs.

All trains on Dhaka routes have been halted, said Railways Additional Director General (operation) Sardar Shahadat Ali. 

"We are going there to negotiate with the workers," he added.

Earlier in July, some 8,000 temporary workers of Bangladesh Railway lost their jobs despite an acute manpower shortage in the state-run rail transport agency, citing that there is no allocation for them in the budget of FY24.

The railway currently has about 25,000 employees against approval for the recruitment of 47,637 manpower. That means about 22,000 posts remain vacant in the state agency.

Due to manpower shortage, the railway has been running its operation for a long time with temporary recruitment of fifth-class employees on a Temporary Labor Recruitment (TLR) (no work, no wage) basis.

According to Railway data, more than 8,000 temporary workers have been working in various positions including Gatekeeper, P-Man, Wayman, and Khalasi for a long time. Their wages on a daily basis range from Tk500-575.

Ignoring the High Court orders on multiple writ petitions to regularise jobs of 1,000 TLR employees, Bangladesh Railway is going to appoint temporary workers by outsourcing instead of regularising long-term temporary employees. 

Temporary employees who have been working for 3 to 10 years in the railway become angry about this. 

Leaders of these temporary workers said the railway is not regulating these temporary workers even after working continuously for long. Rather it issued a circular for fresh recruitment in the post.

The railway authorities say the non-cadre recruitment policy of the Bangladesh Railway in 2020 does not allow the workers appointed under projects to be regularised in the revenue sector. 

The Railway Recruitment Rules-2020 envisage outsourcing (contractual) for temporary workers' recruitment. Under the outsourcing method, workers will be employed through contractors so that later they cannot demand job regularisation.