Where Ships and Workers Go to Die

Shipbreaking in Bangladesh
&
The Failure of Global Institutions to Protect Worker Rights

September 2009

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UPDATE (PDF): Shipyard Murder (09/22/09)

Update: Eight More Workers Burned to Death In Bangladesh Shipbreaking Yard (1/11/09)

Petition: Demand that G20 Leaders Protect Workers not just Bankers

Video: Where Ships and Workers go to Die

Shipbreaking Workers in Bangladesh Speak Out: Worker Interview Transcripts (9/30/09)

UPDATE: Shipyard Murder; Two Workers Burned to Death and Three Severely Burned (09/22/09)

The Images: Gallery of Shipbreaking Pictures

Where Ships and Workers Go to Die
Shipbreaking in Bangladesh & The Failure of Global Institutions to Protect Worker Rights  

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

September 2009

• Some of the world’s largest decommissioned tanker ships—measuring up to 1,000 feet long, twenty stories high and weighing 25 million pounds—have been run up on the beaches of Bangladesh. In July of 2009, 112 tanker ships were strewn over four miles of beach.
  
• Thirty thousand Bangladeshi workers, some of them children just 10, 11, 12 and 13 years of age, toil 12 hours a day, seven days a week, for wages of just 22 to 32 cents an hour, doing one of the most dangerous jobs in the world.
  
• According to estimates by very credible local organizations, 1,000 to 2,000 workers have been killed in Bangladesh’s shipbreaking yards over the last 30 years.  Currently, a worker is seriously injured every day, and a worker is killed every three to four weeks.
  
• On September 5, 2009, 35-year-old Mr. Hossain was burned to death while breaking apart a South Korean tanker at the Kabir Steel Yard.  Twenty-year old Mr. Ashek remains in critical condition, while three other workers were seriously burned.  Their blowtorches struck a gas tank which exploded, engulfing them in flames. 
  
• It is common for workers to be paralyzed or crushed to death by heavy metal plates falling from the ship.  A 13-year old child, Nasiruddin Molla, was killed on July 14, 2008, when a large iron plate struck him in the head at the Sultana shipyard.  Accidents and even some deaths are not reported, and there is never an investigation.
  
• Each ship contains an average of 15,000 pounds of asbestos and ten to 100 tons of lead paint.  Shipbreaking workers are routinely exposed to asbestos, lead, mercury, arsenic, dioxins, solvents, toxic oil residues and carcinogenic fumes from melting metal and lead paint.  Environmental damage to Bangladesh’s beaches, ocean and fishing villages has been massive.
  
• Helpers, often children, who go barefoot or wear flip flops, use hammers to break apart the asbestos in the ship, which they shovel into bags to carry outside and dump in the sand.
  
• Workers lack even the must rudimentary protective gear.  Cutters, who use blowtorches to cut the giant ships to pieces, wear sunglasses rather than protective goggles, baseball caps rather than hardhats, wrap dirty bandanas around their nose and mouth as they are not provided respiratory masks and wear two sets of shirts rather than a welder’s vests, hoping the sparks will not burn through to their skin, which happens every day.
  
• Four to six workers share each small, primitive room, often sleeping right on the dirty concrete floor.  No one has a mattress.  In some of the hovels, the roof leaks when it rains, so workers have to sit up at night covering themselves with pieces of plastic.  Their “shower” is a hand water pump.
  
• Every single labor law in Bangladesh and every one of the International Labor Organization’s internationally recognized workers rights standards are blatantly violated on a daily basis.  While forced to work overtime, the shipbreaking workers receive no overtime premium.  There are no weekly holidays, no paid sick days, no national holidays or vacations.  Any worker asking for his proper wages is immediately fired.
  
• The shipbreaking workers are very clear on two points: that they will die early and that there have been no improvements whatsoever over the last thirty years in respect for worker rights laws or health and safety.
  
• The global institutions which direct world trade have miserably failed workers across the developing world who continue to be injured, cheated, maimed, paralyzed and killed on a daily basis.  The G-20 countries, the World Trade Organization, the United Nations, the International Maritime Organization and the International Labor Organization must be held accountable.

If There Is a Hell on Earth, This Is It

PREFACE

By Charles Kernaghan

It is one of the strangest, most striking and frightening industrial sites in the world.  It is large enough to be seen from space, but remains an open secret which few American people have even heard of, let alone seen.  If there is a hell on earth, this is it.  In Bangladesh, 30,000 shipbreaking workers are dismantling some of the largest decommissioned tanker ships in the world—20 stories high, 650 to over 1,000 feet long, 95 to 164 feet wide, which have been run up on the beach in the Bay of Bengal, not far from the city of Chittagong.  In July, the National Labor Committee counted 112 tanker ships stretching across nearly four miles of beaches.

The shipbreakers do some of the most dangerous jobs in the world, toiling 12 hours a day, seven days a week, for wages of just 22 to 32 cents an hour, handling and breathing in dangerous toxic waste with no safeguards whatsoever and under conditions that violate every local and international labor law.  Injuries happen every day—some are paralyzed for life—and a worker dies every three or four weeks.  No one helps them.  The workers say a dog means more to the business owner than a human being.

