Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) is a new phenomenon in Bangladesh.
The OHS culture was absent during the colonial phase, even during the rule of West Pakistan.
Most importantly, there are no excellent OHS organizations in Bangladesh and not enough experts who know how to create good OHS policies for the country.
Bangladesh is densely populated, and its manufacturing centres are growing exponentially.
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Unfortunately, the government did not consider protecting most informal industries, such as clothing, transportation, shipbuilding, construction, agriculture and even domestic ones. As a result, ordinary citizens and workers are at risk, with many facing severe injuries and dying regularly.
While estimating the economic burden of work injury and disease can help policymakers prioritize occupational health and safety policies and interventions to allocate scarce resources, in Bangladesh, this process is absent. Therefore, in several of my studies, I have made an appeal to the government to estimate these economic burdens at the national level.
However, most have not included a comprehensive list of cost components, and none have attempted to implement a standard approach across several informal industries in Bangladesh.
This article aims to develop a guideline for creating an industrial society by estimating the economic burden that the nation experiences due to work injuries, diseases and deaths.
Rana Plaza was one of the deadliest industrial accidents in the history of the manufacturing industry, which can be referred to understand the current OHS status of the country.
Rana Plaza collapse was due to faulty raw materials and not following proper building codes, and the building was illegally used as an RMG factory, exposing the lack of OHS regulation of the major informal industries in Bangladesh.
After the Rana Plaza incident in 2013, the ILO and international clothing retailers and consumers, trade unions and human rights activists in Bangladesh, Western and European countries have raised concerns and called for the appropriate monitoring role in the RMG sector. As a result, two private agencies, i.e European brands and the USA brand, led to the creation of Accord and Alliance.
The Accord and the Alliance have taken a security program to monitor whether national and international labour standards are maintained at RMG factories. However, despite some positive changes in the RMG sector of OHS practices and factory compliances, these two international agencies left Bangladesh before finishing their set tasks.
With such a significant effort in OHS regulations, it was expected that the Government of Bangladesh and other organizations such as Bangladesh Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), Bangladesh Employers Federation (BEF) and others would pop up with a more responsible move towards OHS practices and regulations; however, this has not happened so far.
Current scenario
Due to inadequate or no OHS practices and regulations, despite a high hope of seeing non-fatal industrial and workplace injuries and deaths, the overall OHS situation has remained almost the same as before the Rana Plaza incident.
For example, the FR Tower fire on 28 March 2019 in the commercial Banani area of Dhaka, Hashem Food and Beverage Limited, fire on 8 July 2021 in Rupganj, an industrial city about 25 kilometres east of Dhaka, and another fire broke out at the BM container depot in Sitakunda, Chittagong district, on 4 June 2022. These three fatal incidents killed at least 120 innocent workers.
Surprisingly, another fire, not at a factory or corporate office, killed at least 40 passengers and injured 70 on a ferry in Bangladesh. The incident occurred on 24 December 2021 on MV Abhijan 10 in the early morning hours on the banks of the Sugandha River adjacent to the rural town of Jhalakathi, 250 km south of the capital Dhaka.
On 3 June 2010, at least 124 people died in a massive fire that broke out in a chemical warehouse in Nimtali, Old Dhaka. Initially, the fire spread from a cylinder explosion in the restaurant on the ground floor of the building; from there, the plastic factory caught fire, located near the incident place.
However, these are only a few fatal incidents among so many others. It is challenging to trace out all the incidents' history and background and the outcome of the trial process of those criminals responsible for making all these incidents and killing people.
According to the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), some striking issues are mainly responsible for all these fatal incidents in Bangladesh's factories and workplaces: (a) criminal negligence on the part of the factory owner created fatal working conditions, (b) companies'ignorance of health, safety and fire regulations, (c) inadequate factory inspections identified lethal work conditions and (d) the prevalence of child labour in factories violates ILO Convention 138,the fundamental principles of rights at work, and the human rights convention of the UN.
My analysis indicates that creating an OHS culture is essential to prevent injuries and deaths at the workplace and in other areas of social life. So, OHS culture is very significant for organizations and nations. But, then again, another crucial question is whether the state or organization should have produced good OHS culture or not.
This is the paramount responsibility of the state authority to build up some acts, rules, guidelines and organizations for establishing the OHS culture in a particular state, nation or society. But unfortunately, such initiatives are missing in Bangladesh after 51 years of the nation's independence.
The ILO adopted several rules and regulations for creating OHS culture at the state and organizational level, mainly through C155. However, with the growing need, many states and organizations worldwide have shown interest in enhancing the safety culture. A safety culture can reduce the risk of being killed and injured and the risk of financial and personal loss to the organization and family.
However, institutional support is significant in reducing the risk of occupational hazards. Australia provides an excellent example of a recent OHS program when discussing institutional empowerment. The government's goal was to build a health and safety infrastructure that included: (a) a responsive and effective regulatory framework, (b) the knowledge and skills of all parties with a role in work health and safety, and (c) robust, evidence-based OHS policies.
