Safety committee in Bangladeshi RMG

Safety committee: A crying need for RMG sector

Rana Dutta

Today's Bangladesh has become an icon in the epoch of RMG revolution where Bangladesh has been able to demonstrate before the world RMG giants that we have immense potentialities in this sector.

We have already achieved the prestigious second position, are now aspiring to hold the first place within few years and will be the hardest competitor in the coming global RMG battle. To sustain its present encroachment and keep in touch with the world RMG pioneer, Bangladesh is giving its effortless efforts to establish a 100% compliant RMG sector within the couples of years where safety issues have been given the prime emphasis to ensure its eye-catching development and to sustain its dominating approach towards the global RMG. In this regard, the formation of procedure of a safety committee, its prefect establishment, proper functioning and monitoring have been depicted in the Bangladesh Labor Rules 2015 which is a praiseworthy initiative to be acknowledged.

Demonstrating and designing the core purpose is a significant element to form a safety committee. Here, the purpose should be specific and authentic to execute an effective and sustainable safety committee. Otherwise, the feasibility of a safety committee will be a hard one to be materialized. Indeed, bringing workers and managements altogether on a regular basis is an effective initiative to promote occupational safety and health in the workplace.

Taking recommendations for improving safety issues in the meeting and applying them accordingly justifying its vulnerability are also significant to avoid workplace hazards and to prevent fatalities by increasing safety awareness. In this way, we can pave the right way to make our safety committee visible and approachable for safety and health concerns, suggestions, and problem solving.

To materialize the purpose of a safety committee to be successful, we need to identify and prioritize goals and establish action plans to achieve each goal, develop a written statement in the light of specific local laws, define duties and responsibilities of safety committee individuals, and set clear meeting agendas to utilize all the member's resources in a proper way.

Minutes should be published, provided to each committee member and all employees; provide feedback on workers' suggestions and promote and monitor compliance with health and safety regulations; promote health and safety policy and program.

Safety committees are composed of the employees and management in the traditional sense though these traditional notions have changed now. However, safety committees should never become complaint sessions rather it should emphasize on what is going wrong with the safety issues. The employees on the safety committee need to be involved in suggestions or corrective actions decided in the meeting.

There is no alternative without forming a safety committee. Workplace safety has become everyone's concern. In Bangladesh, we have some definite rules regarding safety committee formation and so we must have better knowledge on the safety committee requirements. There are certain elements of forming a safety committee like principles of forming a safety committee, procedure of electing the president, vice-president, member-secretary and the other members and so many related issues need to have a clear understanding to form a committee in the light of Bangladesh Labor Rules 2015.

According to Bangladesh Labor Rules 2015, there is a requirement to form a safety committee with the proper combination of different terms and conditions. However, is there any hard and fast rule for the all factories or institutes to form safety committee? There is a certain instruction in the rules.

The owners of the institute where 50 or more workers are employed or were employed in a certain period in the year shall form safety committee. It also emphasizes that safety committee must be formed within 6 months of the application of this Code in the present institutions. In this connection, it is mandatory to know how many members are required to form a safety committee.  As per BD Labour Rules, 2015 the total number of members in the Safety Committee shall not be less than 6 or more than 12 and there shall be equal number of representatives in it from the employer and employee side.

As per BD Labor Rules, 2015 there shall be a President, a Vice President and a Member Secretary and other members in the committee. The committee shall nominate its President. On the other hand, the authority will nominate their representative.

All members shall unanimously select a Member Secretary in the first meeting of the committee; this committee can distribute the responsibility of different departments. Now, the question is, can we include more representatives on behalf of the worker's in that safety committee and how can we do this? If we want to include any representative in the safety committee, the representative for joint bargaining shall nominate workers' representative from the workers working in each section, department, floor, storehouse and unit separately.

Then, the representative shall be included in the Safety Committee. Taking initiatives is necessary to select the workers' representative; if there is no initiative for arranging the nomination of Workers' Representative in the Safety Committee the Inspector General shall arrange election among the employed workers for electing the workers' Representative.

However, in this case, the representative for joint bargaining or the committee shall nominate the Workers' Representative within 30 (thirty) days' of formation of the committee. If there are at least one-third of female workers in any institute, at least one-third of the Workers' Representative must be nominated from female.

Within 15 days of this type of nomination, the President shall call the first meeting of the safety committee. Safety committee's feasibility and accuracy mostly depend on proper functioning and performing of its president, vice-president, member-secretary and other members' wholehearted cooperation.

Therefore, duties and responsibilities of a safety committee need to be specific and accountable. In this connection, the president is expected to schedule meetings notify members, provide appropriate and timely follow-up on problems and recommendations developed by the committee, ensure all discussion items end with a positive decision, review and approve the minutes.

On the other hand, the primary duties of a vice-president are to assume leadership of the committee when the chairperson is unavailable on a short-term basis. Whereas, the member-secretary has to maintain record and disseminate minutes of each meeting; actively promote safety and health by giving personal example and by ensuring active communication.

It is a good practice that the president should appoint the member-secretary for a one-year term. However, the other members also have duties like attending meeting regularly, working with supervisors to eliminate hazardous conditions and unsafe work practices to set a good example, listening to employee suggestions, attending training necessary to gain the skills and experience to promote safety and health within the organization.

According to the recent compliance survey conducted at 1,236 factories across the country of this year (January-July period) by The Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments, there was no safety committee at 66% of the RMG factories. We are disappointed in the regard that the deadline framed by the government is over; nevertheless, many factories failed to form the safety committee in due time.

According to the Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments, out of the 1,236 factories surveyed, 236 are affiliated with the BKMEA and 816 are members of the BGMEA and rest of the 184 are not affiliated with any trade body.

Moreover, the recent compliance report showed that 41 % of the factories have no arrangement for workers' personal safety and 65% of them do not maintain safety record books and boards; but we are still optimistic that safety committee will be formed in the rest of the factories very soon  Bangladesh is dominating in the world's RMG with an extensive experience almost of forty years; more than 4.0 million people are working in this labor-intensive industry and at the same time billions of dollars have been invested in this sector.

According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, Bangladesh earned $31.2 billion from export in FY 2014-15, where ready-made garments' share was 81.69%. Therefore, this is not a joke at all; it is our collective achievement, an outcome of wholehearted collective efforts and an inspiration to the next generation to have their contribution as an energetic, innovative and potential entrepreneur to sustain our present glory and to compete with the competitive world with immense credits.

In the concluding remarks, we can denote that if we become alert today, we will be safe for tomorrow.  This is why, we cannot endanger our potential future of this sector merely for the issue of safety. Therefore, it is time to demonstrate and prove ourselves as an unmatched competitor in the arena of the global RMG by ensuring zero tolerance in respect of safety issues and to make sure of 100% compliant practice in our readymade garments industries.

In this regard, we should form and maintain a sustainable safety committee as a prime initiative to ensure its proper functioning in our labor-intensive industries. So, it's our crying need to ensure safety committee establishment in each and every labor-intensive industry in the light of Bangladesh Labor Rules, 2015 and then, we can be able to create value in this sector by branding ourselves.

The writer is the Assistant
Deputy Secretary at  Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers & Exporters Association (BKMEA)