This is the story of the Bangladeshi shipbreakers, mostly young men, but also child workers who are just 10, 11, 12, and 13 years old.  This has been going on for more than 30 years, and in all that time, the workers are certain of two things—they will die early, and nothing at all has changed in the last three decades.

The G-20 leaders are meeting in Pittsburgh this year in late September.  How is it that over the course of 30 years, the G-20 countries (and before that the G-7), the handful of powerful shipping nations and the companies that dominate global merchant cargo trade, the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the Bangladeshi government have not—individually and collectively—been able to implement a single improvement?

Make no mistake.  The horrific sweatshop conditions in the shipbreaking yards are not a stepping stone to the middle class.  Rather, the shipbreaking yards are the final cycle of the Race to the Bottom in the global sweatshop economy, and the reality is not pretty.  Workers, including children, use hammers to break up the 15,000 pounds of asbestos in every ship and then dump it on the sand to wash out to sea.  The environment is being destroyed.  And life is cheap.  A young worker whose back was broken when a heavy piece of metal fell from the ship and struck him lies paralyzed, unable to even sit up or control his bowels.  He just lies there.  The owner of the shipyard gave him $1,800 and walked away.

These are in fact the most dangerous jobs in the world.  But unlike in the popular TV series, there is nothing romantic or exciting here. What is going on is the cruel and criminal exploitation of young workers in Bangladesh’s shipbreaking yards.  Four to six workers share each primitive room, often sleeping on a filthy concrete floor.  No one can afford a mattress.

It does not have to be this way.  The workers’ demands are so modest, it should make us blush.  Their dream is to earn 60 cents an hour, to be paid the legal overtime premium, to have one day off each week, sick days, holidays, healthcare for workers injured on the job and the right to organize.  It would cost less than $750 a year to send a child worker back to school—where they belong—to cover books, uniforms and a stipend to replace their lost wages.  This should not be a very hard.  We can help these workers climb out of misery and at least into poverty.

It is the job of international solidarity to push the G-20 world leaders, the major shipping nations and corporations, the IMO and the ILO to finally guarantee the rule of law and to end the abuse and exploitation in Bangladesh’s shipbreaking yards.  The squeaky wheel gets the grease.  When it comes to protecting and promoting worker rights in the global economy, nothing will improve without activism and struggle.

Workers Are Injured, Maimed and Killed
In Bangladesh’s Shipbreaking Yards

Worker Burned to Death at the Kabir Shipbreaking Yard

A second worker is in critical condition, clinging to life.
Three others seriously burned.

On Saturday morning, September 5, 2009 at 9:00 a.m., 35-year-old Mr. Hossain was burned to death while breaking apart a huge Korean tanker ship at the Kabir Shipbreaking Yard.  A second worker, Mr. Ashek, 20 years old, is in critical condition and just barely clinging to life.  Three other workers, Md Kuddus, 32, Jahangir, 28, and Khokon, 22, also suffered serious burns and are in the Burn Unit of the Chittagong Medical College Hospital.

The workers were breaking apart a Korean tanker using blowtorches when their flames cut through a tank which was filled with gas and gas vapors.  There was a large explosion and all five workers were trapped in an inferno of flames.

Twenty-five year old Mr. Masud was killed at the Kabir Steel yard on November 14, 2008.  He was struck by a heavy piece of falling metal and died on the way to the hospital.

The workers at Kabir told us, “We have no security in our lives.”

UPDATE-SEPTEMBER 22, 2009

Shipyard Murder
Two Workers Burned to Death and Three Severely Burned
At the Kabir Shipbreaking Yard on September 5, 2009

No one had to die.  No one had to suffer horrific burns.  On the morning of September 5, the workers knew it was too dangerous and begged management not to do it.  Just two weeks earlier, a fire had broken out on the same ship under the same circumstances, but luckily everyone escaped.  On Saturday morning, September 5, the workers were not so lucky.

Management at the Kabir Shipbreaking Yard ordered the “fitter” men, who work at the bottom of the ship, to break up asbestos, unbolt and take apart dozens of pipelines and gas and oil tanks.  The work is dangerous, since residual gas and oil leak and form pools on the floor, and pockets of gas vapors build up.

A crew of “cutter men” who use blowtorches to cut the ship to pieces were then ordered to work on the next level of the ship, directly above the fitters.  Everyone knew this was too dangerous.  Cutting apart the metal, the workers knew sparks could fall to the lower level, which would set off an explosion and trap the fitters who were below.

The foreman would not listen to the cutters and ordered them to stay exactly where they were.  They could have easily moved to another part of the ship to work, which would have prevented the deaths, but the foreman refused.

Mr. Kuddus (32)

It is common practice for the shipyard owners to use water to flush out the pipes and tanks, washing the oil, fuel, gas residues and other flammable chemicals out to sea.  (Miles of beach, ocean, fish and plant life have been destroyed, not to mention many fishing villages.)  To save money, Kabir management did not do this.  They nonchalantly decided to gamble with the lives of the workers. 

One worker told us, “I was cutting an iron plate on the upper level of the ship using my blowtorch.  The fitters were below us at the bottom of the ship.  The fire started slowly, but within seconds flames spread over the whole area… We knew it was dangerous, but the foreman told us where to work, and we were obligated to listen as the foremen are our boss and captain.  We have to abide by their commands.”

