Article on 3rd anniversary of the fire at two factories where 325 workers were burnt alive
Abbas Haider
Occupational Safety and Health (OHS) has become a focus of workers organizations and media in Pakistan following the two factory fires that resulted in the death of more than 325 workers in September 2012. These accidents were the worst industrial accidents in Pakistan recent history.
The Baldia Factory fire in Karachi is the largest industrial accident in the history of Pakistan, which claimed lives of 259 workers. Investigation reports identified lack of Occupational Safety and Health policies and measures behind this tragedy. Similarly, a series of incidents were reported for the last two years in the industrial area of Baldia S.I.T.E Karachi.
OHS has never been a priority of the governments in Pakistan nor has it been understood and addressed properly by the trade union movement. Education on OHS has remained a weak point of the trade union movement in Pakistan. Although Pakistan has labour laws underlining satisfactory measures to be taken for safe working conditions for workers, the implementation of such laws has been very weak. The factory fires have indicated this grave violation of labour laws by the employers and criminal weakness on part of concerned government departments.
Although much has been written about OHS since the fires none of the reports have been comprehensive. And, the government has so far not considered implementing any of the recommendations of these reports; so, even today occupational hazards and criminal lack of safety measures persist, and the workers of Pakistan face life-threatening conditions at work.
The impact of globalization has been worst on the working class in Pakistan; Health and Safety conditions have declined since 1990 after the impact of globalization. Trade liberalization and privatization policies have led to steady increase in the prices of household goods and services, and this has forced labour to accept poor conditions of work in the formal as well as informal sectors. The policies have also allow the industrial class to hire workers under the third party contract system, where workers are not registered in labour departments to save cost and to seek more profit, which causes worker insecurity and OHS risk. The employees are not entitled to social security schemes and the workers are forced to work for more than 8 hours on lower wages. The congested environment and violation of labour laws causes workers to suffer. According to a Labour Force survey, every day 274 workers are suffering from workplace accidents.
In order to reduce the adverse effects of global trade reforms on occupational health, stronger social protection measures must be built into production and trade activities, including improved recognition, prevention, and management of work-related ill-health.
Abbas Haider is officer in the advocacy project of Pakistan Institute of Labour Education & Research (PILER). He has also been an intern at the AHRC and can be reached at abbas_haider20@hotmail.com.
