Health service, workplace safety legal rights of workers: Law minister

Health service and safety at the workplace are the legal rights of labourers and there is no alternative to ensuring a safe work environment in implementing their rights, said Law, Justice, and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Anisul Huq on Friday.

"The issue of compliance with safety rules at the workplace, ensuring a safe work environment has become very important worldwide in the recent time to ensure sustainable development," he was addressing a discussion at Osmani Memorial Auditorium, marking National Occupational Health and Safety Day.

Ensuring occupational safety in factories and other workplaces is no longer limited to the whims of the government or factory owners. Ensuring a pleasant work environment has now become the responsibility of the factory owners, the minister added.

Emphasising occupational health and safety, he further said concerned workplaces have to be safe and pleasant for the labourers as per the country's labour acts and regulations, and it is internationally recognised.

State Minister for Labour and Employment Begum Monnujan Sufian also spoke at the event, organised by the Ministry of Labour and Employment.

Begum Monnujan Sufian said the present government has started the work to include all the labourers working in the country's institutional and non-institutional sectors in a database under the Bangladesh Labour Information Management System project.

"We have taken the initiative of introducing universal pension for all the labourers. We have taken the initiative to amend the Bangladesh Labour Law afresh for the safety of labourers. This amended labour law will also be effective in the economic zones," she added.

However, labour rights organisations alleged that the government has not taken any initiative to ensure the safety of workers in the transport, construction, agriculture, day labourers, steel, shipwreck, and stone quarry sectors. Moreover, the government does not have any specific data about those sectors in the country.

Such unwanted deaths are happening due to various limitations of the monitoring agencies, negligence of the owners, lack of awareness of the labourers, lack of proper implementation of labour laws, and weakness of these laws, they added.

Inspector General of the Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments Md Nasir Uddin Ahmed, Directorate General of Department of Labour Khaled Mamun Chowdhury, Head of Cooperation of Canadian High Commission in Dhaka Joe Goodings, and ILO Country Director Tuomo Poutiainen spoke at the event.

Although many initiatives have been taken to ensure occupational safety and a quality work environment, many workplaces still remain unsafe in the country.

In the last two decades, new employment opportunities have been created on a large scale with the boom of industries.  But the number of accidental deaths at workplaces is constantly increasing.

After analysing data from the last 10 years, the Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies (BILS) and the Safety and Rights Society are giving alarming information. According to BILS, a total of 1,053 workers lost their lives and 594 were injured in various workplaces in the country last year. 834 people were killed in 2021 and 433 people lost their lives in workplace accidents in 2020.

The Safety and Rights Society reports 732 workplace deaths in 2022. In 2021, this number was 538 people. In 2020, the organisation has given information about 433 workers who lost their lives. A total of 5,612 workers have lost their lives in the workplace in the last 10 years.

Labour rights organisations said along with effective enforcement of laws, awareness raising among employers and labourers is essential in order to create a safe environment in the workplace.