Saturday, April 20, 2024
Improve safety standards
The safety and health of the workers are perhaps most neglected in our informal labour market, which is largely unregulated and employs about 87 percent of the entire labour force. The wage labourers and other hired labour are the most vulnerable, as they have to face abuse, insufficient wages, or hazardous working conditions—or all three simultaneously. The way they are reduced to mere beings is preposterous. The image has also captured the underbelly of a country aspiring to get into the club of middle-income-countries, with its appalling safety records in areas involving manual labour.
The greed and lack of awareness of the employers also make it difficult to effect changes. The government should pay more attention to improving the work environment and safety standards for the vast community of wage labourers to ensure that they are treated in a manner they deserve as human beings.
This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh