Safety,Suffering

and the Profit: The case of

Garments and Textile

Anu Muhammad Anisur Rahman

Hamburg. November 30, 2015

Occupational safety and health

• Occupational safety and health (OSH) also

commonly referred to asoccupational health and safety (OHS) or work place health and safety (WHS) is an area concerned with the safety, health and welfare of people engaged in work or employment.

• The goals of occupational safety and health programs include to foster a safe and healthy work environment.OSH may also protect co-workers, family members, employers, customers, and many others who might be affected by the workplace environment.

WHO defines..

• “Occupational health deals with all aspects of health and safety in the workplace and has a strong focus on primary prevention of hazards.“

• Health has been defined as "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity."

• Occupational health is a multidisciplinary field of healthcareconcerned with enabling an individual to undertake their occupation, in the way that causes least harm to their health.

• Health has been defined as It contrasts, for example, with the promotion of health and safety at work, which is concerned with preventing harm from any incidental hazards, arising in the workplace.

ILO/WHO Joint stand

• First in 1950 and revised in 1995. The definition reads:

• "The main focus in occupational health is on three different objectives:

• (i) the maintenance and promotion of workers’ health and working capacity;

• (ii) the improvement of working environment and work to become conducive to safety and health and

• (iii) development of work organizations and working cultures in a direction which supports health and safety at work and in doing so also promotes a positive social climate and smooth operation and may enhance productivity of the undertakings.

• The concept of working culture is intended in this context to mean a reflection of the essential value systems adopted by the undertaking concerned. Such a culture is reflected in practice in the managerial systems, personnel policy, principles for participation, training policies and quality management of the undertaking."

Bangladesh Workers in Numbers

• Agricultural worker: 20

million

• Factory workers: 7.2 million

• Migrant workers: 9 million

• Service sector: 7.4 million

High Profit Low Security

• Economy depends highly on garments

workers, mostly women, and migrant

workers.

• Non-agri Employment: highest in informal

sector, women and children

They are the most vulnerable

Factors lead to injuries,

accidents and deseases

• Not recording and/or reporting work-related accidents, injuries and diseases.

• Failing to provide adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) and/or training on its use.

• Failing to keep an inventory, or to properly label or store chemicals or hazardous substances.

• Not installing or maintaining guards on dangerous machinery.

• Failing to ensure that the workplace meets standards for temperature, ventilation, noise and lighting.

• Not providing adequate first aid and/or health services.

• Failing to provide adequate toilets, hand-washing facilities or free drinking water.

• Providing worker accommodation that does not meet minimum standards.

• Failing to prepare adequately for emergencies.

• Ignoring torture and abuses by owners.

Revised version of http://bangladesh.smetoolkit.org/south-asia/en/content/en/53241/Occupational-Health-and-Safety

From unhealthy

working environment

• Untime death caused by occupational

unsafety

• Injury

• Torture

• Sexual abuse

• Threat of Retrenchment

• Non payment of arrear.

Vicious cycle

• Mental and physical distress.

• Affects both victims, observer,

witness, even healer

• Affects more than one generation, 1st,

2nd , 3rd generations

• Loss of productivity

• Loss of income

Poster for workers

Under reporting of death and injury

Working place Number of reported

workplace death

Factories including

garments, textiles, rice mill,

steel/rerolling, ship breaking,

brick field, perfume industry

73

Informal sector including day

labourer, shop, resturant,

cleaning, workshop

82

Injury, trauma, suffering NO DATA

Compiled from Safety and Rights Society, 2015

Shipbreaking/ steelmills

• Inhalation of poisonous gas.

• Getting crushed under metal scraps.

• Burnt alive

• Life long injury

• Life long illness.

Hazardous conditions, No unions and safety

equipment.

Factory inspection

• ‘Only three inspectors are engaged in inspecting safety measures at as many as 15,000 factories under Dhaka divisional factory inspection office.

• ‘Only 20 inspectors are deployed to inspect around 50,000 registered factories in the country.

• ‘Of them, four are working at the head office, six at Dhaka divisional office and three at Chittagong, Khulna and Rajshahi divisional offices.’

The Daily Star, February 28, 2006

• ‘A large number of garment factories do not have emergency lights, which can be turned on without electricity during the crisis. This is why the whole factory falls into total darkness during a fire’.

The Daily Star, February 27, 2010

Causes for fatal ‘accidents’

• Faulty structure of factory buildings.

• Weak electrical wiring.

• Lack of fire exits and fire alarms.

• Narrow stair and exit paths.

• No safety protection in hazardous work.

• Lack of training.

• Inadequate or non-existent regulation.

