A labor court in Bangladesh has convicted Nobel Peace Laureate Muhammad Yunus and three of his associates from Grameen Telecom— a company Yunus founded— for violating national labor laws. In a decision given on Monday, each party was sentenced to a six-month jail term, though bail was immediately granted pending an appeal.
Yunus was honored with the Nobel Peace Laureate for his role in poverty eradication through the institution of the Grameen Bank in 1976. This bank initiated the concept of microcredit organizations, offering micro-loans without requiring collateral. Yunus also established Grameen Telecom in 1997, with the aim of improving telecommunication services in rural areas via the Village Phone Programme. It is this latter organization that is the focus of the charges against Yunus and his three associates.
The criminal suit, prosecuted by the Department of Inspection of Factories and Establishments (DIFE), claims that 67 employees should have been granted permanent status under Section 4 (7) (8) of the Bangladesh Labour Act of 2006. Grameen Telecom countered that the employees were hired on a three-year renewable contract basis, following their business operations. Notably, the organization mentioned its three-year contracts with Nokia Care and Huawei Care for the Village Phone Programme.
The DIFE further argued that Grameen Telecom neglected to contribute 5 percent of its profits to Workers Participation Funds and Welfare Funds (WPPF) per Section 234 of the Labour Act. As part of its defense, Grameen Telecom referenced its not-for-profit status as per Section 28 of the Bangladesh Companies Act of 1994, asserting that profits are reinvested for social goals and not distributable. According to the telecom company, its employees have been aware of this fact and have not demanded the 5 percent WPPF for over a decade.
In the ruling, Sheikh Merina Sultana, the head of the Third Labor Court of Dhaka, affirmed the arguments put forth by DIFE, leading to the guilty verdict against Yunus and his counterparts.
In response, Grameen Telecom stated that the criminal charges against Yunus and his associates— non-executive board members without proprietary interest in company operations— demonstrate an apparent effort to cause them distress. It underlined the existence of civil remedies within the Labour Act, which employees could use to pursue legal recourse against the company for any alleged discrepancies.
Furthermore, Amnesty International condemned the ruling as a “blatant abuse of labour laws and the justice system,” associating it with Yunus’s work and political dissent. In August, a group of laureates, including Barack Obama, penned an open letter demanding an end to what they perceive as judicial harassment.