According to Hofstede, in high-power distance countries, people make classified empowerment decisions, and, in most cases, subordinates do not have to disagree with hierarchy decisions. This is a significant issue in Bangladesh because a high power distance culture seriously hinders subordinates from taking the proper action in the moment of irregularity.
Yet, because of the classification, perhaps the right decision is not always taken, resulting in corruption and other social problems in Bangladesh. Most importantly, institutional empowerment is absent in Bangladesh, which has been a severe issue in the decision-making process and obstructs getting the best results on unlawful matters and bringing justice against criminals.
Most importantly, the government is not keen enough to stop all these catastrophes by formulating and implementing a proper OHS policy, acts, regulatory framework, and agencies. Moreover, the Bangladesh Government always stands by the side of the employers or capitalist rather than the workers. As a result, the country's growing capitalists are also ignorant of compliance with the National Labour Act 2006 (amended in 2013) and conventions of the United Nations and the ILO. If employers had respected the national labour act and ILO conventions, the situation would have been different today.
DIFE, a factory and industry monitoring agency of the government, is responsible for monitoring Bangladesh's most informal economic sectors. However, DIFE's credibility is another critical issue as it lacks the resources to monitor Bangladesh's vast informal manufacturing sectors with an unqualified, inexperienced, unorganized and limited workforce.
The Labour Act in Bangladesh is not strong enough to protect workers' rights. At the same time, it has made some amendments in the face of pressure from other stakeholders, mainly after the Rana Plaza incident, but its enforcement is problematic. For example, the 2006 Labour Act (amended in 2013) included a section of the OHS. However, its significant flaws still cause others to worry about work risks in the workplace, primarily RMG workers.
However, while the country's regulatory system is weak and does not meet the essential criteria for conducting factory monitoring,the Government of Bangladesh and employers (e.g., RMG employers) are still very ignorant about OHS policy, culture, practice, and proper regulations of most informal industries in Bangladesh.
To regulate most formal and informal industries, the national governments must adopt, ratify, respect and enforce the ILO conventions and their OHS frameworks. However, after 1971, although independent Bangladesh ratified major ILO conventions, conventions relating to OHS, such as C155, C161 and C187, were not ratified yet, which are necessary for the initial guidelines of OHS at the state and organizational levels.
Observations
My analysis and observation suggest that these conventions of the ILO were repealed as the government lacked the political will to see the country with a better OHS culture, practice and control. On the other hand, though Bangladesh ratified seven out of eight fundamental ILO conventions, their respect and proper enforcement is the central issue in Bangladesh.
About industrial society and harmony and why are they important? Industrial harmony refers to an amicable and cooperative agreement on work relations between employers and employees for mutual benefit, creating a healthy industrial society. Industrial harmony deals with the terms of the relationship between management and employees' employment and workplace. Practically, it is a situation where employees and management voluntarily contribute to achieving the organization's goals and objectives.
Furthermore, industrial harmony refers to responsibilities, employment policies, collective bargaining across industries, communication and consultation between the state authority, managers, trade unions and other international organizations such as the ILO.
Moreover, industrial harmony increases labour productivity and improves performance in every sphere of human life, achieving economic growth and improving living standards and quality of life. It creates a peaceful working environment for tolerance, dialogue, and other alternatives (strikes) and a high employee satisfaction level.
Industrial accidents in Bangladesh are not an isolated issue. Instead, it reflects the overall poor performance of the government in OHS regulation of the most informal economic sectors of the nation. Therefore, to avoid future catastrophes in the most informal economic sectors, the government must implement the following:
A political commitment must be made to regulate informal economic industries through adequate and effective OHS policies and legislation. Furthermore, OHS policies and frameworks at both organizational and national levels must be pursued through ratifying, respecting and implementing ILO Conventions (C155, C161 and C187). Also, the government must amend the National Labour Act with practical provisions to punish labour Act violators in Bangladesh.
From an organizational perspective, the government needs to establish a credible monitoring agency (e.g., increase the credibility of DIFE and resources). It is assumed that there are 20000 inspectors required to monitor Bangladesh's vast informal economic sectors adequately, while DIFE has only around 600 actual inspectors/staff). In addition, it is also essential to establish a credible and efficient fire-fighting system in Bangladesh.
The government should receive the necessary technical and policy support from the International Network of Safety and Health Practitioner Organizations (INSHPO) and the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE), two influential bodies that can help the country create better OHS regulations. By collaborating with them, OHS knowledge and capabilities may improve in Bangladesh.
In addition, other developed countries such as Australia can also be good partners for Bangladesh to learn how to manage OHS at the industry, state and national levels. From an OHS experts' point of view, appointing OHS experts and academics from overseas to build the OHS organizations with the support of the ILO, World Bank ADB etc., is a must.
Finally and most importantly, respecting the National Labour Act and the United Nations and ILO conventions to establish human rights, OHS culture and regulations and an industrial society in Bangladesh is also a must.
The author is an Australian academic, human rights activist and OHS expert