Another worker told us the same thing:  “There are many combustible sources, like gas, oil, fuel.  It is very risky work at these bottom chambers.  We told the foreman this several times, but he refused to listen and told us to get back to work exactly where he placed us.”

Mr. Ashek (20) who died on September 14

A tanker ship is divided into numerous chambers or tanks.  Five fitters were assigned to each chamber and told to take apart the pipes and gas tanks.  When the sparks from the cutters’ blowtorches fell to the lower chamber, a flash fire exploded.  The trapped workers tried to climb up a metal ladder to escape, but the flames were too great and they fell back to the bottom of the tank.  They were engulfed in an inferno.

“The man who died [Mr. Hossain], a worker told us, “he finally got out of the ship, his clothes were burned off, he was naked and his skin was charred.  When I touched the skin on his hand, the skin came off sticking to my finger.  I could see that some skin and flesh had been torn from his body.  We laid him on the deck.”

A worker spoke of his relative, 28-year-old Mr. Jahangir:  “His face was burned so badly, it was difficult to recognize him.  His head was swollen and his face disfigured… Also his hands, legs, everything was burnt… The suffering of these workers cannot be explained.  The condition of their face, chest, hands and legs are terribly frightening… Even if they live, it will be impossible for them to be seen in public, as people will be afraid when they see their faces.”

Despite the fact that there are 30,000 workers toiling around the clock in some 36 shipbreaking yards, and despite the fact that serious injuries occur every day, with an average of one worker killed every three weeks, the owners collectively have not purchased even one ambulance to be stationed at the yards.  They refuse to spend the money.  It took 1 ½ hours for an ambulance to reach the burned workers. 

To save money, the shipyard owner sent the five burned workers to a government hospital which is mostly free, instead of to a private hospital, where they could have been placed in a special burn unit and received more specialized care.  But in management’s mind, the workers are not worth the extra money.

Mr. Hossain, 35 years old, died 14 hours later.  Workers told us his eyes were burned.  He could not breathe through his nose.  He desperately wanted to drink water, but he could not.  At the end, he could not breathe through his mouth and he died in a co-worker’s arms.

Twenty-year-old Mr. Ashek lingered for nine days in extreme pain before dying on September 14.

The three surviving workers, 22-year-old Mr. Khokon, 28-year-old Mr. Jahangir and 32-year-old Mr. Kuddus will have to remain hospitalized for at least six months.  No one thinks they will ever recover enough to work again or lead a normal life.

Mr. Khokon (22)

Even as the deadly fire raged, the foreman ordered the fitters in nearby chambers to keep working.  After the deadly explosion at the Kabir Shipbreaking Yard on September 5, there have still not been any training exercises or safety discussions with the workers as to how to prevent or respond to such tragic fires.  The day after the killings, the workers were ordered back to work as if nothing had happened.  No safety improvements—not a single one—have been instituted.

The workers told us, “We need insulated work suits and gloves, hard hats, boots and goggles… Sometimes sparks from the [blowtorch] flame and gas hurt our eyes, but the necessary equipment is not supplied to us.  Inside the chambers, there are gas and fumes, but we work without respirators to cover our nose and mouth.  We explained this many times to management, but the shipyard managers completely ignore these basic safety measures.  If a worker tries to make his voice heard regarding these issues, he loses his job.  This is the rule here.”

If the shipyard owners have their way, nothing will change, and workers will continue to be needlessly injured, maimed and killed as the bottom-line profits of the owners grow.

The owner and foreman at the Kabir Shipyard should be charged with murder.

The G-20 leaders, whose nations dominate global shipping, must finally speak up to stop the carnage in the shipbreaking yards and to guarantee that Bangladesh’s local labor laws as well as internationally recognized worker rights standards are finally respected.  The workers have been waiting and suffering for 30 long years.  Now is not the time for excuses, it is the time to act.

Mr. Jahangir (28)

A Dead Worker is Worth $1,400

“My son will never come back to this world.
I cry every day to Allah that no other parents lose their son.”

- Mother of Jahagir Alam

Mr. Jahagir Alam had worked at the Jiri Subader Shipbreaking Yard for four years, starting work there in 2004.  Jahagir was an experienced senior “cutter”, operating a blowtorch all day, cutting apart the giant beached tankers.  Early on August 12, 2008, he and his helper were assigned to work in an area very near to where a huge metal plate from the ship was suspended above by a wire cable.  The cable snapped, and Mr. Jahagir was crushed and trapped under the huge metal plate.  Critically injured, he clung to life for 26 days, but the doctors said there was no hope for him, and he died on September 6, 2008.  His helpers were luckier.  One worker’s leg was so badly crushed that it had to be amputated.  The other worker’s hand was crushed and is now paralyzed.  But both lived.

Mr. Jahagir’s mother, Mrs. Nurjahan Begom, told us:  “When my son was working in the shipyard, an iron plate fell on him.  Another two workers were also injured.  One of them had his leg crushed and another his hand fractured.  They are alive, but my son will never come back to this world. I cry every day to Allah that no other parents lose their son.”

