At 8 o'clock in the morning, they sit at Newmarket with whatever they have -- bamboo baskets, crowbars and spades. Some are masons, some carpenters and some painters too. They are up for sale -- at least for the day. They are all waiting for customers to make their pick. The best of them -- the muscled ones -- have already been hired. Now wait the lesser of the lot. Weaklings. Inexperienced. Not the ones that would give the best of menial labour.

Thus the capital's unorganised labour market gets off to a good day. About four to five-lakh labourers gather at some city points to trade their muscle power.

Such markets sit at Kamalapur, Khilgaon, Malibag, Fokirapool, Gulistan, Fulbaria, Shahbagh, Maghbazar, Tejgaon, Mohakhali, Farmgate, Asad Gate, Shyamoli, Kollyanpur, Gabtoli, Mirpur, Shawrapara, Newmarket, Sadarghat, Loharpul, Postagola, Jurain, Jatrabari and Sayedabad.

Between 500 and 5,000 labourers, mainly from Mymensingh, Rangpur, Barisal and erosion-hit areas, gather in these markets every day with the crack of the dawn. The trade is usually complete by 8 o'clock. The leftovers will wait till afternoon in the false hope of getting something, well, anything to get by.

"If we hire them in bunch, we get them cheap," said a dalal (labour contractor) at Newmarket.

One experienced mason or carpenter costs Tk 220 a day and an apprentice gets Tk 120. The head masons or the agents of developers pick the labourers from the lot.

When the deal is done through a middleman, the labourer has to share half his wage as commission with him.

Sometimes, customers directly hire labourers directly from the market.