EU can easily help promote an Employment Injury Scheme for Bangladeshi garment workers

While GK, one of WSM's partner in Bangladesh, focuses on a pilot project which is providing overall health insurance for over 35.000 garment workers, in the period since the Rana Plaza and Tazreen claims were paid, the ILO has spearheaded a project, funded by the German government, to develop concrete proposals for a national Employment Injury Insurance (EII) scheme that have been shared  and discussed with all relevant stakeholders. According to a paper published the Clean Clothes Campaign, the proposals as drafted also met with broad acceptance among the key parties, including the national trade union centres; most of the outstanding questions are  centred on how the scheme will be financed. Yet, over the last two years this work appears to have stalled and momentum towards meeting the 2020 deadline is being lost.

The establishment of a national employment injury insurance (EII) scheme in Bangladesh is the only way to ensure that the rights of those injured at work are protected and that their families receive the loss of income payments and medical care they are entitled to.  Any such scheme must be permanent and be set up to provide loss of income payments and medical care to any worker injured or killed at work, regardless of fault. The scheme needs to provide life time pensions,  rather than lump sums and to put in place a permanent  system for claiming and receiving such payments that is easy to access, difficult to corrupt and paid in a form that is most appropriate for low wage workers.

A meaningful EII scheme needs to be mandatory, state run and universal. Employer insurance schemes - where individual employers take out insurance to cover their own workers - are not in line with international standards and are particularly inappropriate in a context where the enforcement of basic employer obligations is weak and the employment relationships are often informal. Attempts to privatise the obligation to provide employment insurance is likely to leave the majority of workers – particularly those employed in smaller or subcontracted factories – without any protection and will do little to improve the measures already in place.



Bangladesh is no longer a country defined by its poverty and there is no excuse for the lack of social security provisions, which leaves workers permanently vulnerable to disaster or accidents. The garment industry has  played a vital role in bringing foreign investment into the country and its workers have the right to expect that some of these profits are invested into systems that will reduce this vulnerability and provide livelihood security.

With upcoming June meeting in Brussels on the Sustainability Compact between the EU and Bangladesh, this item should definitely be on the agenda.