Mrs. Begom begged the shipyard owner for help to bury her son, but there was no response.  It was only with the help of a lawyer and after a long struggle that the management of Jiri Subader shipyard paid the family 100,000 taka, or $1,453.

It’s a cheap price for a worker’s life.

Mr. Jahagir’s father also died, years before, working in a shipbreaking yard.

In the shipbreaking yards in Bangladesh, every single labor law as well as the International Labor Organization’s internationally recognized worker rights standards are violated.  Nor are even the most minimal health and safety standards enforced.  Under such circumstances, it is cost effective for the shipyard owners to continue to kill and maim the workers.

“My son will never come back to this world.
I cry every day to Allah that no other parents lose their son.”  

“Now I am Sick and Starving.”
Life is Cheap for Shipyard Owners

“…I saw a big gas flame shoot out from the opening that was cut.  The flame set fire to my hands, back, thigh and ear.  The flesh of my legs was seriously burned by the flames.”

                                                                 - Mr. Abdul Halim

After paying about $3,000, Mr. Lokman, the owner of the Jiri Subedar Shipbreaking Yard, walked away from a young man who was badly burned when a gas tank he was cutting burst into flames.  Mr. Halim, just 26 years old, suffered extensive burns to his head, hands, back and thighs.  His left ear was so badly burned that it is disfigured, and he is now partially deaf.  He also needs help walking.  While working one of the most dangerous jobs on the ship, he was paid just 24 cents an hour.  Without money for medical treatment he told us.  “Now I am sick and starving.”  Accidents in the shipyards, a daily occurrence, are never recorded or investigated.  It is believed that serious accidents occur every day.

Abdul Halim suffered horrific burns while cutting apart a ship

Testimony of Abdul Halim:

“My name is Abdul Halim, I am 26 years old, son of Khurshid Alam.
 
“I worked at the Subedar Yard owned by Mr. Lokman. I worked there for a year as a helper. I worked inside the ship and got paid Tk. 130 for working 8 hours.  I worked 12 hours a day including 4 hours overtime.  [He earned 24 cents an hour, $2.83 for a 12-hour shift.  Illegally, the workers were not paid the overtime premium.]  We got paid every 15 days. It was not possible for me to work 30 days a month. I worked 22-25 days a month because ship-breaking is such hard labor. I started working at 7:00 in the morning and finished work at 7:00 in the evening. There was a thirty-minute break at 10:00 a.m. for tea and a lunch break from 1:00 to 2:00. I also worked on Fridays—then I had to work from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. and sometimes until 12:00 noon.
 
“I had to carry my lunch with me, which was prepared at home in the early morning. It got rotten as it was very hot in the shipyard. Sometimes I suffered from diarrhea from eating spoiled food. The company did not provide any refreshment.
 
“On Wednesday, February, 18, 2009, after taking my break, I resumed work at 10:30 a.m. My (boss) a cutter man, Mr. Liton, and I went down to the ship to cut a gas tank there. I was throwing water on the tank to stop the sparks. Sometimes it goes on fire. After five minutes, I saw a big gas flame shoot out from the opening that was cut. The flame set fire to my hands, back, thigh and ear.  The flesh of my legs was seriously burned by the flames.
 
“The cutter man, Mr. Liton, and I both got burned. My ear, chest, thigh and part of my body was burned. I passed out. When I came to, I realized that I was in hospital. Later, I heard that the other workers got us admitted to Chittagong Medical College hospital. I was released from the hospital on August 12, 2009. I was in the hospital for almost six months. For the first three months, the company took the responsibility for medical bills and medicines, spending Tk. 1,500 [$21.80] daily. For the last three months the company reduced the payment, spending Tk.1,000 [$14.53] daily.

“The company is refusing to pay any medical expenses now that I am released from the hospital. I have not fully recovered and the doctor recommended that I remain in bed for another two to three months. My medical treatment is now stopped as I can’t afford to buy medicine or nutritious food. My father is an old man and can’t work and my mother works in neighbor’s house to support our lives. I am married but my wife has abandoned me due to my present condition. My mother took a loan from the neighbors for my treatment. Now I am sick and am starving.”

Notes: 
Mr. Halim was hospitalized for 176 days, for which the owner spent 227,500 taka--$3,307 or less.  Now the owner is refusing to pay a penny more.  His burns still require clean dressings, which need to be changed every day or two.  He needs help to walk and to use the bathroom.  He is very frail and weak and spends most of his time in bed.  He may never be able to work again.

The cutter, Mr. Liton, was relatively lucky and suffered burns only on his face.  He has recovered and is back at work. 

Young Worker Paralyzed
Shipyard Owners Refuse to Help

“His backbone is broken.  Now my son cannot walk, cannot sit, cannot hold down food and cannot sleep.  His life is full of pain.  He cannot control his bowels and does everything in the bed…  The contractor doesn’t want to give money.  When I plead with them, they make excuses.”

- Mother of Nezam Uddin

“I was struck and knocked down to the ground.  I was unconscious.  I was admitted to the Chittagong Al Sattar Hospital…  My backbone is broken and my head was injured.  Now my bodily organs are not functioning.  I feel nothing in my chest or back.  I cannot feel my stomach…  I wish I could move like I did before.”

