Track: Occupational Safety and Health (OSH)

Abstract

The well being of the workers is one of the most important issues in industries worldwide. The ready-made garment (RMG) industry of Bangladesh is the backbone of the country's economy which has been facing challenges to ensure workplace safety of the workers. Also, there has not been a healthy growth of labor unionism within the RMG industry. Previous studies suggest that there is a widespread occupational segregation and gender discrimination in wage rates. The purpose of this study is to assess the current working condition of the garment workers in terms of health and workplace safety and gender discrimination. Another purpose is to determine the impact of labor union on improvement of the workers' condition. The study uses survey data from 203 responses to evaluate the working condition of the RMG industry. An exploratory data analysis was done to measure the occupational health and safety which was followed by a logistic regression to find out the relation between labor union and other variables. Results reveal that gender discrimination has been reduced greatly, fire, building and other workplace safety measures has been consistently improving and labor union has a significant impact on enhancement of betterment of the workers.