nniversaries are peculiar times. Reflecting on the historic struggle of workers is simply a done thing come International Labour Day. The day traces its origins to labourers’ struggle for a shorter workday, half a world away nearly 150 years ago.

Beyond this annual ritual on May 1, however, workers and their rights find little mention in the national discourse in the Global South.

It would not be remiss to skim the surface of Pakistan’s occupational health and safety landscape this Labour Day. It is worth noting that Pakistan is part of a region where countries have consistently ranked high in terms of workers’ death and injuries due to what are euphemistically called occupational hazards.

Not to digress, but this past Monday marked the 10^th anniversary of the Rana Plaza factory collapse in the Bangladeshi capital. Almost all the victims — 1,134 dead and around 2,500 wounded — were employees of five export-oriented garment factories crammed into the eight-storey commercial building. It took 20 days to find all the dead.

This was the second deadliest industrial disaster in human history. The disaster brought workers’ human rights and occupational safety and health into sharp focus. Renowned Western brands that had sourced their garments from the five factories faced much criticism for failing to ensure workers’ safety in their supply chains.

Pakistan’s own Rana Plaza moment had arrived seven months prior to the disaster in Dhaka. In September 2012, at least 260 workers at Ali Enterprises Garment Factory in Karachi’s Baldia Town burned alive in the worst industrial disaster in Pakistan’s history. The factory supplied clothes to international brands, including a well-known German label. It subsequently transpired that criminals seeking extortion money from the factory owners had started the fire. Even if that were so, the tragedy or at least its scale could have been averted if much was not amiss on the premises. There was poor maintenance of electric wiring, a complete lack of fire safety measures and fire extinguishers; all emergency exits barring one were locked, and windows boarded up to prevent workers from stealing merchandise or leaving early. The hallways leading to the solitary unlocked exit were blocked by large cartons of packaged goods. The factory owners reportedly forced workers to salvage the goods before exiting the burning building.

Concerted efforts by a few trade unions and labour support groups resulted in the German brand sourcing their merchandise from Ali Enterprises agreeing to offer a little over $5 million to be eventually paid to the families of the deceased. The amount came to around $19,600 per life lost.

Disasters that unfold in remote towns and cities away from the media glare, where the toll is typically lower and where a global brand is not involved, seldom get much attention. From structures collapsing on workers to farming accidents, fires at industrial plants, mining operations and Gadani shipbreaking yard, miners and sanitation workers dying after inhaling hazardous gases, workers suffering death and serious injury in various sectors and regions are a near daily occurrence in Pakistan. The lives of none of these workers are valued at the relatively princely sum of $19,600. Each of these sectors would be a worthy case study in their own right for how not to treat workers.

The mining sector is just one example. According to IndustriALL — an international confederation made up of approximately 800 unions in 140 countries, including Pakistan — at least 300 miners have been killed and more than 100 severely injured in Pakistan over the last two years. The fatalities average almost three miners a week.

Disasters that unfold in remote towns and cities away from the media glare, where the toll is lower and where a global brand is not involved, seldom get much attention.

The main causes of death were landslides, electrocution, mine blasts, and gas inhalation, in both state- and privately-owned mines. These figures do not account for the countless miners who develop chronic respiratory illnesses, tuberculosis and loss of eyesight at a young age due to poor light and ventilation where they work.

In 2023, at least 30 miners had been killed and more than 20 injured till March 10. Three miners losing their life every week on average seems like a consistent pattern.

With a combination of proper implementation of safety protocols, investing in safety gear and training and implementation of labour laws, including proper inspections by the relevant authorities, almost all of these would have been preventable disasters.

Just for context, since January 2014, Pakistan has benefitted from considerable tariff concessions in trade with the European Union under the EU Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP). Under the so-called GSP+ arrangement, it is contingent upon Pakistan to effectively implement over two dozen core international conventions on human and labour rights, including worker safety. In short, besides the state’s obligation to safeguard the lives of its citizens, Pakistan also stands to gain economically by ensuring workers’ rights, health and safety. And yet, our occupational health and safety record has remained consistently abysmal.

As the 11^th anniversary of the Baldia factory fire approaches, trying to find any lessons learnt on the safety of workers in Pakistan is as pressing an endeavour as it is distressing.

To illustrate, on April 12, four firefighters were killed while trying to put out a fire at a bedsheet manufacturing unit in Karachi, as the building collapsed on them. Police reported familiar shortcomings; there were no emergency exits or fire extinguishers at the unit and goods stored beyond capacity had added to the intensity of the blaze. It is clear that the outrage over the Baldia massacre has not translated into any paradigm shift even in our most industrially developed city on how workplace safety is approached.

Without overhauling the capacity and will of the Labour Departments and creating incentives for businesses to act as per the law, reasonable workplace safety cannot be delivered.

With the robust trade unions of the past gone and the right to organise facing organised resistance, Pakistan’s workers need all the support they can get. Labour support groups, who are today the most reliable advocates of workers, should consider wider alliances, particularly by reaching out to trade unions, media and political parties.

The news media would do well to reflect on its coverage of workers’ rights and human rights issues. Unless it engages in what the journalistic lexicon calls ‘follow-ups,’ worker safety issues will only find mention in brief incident reports, or around the anniversaries of disasters or on Labour Day.

The writer is a lawyer, journalist and researcher. He has an LLM in international human rights law. He is a former director of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan