Occupational hazards - October 2021

THE RANA Plaza building collapse was a tragedy which signalled a step-change in the protection offered to workers in garment factories.

A significant amount has happened in the eight-and-a-half years since that awful day on 24 April 2013 when 1,134 people lost their lives and about 2,500 more suffered injuries, many of them life-altering.

However, we still can’t say that health and safety standards and working conditions are as good as they can be. Sadly, we know that thousands of people are killed at work in Bangladesh alone every year, with many more dying from work-related diseases across all sectors. And millions are left with disabilities because of injuries suffered at work.

So, more needs to be done to ensure people working in such factories and in poor and unsafe working conditions can return home to their families at the end of every day without being placed at risk of serious harm.

That is why we are encouraged to see an agreement reached to strengthen and expand a pact that was signed by many leading brands and organisations to protect workers in Bangladesh’s garment and textile factories following the Rana Plaza disaster.

The new International Accord for Health and Safety came into force at the beginning of September and continues legally-binding commitments to workplace safety in Bangladesh and promises to expand the program to other countries.

It replaces the former Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety, which was created following the Rana Plaza factory collapse in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The new pact covers other countries and more general health and safety, rather than just fire and building safety, and address human rights due diligence.

Some of the key new features that the proposed International Accord enact from an occupational safety and health standpoint include:

• broadening the coverage to general health and safety, rather than only fire and building safety;

• a commitment to focus on the health and safety program in Bangladesh through the independent RMG Sustainability Council (RSC), and on building a credible industry wide compliance and accountability mechanism;

• a commitment to expand the work of the International Accord to other garment-producing countries through the development of feasibility studies;

• an option to expand the scope of the agreement to address human rights due diligence along the brands’ global supply chains.

This expanded pact has the potential to make a real difference on the ground by protecting many thousands of people who suffer poor working conditions. It provides a win-win scenario, with it protecting workers and allowing companies to be able to build on a more structured infrastructure of corporate governance and responsibility that could prove to be life-saving. It is imperative that all stakeholders continue to learn from lessons and build on progress to improve worker safety in the garment sector.

Up to 200 retailers signed the initial Accord and IOSH is encouraging businesses to join this collective effort to safeguard workers. If they do so, we are confident we can keep seeing improvements made in this area, building on the successes already achieved.

Among those successes a health and safety training scheme aimed at enhancing standards in industries such as garment production, ship-breaking and construction as well as within communities. This has seen thousands of people trained up via dedicated workshops, focusing on topics such as labour law, the role of safety committees, hygiene in the workplace and domestic and workplace violence. 

On top of this, there is now more scrutiny than ever on the way organisations conduct their business (i.e., social responsibility), including how they look after not only their own staff but how they ensure health and safety arrangements across their supply chain.

This has now become key for investors, while customers are also very conscious of the conditions their goods and products are made in, so there is real pressure on firms to get it right. Those which do have such a people-centred focus are setting themselves up well for the future, while those that don’t risk being left behind.

In addition, we have seen the introduction of ISO 20400 (sustainable procurement guide), which helps businesses ensure socially-responsible procurement, while ISO 45001, the international occupational health and safety management standard requires businesses to have processes to control the outsourcing and procurement of products and services to ensure their conformity to it.

Improvements have been made, but there is still some way to go for the protection of workers’ health and safety, the prevention of occupational deaths, injuries and diseases, improved labour rights and decent working conditions. And we hope to see action continue across Governments, policymakers, and businesses to ensure all workers are protected, no matter where they work. 

Ruth Wilkinson is head of health and safety at the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health. For more information, visit www.iosh.com