- Nezam Uddin, Shipbreaking worker

Left: Nezam Uddin was paralyzed while breaking a ship; Right: Mother of Nezam Uddin

Mr. M. Nezam Uddin worked cutting apart huge tanker ships at the Mahim Enterprise Shipbreaking Yard, which is owned by Mr. Mahim and Mr. Laskor.

On the morning of April 2, 2007, Mr. Nezam Uddin and his helper, Mr. Abdul Mannan, were working inside the ship using blow torches to cut apart a huge ballast tank, which weighed 300 or so tons.  When his blow torch ran out of oxygen, Mr. Nezam Uddin and his helper went outside to hook their hose up to a fresh oxygen cylinder.  Suddenly, a large piece of metal weighing about 3,000 pounds came free from the ballast tank, smashing into the oxygen tank and then striking Mr. Nezam Uddin on his back and head.  His backbone was broken.  Mr. Uddin cannot walk or get out of bed.  He has no feeling in his back or his stomach and has no control over his bowels.  He was just 25 years old.

Mr. Uddin started working in the Mahim Enterprise Shipbreaking Yard in 2006.  He worked a minimum of 72 hours a week, earning $20.13, or 28 cents an hour, doing one of the most dangerous jobs in the world.

The shipyard owners—very wealthy men—ignored the family’s pleas to their son.  It took the family, with the help of a lawyer, one-and-a-half years to force the owners to take some responsibility for their son’s injury.  The owners gave the family 125,000 taka—$1,817—and walked away.  The $1,817 covered Mr. Uddin’s initial treatment, but that money is long gone, and his poor family is borrowing money to take care of him.

“His backbone is broken,” his mother said.  “Now my son cannot walk, cannot sit, cannot hold down food, and cannot sleep.  His life is full of pain.  He cannot control his bowels and does everything in the bed…  The contractor doesn’t want to give money.  When I plead with them, they make excuses.”

Mr. Uddin told us, “I demand justice for my condition, and I want to recover from my injury.”

The doctors at the Chittagong Medical College Hospital think there is a good chance to help Mr. Uddin.  But the operation is so delicate that it should be done by specialists in India.  The operation would cost 750,000 taka—$10,900—but the shipyard owners refuse to pay a cent.

Rather than pay the $10,900, they will let Mr. Uddin, 27 years old, rot in a bed, with no end in sight to his and his family’s misery.

To the shipyard owners, a worker’s life is not worth $10,900.

Nezam Uddin

A Ship Explodes

Two workers die and more than ten injured

In mid-June 2008, a large explosion on a ship being dismantled was caught on tape showing heavy smoke billowing out of its hull.  The workers on that ship were using blowtorches to cut apart a large gas tank.  When flame from the blow torch cut through the tank, there was an explosion.

The explosion took place in the Mahim Enterprise Shipbreaking Yard, owned by Mr. Mahim and Mr. Laskor.   Shipyard management said that no one died and that just two workers were injured in the blast.

However, a very credible local source told us that two workers died in the accident, and more than 10 workers were seriously injured.  The source believes that management may have had the bodies thrown into the sea, a practice that was not uncommon a few years ago.

Fire on the ship

Eighteen-year-old Worker Crushed to Death

“The steel plate fell on him, and the heavy load crushed him… The metal plate was pulled off by the machine [winch], and we saw that his appearance had changed.  He was just smashed by the load…”
                     - Co-worker of Touhid Hosain Babul

Mr. Touhid Hosain Babul, just 18 years old, was crushed to death at the M.M. Shipbreaking Yard, which the workers call “Lucky,” on April 19, 2009, when a huge steel plate from the ship—weighing tons—suddenly fell on him as he was cutting it apart into smaller pieces.  He was paid just 27 cents an hour.  The shipyard owner gave the dead man’s family 160,000 taka ($2,325.58) and walked away.  There was no investigation, and no steps were taken to institute even the most minimal safety measures.  For the shipyard owners, taking the life of a worker is cheap and easy.

Mr. Babul started working in the shipbreaking yards when he was just 14 years of age.  He worked at the Lucky shipyard for two years before he was killed.

Mr. Babul is on the right, wearing a black shirt and light blue jeans. This photo was taken with his friend shortly before his death.

“The steel plate fell on him and the heavy load crushed him.  The plate was supposed to be secured so it could be cut from any side, but the load suddenly fell on him…  The metal plate was pulled off by the machine [winch], and we saw that his appearance had changed.  He was just smashed by the load…  We all helped to get him out... to get the dead body out from under the load.  It took an hour, from 12:00 midnight to 1:00 a.m.  …Then it was dawn.  We saw that the dead body was going out through the gate…”

--Lucky workers

Crippled on the Job and Discarded without a Cent

Bent over from the heavy weight he was carrying and unable to straighten his back, a new worker was fired without medical care or any compensation.

