As elsewhere in the world, the Occupational Safety and Health Day (OSH Day) is celebrated across Bangladesh on April 28. Since 2016, the Government of Bangladesh has been regularly celebrating the Day in close collaboration with the International Labour Organisation (ILO). The objective is to develop awareness for building a safety culture to reduce accidents and diseases in workplaces. Occupational safety and health is about protecting lives, preventing harm and ensuring that every worker can carry out their jobs in safety and dignity.
Across Bangladesh, millions of people continue to face unsafe and unhealthy working conditions, sustaining injuries, illness or death. According to the ILO, 395 million workers worldwide sustain non-fatal work injuries each year. In 2022, the ILO declared that a safe and healthy working environment is a fundamental principle and workers’ right in workplaces. Recognising the issue, the Bangladesh government has ratified the OSH- related ILO conventions 155, 187 and 190 in 2025.
The workplace situation is grim enough in Bangladesh. According to ILO, the psychosocial working environment is defined by how work is designed, organised and managed, and the organisational practices that shape the day-to-day working conditions. This psychosocial issue again became a concern during COVID-19, affecting our workers’ lives and hampering economic development throughout 2020. Workers suffered immensely during the period of COVID-19 while continuing their work under difficult circumstances. However, these issues are invisible hazards that are difficult to manage.
The 2024 regime change and political mayhem brought these psychosocial concerns back to the forefront. The situation fully changed the workers’ psychosocial behaviour, which impacted on their daily and working lives. The psychosocial factors adversely affected the workers’ safety, health and performance. We have observed that the psychosocial impact adversely affected the workers’ health and economic stability. Interestingly, these psychosocial issues are untouched areas, especially for the workers who work in formal and informal sectors across the country.
In Bangladesh, workers in the formal and informal sectors always remain under pressure to meet the production target. Simultaneously, they face challenges with their job security. Most of the workers live adjacent to their workplaces without their family members, isolating them from the family as well as the community. They could not accept them as part of society. Female workers are more vulnerable due to their double responsibilities at workplaces and homes, leading to fatigue and stress. Recently, it has been observed that the behaviour of many workers has changed. They are unable to manage stress and anxiety. Some workers have experienced outbursts or become involved in industrial agitation.
Addressing psychosocial issues does not remain those of individual workers. It is an urgent necessity for the future of workers’ health and industrial growth. After all, a safe workplace cannot be built on stress and fatigued labour force. For the sake of the future of industry, the OSH management system must integrate the mental health risk assessment and develop the capacity of workers and supervisors to manage the psychosocial issues. In such a situation, the role of the Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishment (DIFE) is important to monitor the mental well-being of workers in workplaces, which needs to be considered as a fundamental requirement of a modern and strong workplace.
The consequences of multiple psychosocial impacts spread beyond the industry and factory gates. Most experts advise that mental health challenges are the hidden causes of industrial accidents, reducing productivity and developing workers’ sickness for a longer period. By moving forward, the OSH management system needs to focus on psychosocial support and conduct regular training to build the capacity of workers to handle them positively in complex situations.
Overall, the government needs to ensure the psychosocial risk assessment conducted by the employers of a factory or industry to address the invisible psychosocial hazard, aligning with the national standards, and the expectations of global ESG (Environment, Social, and Governance), a rating system of international buyers. At the factory or industry level, strengthening of workers’ voice through safety committees and trade unions’ engagement is an immediate requirement for building safe workplaces.
In the OSH legal framework, Bangladesh needs a fundamental shift to consider a policy reform doing OSH- related legislative expansion of the Bangladesh Labour Act. The OSH national action plan needs to include psychological harm, such as chronic stress and burnout, as compensable occupational diseases. The Government of Bangladesh has ratified the OSH Conventions 155, 187 and 190, which have shown the government’s commitment to ensuring workplace safety. Now is the time to act.
The writer is an Adjunct Faculty, Occupational Health and Environment, Bangladesh University of Health and Sciences
