THE death of three workers at an abandoned building in Netrakona is yet another reminder that the government needs to take urgent steps to protect labour rights in the informal sector. The deceased were involved in the demolition work of the Agricultural Development Corporation鈥檚 irrigation office. They died as the roof fell on them. As it has always been the case, the police visited the site only to recover the bodies and administration officials offered financial assistance for the funerals. No investigation committee has been set up. No case has been filed. Related laws and regulations such as the National Building Code and the Building Construction Act outline how demolition work should be conducted. The regulations require that such work should be completed under the supervision of a technical expert and adjoining properties, the public and workers should be protected during the demolition. The death and injury of workers in Netrakona suggest that the demolition work was not conducted keeping to the due process that the government should investigate and bring perpetrators to book.
Despite calls for reforms, workplace safety, particularly for labour in the informal sector, continues to remain ignored. The construction sector is considered among the worst, with 91 worker death in 2024. The Bangladesh Workplace Death Reports from the Safety and Rights Society highlight that from 2017 to 2021, more than 700 construction workers died in workplace accidents such as falls, electrocution, and suffocation, which were largely preventable. Household service worker or child workers鈥� rights are also rampantly violated as their rights are not legally protected. According to a Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies report says that more than a half of the live-in domestic workers have encountered some form of harassment at work. The study further reports that 67 per cent of women household services workers face mental torture and verbal abuse. The International Labour Organisation and UNICEF often report on how children work in exploitative working conditions, especially when they work as household or industrial labour. Workplace death and injury among child labourers is also commonplace.
It is high time that the government took steps to implement the recommendations of the labour reforms commission, which has sought comprehensive legal reforms to end the longstanding exclusion of informal, agricultural, and domestic workers from statutory protection and the formation of a national minimum wage board, among other things. While workplace safety is a universal concern and it should be ensured for all sectors, the labour ministry should pay special attention to the safety of construction workers as they carries added risk.