At first we thought he was an old woman, stooped over with a shawl thrown over his shoulders and head despite the humid, 90-degree temperature.  But he was a 32 year old man, who had just begun to work at the Bhatiary Steel Shipbreaking Yard.  When we visited him and a group of workers from the yard in mid-February, he had just started working nine days earlier.  He was hired as a helper, whose job it was to join a team that carried heavy metal plates cut from the ship to a waiting truck.  Some metal plates measure four or five feet wide by 15 or 16 feet long and are so heavy that it takes a dozen or more workers to lift and carry them on their shoulders.  They step in unison to the rhythm of a team leaders’ chant.  If they did not, the weight would crush them.  In this case, five workers were assigned to carry a smaller plate of steel measuring about five feet long.  They hoisted it onto their shoulders, which were dressed with rags to cushion the weight, and started to walk.  But the weight was too great, and they knew that if they waited the plate would crush them all.  Four of the more experienced workers knew how to hoist and slip out from under the weight.  The new worker thought he could do it as well, but he was a split second too late, and the full weight of several-hundred pound plate came down on his back before he was knocked aside.  After that, he could not straighten himself back up again.  He is permanently bent over and in pain.

As a helper, he was paid 22 cents an hour and $2.64 for the routine 12-hour shift.  As he had worked for four days prior to his injury, he earned a total of $10.56.

Management fired him, taking no responsibility for his injury.  The shipyard would not even pay for him to see a doctor.  Nor was he offered any compensation.  His co-workers were taking care of him the best that they could.  He was staying and sleeping in the dorm rooms, and the workers prepared food for him.  The injured worker had no idea what he would do next without any money.  His life had come crashing to a halt when he was 32 years old.

A worker (bottom-left, pink shirt) bent over from a work accident is  now unable to straighten his back.

Mr. Helal, 18 Years Old, Crushed to Death on April 11, 2009
While Dismantling the Greek Ship, United Moonlight

For 27 years, the tanker United Moonlight delivered crude oil products around the world, including to the United States.  United Moonlight was owned by the Greek company, Marine Management Services MC, which sold the ship for $3,495,018 to a Bangladeshi shipbreaking yard called Jomuna, owned by a Mr. Aladdin.  The ship will be broken into scrap and sold at a healthy profit. The huge ship—676 feet long, 108 feet wide and 20 stories high—now sits beached in the sands of the Bay of Bengal.

Hundreds of young workers go into the ship without even the most primitive protective gear or safety precautions to work 12 hours a day for 22 to 32 cents an hour dismantling the ship under some of the most dangerous working conditions anywhere in the world.

On April 11, 2009, a huge metal plate fell from the United Moonlight ship, instantly crushing 18-year-old Mr. Helal to death.

When it was active, United Moonlight sailed under a Liberian flag of convenience.  This allowed the Greek shipping company to avoid Greek regulations and higher taxes and also to hire non-union workers from poor developing countries at less than half the wages and benefits as those in Greece.

Mr. Helal was crushed to death while working on the United Moonlight
 

Shipyard of Death

At Mamun Enterprise,
Three workers killed in a single month in June 2008,
Another worker crushed to death in April 2009

• Mr. Roise Uddin Mridha, 40 years old, worked as a “loader” carrying heavy metal plates cut from the ship to waiting trucks.  He was struck in the head by a falling piece of metal at 2:00 p.m. on June 2, 2008 and died on the way to the hospital.

• Mr. Hannan, a cutter’s helper, was just 18 when he was killed—in what the workers described as a “horrifying accident”—the night of June 16, 2008.  Shipyard officials sent the dead man’s body to his parents’ village that same night, without informing the police of his death.

• Mr. Habibur Rubel Rahman, 25 years old, was killed at midnight on June 27, 2008, when a heavy piece of metal he was cutting broke loose and crushed him to death.  The shipyard owner gave his family 3,000 taka ($43.60) after their sons’ death.  It was only under pressure from a local non-governmental organization—Young Power in Social Action (YPSA)—that the shipyard provided further compensation.

• Mr. Belal, a 27-year-old senior cutter, was crushed to death at 3:00 p.m. on Tuesday, April 21, 2009.  Mr. Belal was assigned to cut sheets of metal from the side of the ship.  No safety precautions were taken to guarantee the security of the large steel plates being cut.  Using a blowtorch, Mr. Belal was more than half way through his cut when a huge piece of metal broke free, falling and crushing him to death.

Two young workers rolling gas tanks out to cut a ship

The name of the shipbreaking yard where the workers were killed is Mamun Enterprise, also called S. Trading Corporation, which is owned by a Mr. Shafi.

At the time of the workers’ deaths, they were cutting apart two huge ships, the SETA, a crude oil tanker measuring 796 feet long and 106 feet wide and the Gazelle, also a crude oil tanker, 748 feet long and 106 feet wide.

Before they were sold to the scrap yard, both ships were owned by shipping companies in the United Arab Emirates, Seta by Emirates Shipping Co. Ltd. and Gazelle by the Global Crown Shipping Co. LLC.

In the last year, Seta and Gazelle carried crude oil to ports in the Mediterranean, Red Sea, India, the Gulf and South East Asia.

Portrait of Shipbreakers

Senior cutters work one of the most dangerous jobs in the world, seven days a week, while earning just 31 cents an hour.  Sun glasses, a second shirt, a bandana and a cheap baseball cap are their only “safety gear.”

One Friday in February, we ran into two shipbreaking workers who had just finished an eight-hour shift, from 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., on what was supposed to be their weekly day off.