• Lack of monitoring by the relevant government agencies.

• Ignorance or indifference of convenience on the part of global and local owners.

Garment workers Trauma: Fire,

Collapse, Torture, Rape • Since the early 1990s, more than a thousand people, mostly teen aged girls, lost their

lives in different garment factories because of either fire, or collapse of unauthorised factory building, or secret killing by goons or police firing.

• Some factories reportedly kept their gates closed during fire incidents. On 6 January 2005, during a fire at Shaan Knitting and Processing Ltd in Narayanganj, all the gates of the building were kept locked. The incident claimed 23 lives.

• The collapse of a nine-story garment factory building at Savar near Dhaka on April 11 2005 caused more than 100 workers dead and another 100 workers missing.

• Four factory accidents occurred in early 2006, three in Dhaka and one in Chittagong-- leaving at least 192 workers killed and more than 500 injured, many of them became disabled for life.

• On 12 December 2010, police opened fire on garment workers of a factory owned by a South Korean group in Chittagong, Bangladesh, killing at least three. The firing took place during several days of protest in which thousands of workers participated. They were protesting the factory owners’ refusal to pay wage agreed earlier.

• Two days after the police killings, a fire in the Ha-Meem clothing factory in Ashulia near Dhaka killed between 26 and 31 workers and injured at least 100 more.

• Industrial police has been formed, instead of factory inspectors.

Other side: speedy private

accumulation • The corruption accounted for Tk 9,634 crore in 1991-96;

Tk 16,353 crore in 1996-2001; in 2001-06, Tk 42,731 crore, and Tk 152,789 crore in 2009-13. Converted into US dollars at an average exchange rate of the corresponding period, the amounts are, USD$2.4 billion, USD$3.4 billion, USD$6.6 billion and USD$18 billion respectively.

• World Ultra Wealth Report of 2013: in 2013, only 90 persons accumulated wealth of US$15 billion worth. The rate of increase in accumulated wealth in a few hands was more than double of the rate of GDP growth in the last four years.

Bangladesh Garments: Profit and

Disaster

• US$20 billion industry and the largest export

earning sector of the country,

• World’s lowest wages and no job security for its

workers,

• The industry maintains one of the highest profits.

• Inhuman working conditions, low wages, verbal

and physical abuse, irregular or non-payment of

dues and the inability to organize are common

• No monitoring of workers rights and security.

Consequences

• November 23, 2012: Tazreen fire killed

112, missing more.

• April 24, 2013, Rana Plaza disaster killed

more than 1100 workers, injured many

more, missing hundreds.

• No compensation of Rana plaza victims

yet.

Who are responsible?

• Owners of factories, buildings and the BGMEA. No irresponsible owner has ever faced legal action for their wrong doings; BGMEA instead appears as the collective muscle of owners to protect them from the law.

• Relevant government agencies. Even the number of factory inspectors shows the government’s indifference. That has not changed even after the worst disaster. Instead ‘industrial police’ was mobilized to suppress workers agitation demanding wage and security.

• International buyers and brand retailers. Factories often accept abnormally low prices in an effort to attract buyers and grab orders. In turn, and in order to maintain a profit rate, low cost suppliers often avoid safety measures and reduce workers real wage (through increasing working hour, cutting their benefits, not spending on other facilities). This cost cutting behavior deepens the deprivation and vulnerability of workers.

Superprofit at the cost of million

lives • BD garments are sold in supermarkets in NY,

Toronto, Sydney or London….

• 60% of that value can be grabbed by international buyers and brand retailers, and the governments of western importing countries.

• Out of the remaining 40%, the imported and local materials together with the establishment costs take nearly 35%.

• Finally, less than only 1% is left for workers.

Global chain of garments

Workers without protection

• No national minimum wage.

• No trade union in 90% factories, 98%

service sector work

• No government supervision.

• No specific protection for women and

children.

• No media support.

• Owner friendly labour laws.

Root causes for increasing

insecurity Under Neo-liberal phase of capitalism:

• Increasing number of temporary and contract job.

• Increasing number of Environmental/Developmental Refugees.

• Increasing outsourcing and subcontracting.

• Erosion of trade unions.

• Retreat of the state from social responsibility.

• Profit over People and Environment.

• Market or corporate autocracy.

Need public action to claim

• Minimum national wage.

• Trade unions in every work place.

• Labour laws to protect workers rights to job, occupational safety and security.

• Special protection to women and child rights.

• Free and quality public education and health care.

• Institutional supervision to ensure occupational health and safety.

• Compensation with life long value for occupational hazard, death, injury, suffering and trauma.