Confined Employment: Exploring Labor Marginalization in Workplace Safety

Abstract

This chapter argues that Pakistan has never had a bona fide system of occupational safety and health (OSH) laws, policies, standards or enforcement mechanisms (“OSH infrastructure”). Instead, the country’s present OSH infrastructure remains divorced from workers’ most urgent needs and the country’s institutional capacity—effectively leaving workers without protection. This chapter traces the progress of the fire, delineates violations of OSH law and provides an account of the actions and inactions of various actors involved. In doing so, it highlights the gap between the OSH system’s deficiencies and the fatalities they caused; outlining what measures were legally required to prevent such a tragedy but they were not in place. Then, it explores the geneology of these illegalities and accompanying apathies as it traces the history of Pakistan’s OSH infrastructure back to its origins under British colonial rule and contextualises it with the overarching global (politico-economic) order in which the factory fire should perhaps be seen. Thus, it renders visible the historical trajectories and contemporary political and economic factors that have led to workers’ persistent exclusion from the politico-legal sphere, denial of their rights and their dehumanisation—specifically in Pakistan and generally in the Global South. It concludes by identifying some directions that could be taken for a renewed and vitalised mandate to govern the OSH infrastructure in Pakistan.

Industrial Killing in Bangladesh: State Policies, Common-law Nexus, and International Obligations

“…Though the tragedy was initially labeled as an accident, there was ample evidence that suggested the existence of 'gross negligence' from the employer's end (Rahim et al, 2022;Solaiman, 2018;Solaiman, 2013). Because the workers were initially locked and trapped inside the building when the fire broke out and windows on the lower floors were barred which left the windows on the upper floor the only escape routes for the workers (Ullah, 2022;Shahab, 2021;Solaiman, 2013). Secondly, the short circuit could have been easily prevented if the electricity was cut off timely (Ullah, 2022).…”