Safety standards lacking in most Lankan factories
Recent incidents like the horrifying deaths of five workers from ammonia inhalation at a Horana rubber factory and two others at a spices factory at Dambulla also due to poisonous gases, are due to lack of proper safety and health standards.
Raising these concerns, Ms. Simrin Singh, Director, ILO Country Office for Sri Lanka and the Maldives, also said that there is no proper mechanism available in the country where occupational safety and health (OSH) is concerned.
She was speaking at a workshop on “World day for Safety and Health at Work – ‘Improving the safety and health of young workers” held last week at the Galadari Hotel Colombo.
This year’s campaign focusses on improving the safety and health of young workers and is part of a joint campaign linked with the 2018 World Day against Child Labour on June 12 to focus on hazardous child labour.
She said that the news of these tragedies should bring the issues of health and safety of workers to the forefront and indicated that these worker deaths have brought the working conditions in the factories across the country under scrutiny and spotlight and stressed the importance of improving OSH for young workers.
Ms. Singh said that OSH for young workers has two benefits: Creating safe and healthy workplaces that meet the needs of young workers, and reducing the number of children engaged in hazardous child labour.
Young workers are identified as those between the ages of 18 and 24 years and ILO statistics show that they suffer much higher rates of non-fatal occupational injuries than adults. In the EU countries it is 40 per cent higher and in the US it is double the amount.
Employers-formal and informal enterprises, and family businesses, need guidance on the risk factors to young workers. It is also essential that young workers are to be able to exercise their rights and voice their concerns.
Many countries are making significant investments in young people’s employment, education, training, skills development and job creation. It is critically important to include occupational safety and health (OSH) in these programmes.
Some trade unionists present at the forum told the ‘Business Times’ (BT) that the Labour Department is one place infested with bribery and corruption where decisions against the workers could be manipulated.
During the discussion, Leon Joseph, Secretary, National Free Trade Union pointed out that in one incident there were 350 workers taken to hospital, 100 were treated in-house, three were treated in the intensive care and one died.
Mysteriously, the medical officer who held the post-mortem on the death of the worker ruled that the death was due to natural causes, but when the family of the worker protested and a second post-mortem was held, a completely different verdict was returned.
This shows the extent of corruption and even such professionals like medical officers could be influenced. Mr Joseph said that most of the employers do not want to reveal these accidents and in many instances they try to hide them as they are usually caused due to their negligence.
Making a comment, Tissa Jayaweera, Managing Partner, TJ Associates stated that the biggest fault in this country is education and as though this country boasts that it is a country of 98 per cent literate, it doesn’t reflect that the people are educated.
He said: “That is where the industrial safety and health comes in. If people are educated on the importance of their own life we will have less accidents”. He said that all available data on these issues in the Health Ministry, etc should be published as such data can be used to educate people of the importance of protecting themselves.
The presentations followed a ‘Panel Discussion on the multidimensional approach to improving occupational safety and health for young workers” moderated by Ms. Simrin.
Ananda Wimalaweera, Commissioner General of Labour conceded that though the Labour Department is responsible to enforce the legislation with regard to the industrial accidents, the complaints made by the people that his ministry is inactive is true. He said that they do not have sufficient factory inspection engineering officers, though they receive many complaints from all over the country.