Fire safety training too complex, says Bangladesh Workers Alliance
28/02/2014
It said training has had ‘very limited’ impact on workers’ knowledge, and even less so on awareness as materials are too technical and do not consider their educational levels.
The survey of 28 factories and 3,200 workers also found that women receive less training and are considerably less informed than their male counterparts.
The alliance - set up by 26 North American retailers in wake of the collapse of the Rana Plaza complex last April which killed more than 1,000 - set out to assess workers’ perspective of health and safety risks.
The report recommended that new training programmes need to be designed according to education levels and focus much more on basic fire safety knowledge.
“We have a moral duty to remove the barriers to workplace safety and to invest sufficient funding and expertise to ensure worker safety,” said Hasanat Alamgir, associate professor of occupational health at the University of Texas.
“Governments, retailers, buyers, factory owners, NGOS, civil society, worker groups, and development partners can no longer overlook the millions of factory workers who are deprived of access to a safer and healthier workplace, rehabilitation, support, education and empowerment, and cannot realize their full working potential.”
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