BILS-OSHE

A national conference on ‘Occupational Health and Safety’ was held on February 01, 2006 at Press Institute of Bangladesh (PIB), Dhaka. The conference was inaugurated by Dr. Khandakar Mosharraf Hossain MP, Health and Family Welfare Minister as Chief Guest highlighted the theme `Safe workplace protects life and ensures productivity, which added a new dimension of emphasizing OHS issue. A total of 100 participants were present in the conference. The speakers addressed about the Occupational Safety and Health problems in Bangladesh.

The Health Minister said, no industry can gain expected result by only giving emphasis on working hour, they must have to ensure workers health, safety and security. Most of the factories do not have minimum health check-up system, but it is very much necessary to increase productivity.

The National Conference was a successful project-launching event where the participations were from representatives of government, non-government offices, civil society, and trade unions. Manjur Elahi, President of Employers Federation and former Advisor of Caretaker Government spoke in the conference as Special Guest, while BILS Acting Chairman and Whip of National Parliament Md. Ashraf Hossain MP, electronic and printing media and other civil society contributed to formulate recommendations on OHS.

Mentioning the recent accidents in the factories, Manjur Elahi said the situation is deteriorating day by day and immediate action should be taken to stop it. He said, this kind of accident not only kills or injures workers, it also make the society unstable. The gap between workers and employers needs to be reduced to ensure a better workplace and better productivity, he said. Manjur Elahi, on behalf of Employers Federation expressed his desire to work together with BILS to bridge the gap.

Md. Ashraf Hossain has said that we need to enact new laws to end the situation. Mentioning the minimum compensation given by the employers to the victim of accidents he said, this compensation is not enou gh for a family of a worker who died in the accident. As the employers are appointing the labor officers in the factories they always protect the interests of them, not the workers’, he said.

The inaugural session was also addressed by Md. Zafrul Hasan, Acting Secretary General of BILS and Dr. Wajedul Islam Khan, Coordinator of the Sramik Karmachari Oikkiya Parishad (SKOP). The Acting Chairman of BILS Chaired the inaugural session.

The conference news got wide coverage in national printing and electronic media. See Annex 1 for news coverage by printing media.

Later a plenary session followed by the workshop with the direct involvement of safety group members and 4 factories workers were held in the conference to finalize the action plan for next one-year campaign and other activities on OHS.

The following recommendations are made in the conference:

-	To prepare a national Occupational Health and safety Policy/profile covering the legal OSH framework and OSH situation in the key economics sectors in Bangladesh;
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-	To establish a national safety committee and the safety committee at every work places;
.	.
-	Corrective measure for labor law by routine overseeing of Labor Inspection Department and to ensure transparency and accountability of Labor Inspectors;
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-	Recommendation for improvement of the legislation, the implementation and enforcement in providing righteousness compensation for labor accidents;

-	To reduce the gap between workers and employers ensuring a better workplace and better productivity; and

-	Conduct a series of awareness raising activities on OSH among workers and trade union leaders.

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