On September 14, 2023, a fire gutted hundreds of shops in an agricultural market in the Mohammadpur area of Dhaka. On April 4 of the same year, a massive fire destroyed thousands of garment stores in Bangabazar in the same city. Just about a month earlier, on March 7, there was an explosion in a seven-story commercial building that killed more than 15 people and injured more than 100 in the Gulistan area, again in the same city. This is but a partial list of explosions, fires, building collapses and other disasters in just one city of Bangladesh in one year. These incidents, however, constitute a small part of a much bigger story. A long and tragic saga of such disasters has plagued the country for over the last two decades.
The most horrific among these disasters was the Rana Plaza building collapse in Savar in April 2013, which took over 1,130 lives. Other disasters of note include the Nimtoli fire in Old Dhaka in 2010, Tazreen Fashions factory fire in 2012 in Ashulia, the Tampaco Foils packaging factory explosion near Dhaka in 2016, the FR Tower fire in Banani, Dhaka in 2019, the fire in Bogiahata, Khulna in May 2020, the fire at the Hashem Foods and Beverage factory in Narayanganj in June 2021 and the explosion at a container depot in Sitakundu, Chittagong in June 2022.
The above account still does not include road accidents. A lot has been written about such accidents and the general subject of transportation safety. This article limits itself to a discussion of the other types of accidents mentioned above, which can be broadly categorized as workplace disasters.
After every workplace disaster, the media, workers’ rights groups, politicians and others cry foul and blame the business owner for poor compliance with, and the government for lax enforcement of, safety regulations. Although some of these incidents could be called pure accidents or “acts of God,” an overwhelming majority were clearly man-made disasters -- caused by corruption, lack of accountability, and other ills of what might be called a “culture of misgovernance.”
Sometimes some actions, including arrests and imprisonment, are taken against the owners and management of the impacted business facility. After some time, all is forgotten and we return to business-as-usual. Then, soon after, we are hit again with another disaster and the whole cycle is repeated. Can we make some progress toward making our workplaces safe, where workers toil tirelessly on survival wages and yet have managed to achieve for us the much-vaunted “development,” only to be smoked, roasted, or crushed to death when disaster hits? The answer to the above question needs to be an emphatic “yes.” Any other answer would be unconscionable, to say the least.
Exploring ways to improve safety and one success story
Before we explore ways to improve the safety of our workplaces, it would be helpful to find examples of success, if any, on this score. Surprisingly, we do have one industry in Bangladesh that has purportedly achieved a decent level of workplace safety, namely the readymade garment (RMG) industry. It might be instructive to trace the history of the RMG industry with regard to its response to workplace hazards and achievement of workplace safety goals.
The spate of workplace accidents until 2013 was building up an understandable sense of outrage among labour unions, workers’ rights groups, NGOs, public safety advocates and the general citizenry in Bangladesh, as well as in the rest of the world. The horrific Rana Plaza building collapse triggered a world-wide effort to protect workers against workplace hazards. The Clean Clothes Campaign, Worker Rights Consortium, International Labour Rights Forum, the Maquilla Solidarity Network, the GIZ Agency and IndustriALL (a global trade union federation) began forming a program to build a broad-based compact among all stakeholders for workplace safety. These efforts led to the issuance on May 5, 2013 of the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh.
The 2013 Accord was updated in 2018. In June 2020, the in-country operations of the Accord transitioned to the RMG Sustainability Council (RSC). The constituent members of the RSC include the Accord signatory brands and unions, the BGMEA (Bangladesh Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association) and the BKMEA (Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association). On August 25, 2021, a new agreement was signed which extended the Accord for another two years.
The 2013 Accord set down a number of safety goals and tasks for the covered companies and factories. They include inspections to identify safety hazards, maintenance of safe workplace environments, safety training programs for workers, education of workers of their rights under the Accord, the setting up of a complaint management process and the setting up of safety committees in all factories. These goals and tasks have been carried forward in subsequent iterations of the Accord and were included in the 2021 extension. According to a report by the RSC, there have been significant accomplishments of safety goals under the Accord in the RMG industry.
As the example of the RMG industry shows, it is possible to achieve a reasonable level of workplace safety even in Bangladesh in spite of all the systemic flaws like corruption, incompetence and lack of accountability. It needs to be noted, however, that this achievement was made possible by the involvement of international importers of RMG products and the funding they provided to build and implement safety programs in their supplier factories. We also must appreciate the contributions of the RMG suppliers themselves, trade unions and workers’ rights groups for achieving a decent level of workplace safety.
Can the safety achievements in the garment industry be replicated in other industries?
Now, the question may be asked whether the safety achievements in the RMG industry can be replicated in other industries by using the same methods and processes that were used in the former. A little thought can tell us that the answer is going to be in the negative. The economic and political incentives that worked on the different partners and stakeholders of the Safety Accord are simply absent for other industries in Bangladesh. The importers of RMG products were pressured into funding safety programs by international trade unions, workers’ rights groups and public safety advocates. The RMG manufacturers in Bangladesh would not have participated in the Accord in the absence of funding from their international importers.
Building a culture of safety to prevent and mitigate workplace hazards
Therefore, for industries other than the RMG, the safety model represented by the Accord may not work in Bangladesh, and alternatives need to be explored. One such alternative model, that has worked in a lot of countries in the developed world, is the so-called “culture of safety” (or “safety culture”). Unlike other uses of the word “culture” (note the phrase “culture of misgovernance” used in a preceding section of this article), which has essentially become a vacuous cliché in our public discourse, the safety culture stands for something substantive and concrete. It has been built and practiced in many organizations, business establishments and production facilities over the last four decades in developed countries and has served as the major bulwark for safety above and beyond the mere enactment and enforcement of safety regulations.