They were experienced cutters who had been working in the yards for 11 years.

They were completely filthy.  Using a blowtorch, they cut the giant tanker ships into pieces.  Their work, they explained, was “absolutely dangerous,” and it was “very common that workers die,” either from explosions, or from slipping and falling into the cavernous ship.

When they use their blowtorch to cut, the metal sparks from the flame are flying everywhere.  In addition to the heat, the melting iron and lead paint throw off a sickening stench which makes them dizzy.  Most of all, they fear the explosions, which can happen if they cut through the metal and hit a pocket of gas vapor.  And before they can even begin to work on the metal, they have to hammer away the asbestos.

Management does not provide any safety gear other than the cheapest pair of welding gloves.  To protect themselves from the flying sparks when they are using the blowtorch, they wear two sets of heavy shirts, hoping that the sparks will not burn through both layers.  But it happens all the time.  Their arms were full of burn marks and welts.  They are sweating constantly, given the combination of 95-degree temperatures, high humidity and the heat of the blowtorches.

They buy cheap sunglasses to protect their eyes and wrap dirty bandanas around their mouths and noses to protect their faces and ward off the fumes and flying bits of asbestos.

An experience cutter wearing a dirty bandanna around his mouth and nose to protect their faces and ward off the fumes and flying bits of asbestos.

Instead of hard hats, they wore cheap baseball caps.  Rather than steel-tipped boots, they wore soft rubber “gum boots” that the owner takes from the ship and sells to the workers.  The boots are far too big, and the Bangladeshi workers use cut up rags to wrap and pad their feet.  Nonetheless, it is common for the workers to get rashes and infections since the rubber boots do not breathe.

The shipyard owner, they said, “doesn’t provide anything.”

These guys were great.  They were thin, cocky and knew that they were good at what they did.  Nor did they shy away from work, regularly putting in 13, 14 and 15-hour shifts, from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00, 10:00 or 11:00 p.m. or even midnight.  They worked seven days a week, including a four to eight or even ten-hour shift on Fridays, supposedly their day off.  They were working over 80 hours a week and sometimes more.  All overtime was obligatory.  The workers were allowed an hour for lunch, from 1:00 to 2:00 p.m., and a half-hour break from 5:00 to 5:30 p.m.

For all their grueling and dangerous work, these senior cutters were paid just 31 cents an hour, or $4.02 for the normal 13-hour shift and a total of $25.33 for working an 82-hour week.  All overtime is mandatory, but workers are not paid the legal overtime premium which is supposed to be paid as double time.

They told us that two weeks before, a piece of metal fell on a worker, breaking his leg.  Three years ago, when the workers were cutting apart a boiler, it exploded and many died.

There were not many children in their shipyard, maybe fewer than a dozen 12 and 13-year olds worked their shift.  The kids worked barefoot or in flip flops.

These workers received no national holidays, no religious Eid festivals, no May Day—nothing.  There was never a paid holiday.  There was no healthcare, no vacation days and no contract.  If they were hurt or killed, they could not even prove they worked at the yard.

The workers told us they had “no comfort, no life,” –which was a gross understatement. 

Four workers slept in a small room, lying on the dirty concrete floor.  No one had even a mattress.  Like other worker hovels we have seen, their room had a paper-thin thatched roof which leaked when it rained.  When it rains, they said, “we can’t sleep.”  All they can do is to sit and try to cover themselves with rags or a light quilt.

When we asked if there was a union in the shipbreaking yard, they responded, “No.  The company doesn’t want it and won’t accept it.  For us it is a dream.”

They told us that the ships they dismantled came from Germany, Greece, Singapore and other countries.

Workers forced to wear rubber boots, not the protective steel-toed boots that their jobs require

A Day in the Life of “Lucky” Shipbreakers

M.M. Shipbreaking Yard (Lucky)
Jahanabad
Sitakundo, Chittagong

There are a little over 1,000 workers at the M.M. Shipbreaking Yard—which almost everyone calls “Lucky.”  Currently, the yard is breaking down three huge tanker ships, each of which takes about six months to completely dismantle to be sold as scrap.

The yard operates 24 hours a day, running two 12-hour shifts.  On the night shift, no one works inside the ships; rather, they work on the beach under glaring fluorescent lights.

On a hot and rainy July morning, around 9:00 a.m., we had the chance to meet with a group of Lucky shipbreaking workers who had just come off the night shift.  They had worked straight through, from 8:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m., with just three short breaks—a half hour at 10:00 p.m., a ten-minute break at 2:00 a.m. when management provides them with a cup of tea and a small biscuit, which the workers say costs the equivalent of about four cents, and a 15-minute rest period at 6:30 a.m.  During the entire night, they get 55 minutes off.

Workers gutting a ship; the ship owners hope to resell what has been salvaged.

Using winches and wire cables, a huge holding tank—the workers said it was the size of ten of their dorm rooms—had been dragged from the ship onto the sand and mud.  Everyone was soaking wet from the rain, and sixteen workers were assigned to spend the entire night inside the holding tank, cutting it to pieces with their blowtorches.  The tank, which was divided into several room-sized chambers, must have held oil.   When we met with them that morning, the workers’ clothing was black with oil stains, and everyone smelled of oil.

