Ensuring Bangladeshi workers’ wellbeing for their safety and industrial sustainability

As elsewhere in the world, this year also the Occupational Safety and Health Day (OSH Day) will be celebrated across Bangladesh on April 28.

Since 2016, the Government of Bangladesh has been regularly celebrating the Day in close collaboration with the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

The objective of the day is to develop awareness for building a safety culture to reduce accidents and diseases in workplaces.

Occupational safety and health is about protecting lives, preventing harm and ensuring that every worker can carry out their jobs in safety and dignity.

Across Bangladesh, millions of people continue to face unsafe and unhealthy working conditions sustaining injuries, illness or death.

According to the ILO, 395 million workers worldwide sustain non-fatal work injury each year.

In 2022, the ILO declared that a safe and healthy working environment is a fundamental right of workers in workplaces.

Recognising the issue, the Bangladesh government has ratified the OSH-related ILO conventions 155, 187 and 190 in 2025.

The workplace situation is grim enough in Bangladesh. Meanwhile, psychosocial issues are being widely discussed after the Rana Plaza disaster in 2013.

The survivors of the tragedy immensely suffered from psychosocial problems.

The surviving workers are facing tremendous difficulties to continue their jobs. They have been totally traumatised due to the horrible unforgettable life threatening disastrous situation.

Although the government, trade unions, employers, international and national organisations have taken a number of initiatives to cope with the situation, all went in vain. The working environment is not conducive in Bangladesh.

According to the ILO, the psychosocial working environment is defined by how work is designed, organised and managed, and the organisational practices that shape the day-to-day working conditions.

This psychosocial issue again became a concern during COVID-19, affecting our workers’ lives and hampering economic development throughout 2020.

Workers suffered immensely during the period of COVID-19 for continuing their work under the difficult situation. However, these issues are invisible hazards that are difficult to manage.

The 2024 regime change and political mayhem brought these psychosocial concerns back to the forefront.

The situation fully changed the workers’ psychosocial behaviour which impacted the workers’ daily and working life.

The psychosocial factors adversely affected the workers’ safety, health and performance.

We have observed that the psychosocial impact adversely affected the workers’ health and economic stability.

Interestingly, these psychosocial issues are an untouched area especially for the workers who work in the formal and informal sectors across the country.

In Bangladesh, workers in the formal and informal sectors always remain under pressure to meet the production target. Simultaneously, they face challenges for their job security.

Most of the workers live adjacent to their workplaces without their family members isolating them from the family as well as the community. They could not accept them as part of the society.

Women workers are more vulnerable due to their double responsibilities at workplaces and homes leading to fatigue and stress.

Recently, it has been observed that the behaviour of many workers has changed.

They are unable to manage stress and anxiety. Some workers have experienced outbursts or become involved in industrial agitation.

Addressing the psychosocial issues do not remain the issues of individual workers.

It is an urgent necessity for the future of workers’ health and industrial growth.

Additionally, we must look beyond the fire and building safety to address the mental health wellbeing of workers.

After all, safe workplace cannot be built on stress and a fatigued labour force.

For the sake of the future of industry, the OSH management system must integrate the mental health risk assessment and develop the capacity of workers and supervisors to manage the psychosocial issues.

In such a situation, the role of theDepartment of Inspection for Factories and Establishment (DIFE) is important to monitor the mental well-being of workers in workplaces which need to be considered as fundamental requirements of a modern and strong workplace.

The consequences of multiple psychosocial impacts spread beyond the industry and factory gates.

Most of the experts advise that the mental health challenges are the hidden causes of industrial accidents reducing productivity and developing workers’ sickness for a longer period.

Workers suffer much due to stress. As to why, they have to take sick leave time and again.

Moving forward, the OSH management system needs to focus on psychosocial support and conduct regular training to build the capacity of workers to handle them positively in complex situations.

There is an urgency to develop the capacity of the DIFE, employers’ associations, and trade unions to ensure compliance and workplace safety to contribute to the country’s economic growth and sustainability.

From the OSH perspective, it can be mentioned that a healthy psychosocial workplace and environment is not a ‘luxury’ or fashion, but an essential requirement for a productive and sustainable workforce.

By moving forward, it is a necessity to integrate the psychosocial risk assessment in the regular risk assessment process to identify the untold stress before it turns into an accident.

Overall, the government needs to ensure the psychosocial risk assessment conducted by the employers of factory or industry to address the invisible psychosocial hazard aligning with the national standards with the expectations of global ESG (Environment, social and Governance), a rating system of international buyers.

At factory or industry level, strengthening of workers’ voice through safety committees and trade unions’ engagement is an immediate requirement for building safe workplaces.

At the OSH legal framework, Bangladesh needs a fundamental shift to consider a policy reform doing OSH- related legislative expansion of Bangladesh Labour Act.

The OSH national action plan needs to include psychological harm, such as chronic stress and burnout, as compensable occupational diseases.

The Government of Bangladesh has ratified the OSH Convention 155, 187 and 190 which has shown the government’s commitment for ensuring workplace safety. Now is the time to act.

(The writer is Adjunct Faculty, Department of Occupational Health and Environment, Bangladesh University of Health and Sciences)