To gain a clear understanding of how a safety culture would look like in a real-life situation, let us imagine how it would have worked at the Hashem Foods plant in Narayanganj. If the company had a well-functioning safety culture, it would have two basic components: (1) A well-designed fire protection program and (2) engagement of all stakeholders -- owners, management and workers in the program with a strong commitment to its success.
The first component of the safety culture would be the fire protection program consisting of four elements: Prevention, mitigation, evacuation and medical assistance. Prevention would consist of compliance with fire safety codes in the design and construction of buildings and facilities, restrictions on storage of flammable materials, etc. Mitigation would consist of installing smoke detectors and fire extinguishers on every floor, a fire control procedure, and its execution when any smoke or fire is detected. It would also include calling the fire service and public emergency services at the initiation of a fire incident. Evacuation operations would include leading all occupants away from the danger zone to a safe location when smoke is detected anywhere in the plant for the first time and even before the fire service is able to reach the affected facility.
The evacuation plan also would include building a sufficient number of fire exits in the facility and a protocol for how to use them. Once the fire service arrives at the scene, it would take over the fire control and evacuation procedures. However, if, despite the best efforts of those responsible for fire protection, some occupants were injured, they would be administered with first aid and later moved to a clinic or hospital for full medical treatment. In the unlikely case of any deaths, the dead would also be moved out of the facility and turned over to family members.
The second component of a safety culture is the active engagement of all stakeholders of the company in the fire protection program. The company would form a fire protection committee or team that would include members from among the owners, management, and workers. The team members would work individually and in co-ordination to train themselves and others in fire protection work. There would be periodic drills to practice all the fire protection activities ahead of an actual fire. Most important, the entire effort would be driven by a strong and firm commitment of all stakeholders to make the fire protection program a success.
It is the second component, the active engagement of all stakeholders in the safety of a production facility, that transforms a mere program into a “culture.” The commitment of the owners of the company, who are the de facto leaders of the business enterprise, is extremely important, as underscored by the definition of Safety Culture by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the government agency in the USA responsible for regulating the safety of the country’s 92 nuclear power plants, as “an organization’s values and behaviours -- modeled by its leaders and internalized by its members -- that serve to make nuclear safety an over-riding priority.”
Incentives for stakeholders to develop a safety culture
Are there reasons that might motivate business owners to develop this sense of commitment to the protection of their assets and the safety of their workers? A little reflection shows that the answer to the above question is a clear “yes.”
The first reason would be a better developed sense of ownership of their businesses. People generally want to protect their possessions. It is puzzling why business owners in Bangladesh do not feel a strong need to protect their factories, office buildings, machines, supplies, etc, from fires and other hazards while they would do everything to protect them from intruders and burglars. Is this so because they are unaware or insensitive to the former risk relative to the latter risk? Also, while they feel that they “own” the work products of their workers, this sense of ownership does not extend to the workers’ health and safety. If it did, they could act as stewards of their workers, rather than mere owners. Such a sense of stewardship, combined with a better awareness of risks of workplace hazards, would go a long way toward developing a culture of safety for their businesses.
A second reason is that business owners need to see themselves and to be seen by others as caring and responsible citizens of the country. The concept of “corporate citizenship” has taken hold in much of the developed world. As Bangladesh graduates into the world of middle-income countries, its businesses need to bring themselves up to the times and make themselves good corporate citizens. Many businesses in Bangladesh are already acting as good corporate citizens when they donate to charitable causes, engage in philanthropic activities, and even provide free education to their workers’ children. They can augment their corporate citizenship efforts by committing to build a safety culture for their businesses.
A third reason, if not the most important reason, for business owners is that it is better for their bottom lines -- there is a business case for cultivating a safety culture. A well-functioning safety culture can help a business in many ways. A safe and secure workplace can make the workers more productive. A company’s reputation for safety can attract better qualified and more competent workers. A safe facility can save the business the costs of compensating workers that are injured and the families of those that are killed. Moreover, when a business facility is incinerated, collapses, or razed to the ground, the owner needs to rebuild or repair the facility at great expense. The facility can also close down and cease production which results in foregone revenues. Finally, the loss of reputation from an accident also can get translated into foregone earnings as the business loses customers and finds it difficult to build a new customer base. So, if business owners are not persuaded by moral, altruistic or patriotic reasons to invest in safety programs, they might consider business reasons for doing so.
The business owners are not the only parties that need to actively engage in building a safety culture. All organizations and entities that have a stake in the safety of business facilities need to be part of any effort to build a safety culture in Bangladesh. Such organizations include labour unions, chambers of commerce and most important, government agencies responsible for enforcement of safety regulations. Labour unions, as advocates of workers’ rights and welfare, can be expected to have a strong interest in building a safety culture to protect workers in all factories. One can expect chambers of commerce, as custodians of business interests, to promote a safety culture among its membership. Government agencies entrusted to enforce safety regulations can benefit from building a pro-active safety culture in their own organizations rather than dealing with their responsibilities just as a legal obligation. It can make their safety enforcement work a lot easier.
Final thoughts
Finally, individual stakeholders in workplace safety can come together and collaborate in a nation-wide effort to build a safety culture for the whole country. The government, if it chooses to, can lead this nation-wide effort, instead of playing defense against safety advocates in an adversarial role. If we are able to build a safety culture, and most, if not all, of our workplace safety goals can be accomplished, Bangladesh will be on its way to move beyond the notions of accountability and compliance to an ethic of commitment and concern for the safety of workers and the general public.
M Harun uz Zaman is based in Columbus, Ohio, USA, and is a nuclear engineer with specialization in electric power system safety. His expertise and interests include energy policy and economics.