Workplace safety for construction workers

On 24 June 2023, four construction site workers met gruesome death due to lack of safety standards at the construction sites. According to Bangladesh Workplace Death Report 2020 published by the Safety and Rights Society, 118 construction site workers died in 2020 alone. The reasons for such preventable deaths include electrocution, falling from a height, getting hit by objects, suffocation, etc. This article tries to highlight the rights of construction workers and discuss how these rights are often infringed upon.

In Bangladesh, no specific law exclusively deals with safety of construction workers. However, attention may be given to the following laws– Bangladesh Labour Act, 2006 (BLA), Bangladesh National Building Code, 2006 (BNBC), and Bangladesh Labour Rules, 2015 (BLR). These laws provide guidance for establishing and maintaining a safe work environment, enunciates rules for compensation for death or injury, sets a minimum standard for construction work and design, etc.

Since accidents often happen from construction-related machinery, chapter 6 of BLA prohibits use of defective machinery and mandates their regular monitoring and maintenance. Rule 57 of the BLR further requires employers to pay extra fees for use of dangerous machinery and requires that they provide workers' sufficient safety equipment needed to operate such machineries. Employers cannot make the workers work without providing them with sufficient safety equipment and proper training (section 78A of BLA). Section 75 and rule 64 further highlight the need for eye goggles to prevent eye-related hazards and measures to tackle harmful smoke, respectively.

As basic safety kits are crucial in such hazardous work, section 89 of the BLA mandates that every workplace must have sufficient basic medical aid for its workers. This ensures that certain injuries are swiftly treated, and further injuries are prevented. Rule 76 details exactly which ingredients must be present in such medical aid kits.

Section 19 of the BLA ensures compensation for workers who die or sustain injury at the workplace. The amount will be equivalent to the salary or gratuity of 45 days, whichever is higher, and will be paid to the respective nominee or representative according to the definition given in section 2(30).

Section 34 of BLA prohibits children or teenagers from being employed except in special circumstances. Further, Section 100 specifies that a worker cannot be made to do work for more than 8 hours and 10 hours in special circumstances. Section 74 states that workers cannot be made to lift excessively heavy objects. Despite all these, if workers suffer an injury, chapter 12 of the Act clarifies that the owners must pay compensation unless special circumstances exist, such as when the worker sustains injury either on account of purposely ignoring the safety rules or due to deliberate drunkenness. Section 151 and rule 134 further fix the amount of compensation.

Despite such legal safeguards, the reality is quite grim. According to a survey by Bangladesh Occupational Safety, Health and Environment Foundation, around 228 people suffered work-place related injuries in 2022 alone. The first reason for this high number of accidents is that employers often ignore applicable legal standards and compel workers to work in unsafe conditions. For instance, owners often ignore the standard procedure enunciated in rule 58 of BLR regarding preventing electrocution, which is a primary reason behind deaths of workers at the construction sites. Due to the hardship of getting actual remedies and power disparity with the owners, the workers often stay quiet or settle for lower compensation than what is required by law. Ignorance regarding such rights and economic hardships further means that workers are less likely to bring actions against the owners.

All in all, the current state of the rights of construction workers can be deemed to be a violation of the constitutional aim of an egalitarian society enshrined under the preamble of the constitution of Bangladesh. It is imperative that such rights are not only iterated in laws but also enforced. The government must undertake stricter policies to ensure greater enforceability and compliance with laws in order to overcome this continuous gross violation of labor rights.

The writer is an Intern, Law Desk, The Daily Star.