During our meeting, almost all of the workers were coughing and spitting black.  Some went outside to vomit.  We could hear coughing coming from the surrounding rooms.  The workers said that inside the tank, there was a sharp, pungent stinking odor.  Their eyes were watering.  Their noses and throats were sore.  They felt dizzy, and some were near passing out.  A few workers tried chewing betel nuts to remove the acid taste in their mouths. 

Inside the tank it is pitch dark except for the glare of their blowtorches.  First, they had to knock off the asbestos, which was wrapped around the pipes and secured with wire.  They used hammers to break the asbestos apart.  Next, they marked the metal to note the sizes of the pieces they wanted to cut.  They used their blowtorches to cut the metal, but since there were a lot of fumes inside the tank, they had to fear explosions.  If they cut into a chamber with oil or gas fumes, there could be a flash fire or explosion.

It was not only the oil, but also the melting metal and lead paint that added to the deadly fumes.  Sparks were flying everywhere from the blowtorches, and the temperature inside the tank soared.  Already soaked from the night’s rain, they were also dripping in their own sweat.

The workers estimated that it would take two or three nights’ work to dismantle the chamber completely.

The shipbreakers do this work with no safety gear, no hard hats, no safety goggles or visors to protect against the glare and sparks, no welders vests and no respiratory masks.  Instead, the workers use sunglasses, baseball caps, bandanas wrapped around their nose and mouth and two sets of shirts in hopes of preventing the sparks from their blowtorches from reaching their skin.  However, all of them carried numerous scars from being burned.

Workers in the water, collecting barrels of fuel from the ship to take to shore.

The only safety gear management provides the workers are gloves, and those are only issued to the cutters who handle the blowtorches, not to their helpers or the junior workers.

Management sells the workers soft rubber boots that were collected from the ships. The workers are charged 400 taka ($5.81) for them.  The boots are too large for the Bangladeshi workers, so they wrap their feet with torn pieces of dungarees.  They have no socks, and since the rubber does not breathe, the workers’ feet stink and some get infections.

Three or four times a night, when they cannot stand it anymore, several workers take turns sneaking outside to breathe.  Outside they stand in the mud and clay, as it continues to rain.

The Lucky workers told us, “We have no life.”

Some child workers also work on the day and night shifts.  A 16-year-old Lucky worker we met with estimated that there were around 15 child workers between the ages of 10 and 12 on his day shift.  A similar number of kids worked at night.

Young workers pulling large scraps of metal.

The 16-year-old said injuries were common in the yard.  In June, a heavy piece of metal fell on his foot, and he had to take four days off—without pay.

Another group of Lucky workers thought there were about 100 young teenage workers between the ages of 16 and 17 in the yard, along with children as young as ten.

Desperately impoverished hovels not fit for any human being:

When the shipbreaking workers return “home” sometime after 8:30 a.m., having worked through the entire night, they need to wash off the oil, the stench of oil and gas clinging to their bodies, the asbestos dust and the grime, rust and mud.  But these workers do not have showers or baths.  They wash next to a manual water pump which they use to fill up small plastic buckets.  They use these plastic buckets to wash themselves.  The workers have to wait their turns since just two primitive water pumps serve 50 or more workers.  The workers brush their teeth, wash their clothes and cook using water from the same pump.  The water is not potable, but they drink it anyway.

A water pumped used for bathing and laundry.

The shipbreakers sleep four to each small, eight-by-12-foot room, with two workers sleeping on a hard wooden platform and the other two sleeping right on the dirty concrete floor.  No one has a mattress, just some old rags and sheets, which the workers say are infested with bed bugs.  The rooms reek of desperate impoverishment.  There is no air, no windows, just a single door.  It is stiflingly hot and flies are everywhere.  There is no TV, no radio, nothing, just some old clothes hanging from a string.  There is no refrigeration.  Food sits in open pots on the floor.

Two beds, which are sheets on top of the concrete floor.

In each room, workers take turns preparing the food.  The “kitchen” is a few pots on the floor in a corner with a tiny propane burner.  Some workers are so exhausted they skip breakfast and go right to sleep.  Those who stay awake eat the cheapest rice they can purchase, which is mixed with pieces of potato, vegetables like cabbage, and lentils.  For these workers, eating meat, fish or chicken is only a thing of their dreams.  The cheapest mutton costs $1.98 to $2.31 a pound, the equivalent of eight hours of work given that the workers are earning just 22 to 30 cents an hour.  The only time they eat meat, the workers laughed, is during the two major religious Eid festivals when middle class people give food to the poor.

A worker prepares food in the corner of the room, using a tiny propane burner.

Living on $1.45 a day—in misery:

A senior blowtorch cutter can earn 250 taka ($3.63) for a 12-hour shift, which comes to 30 cents an hour.

The Lucky workers told us they try to survive on 100 taka ($1.45) a day.  That has to cover rent for their room, electricity, the cheapest food and lunch or supper at work.  The workers cannot even afford to buy used shirts or pants, and they cling to their rags as long as they can.

The workers deny themselves everything so they can save money and send their families the equivalent of $2.18 a day.  They work 12 hours a day under grueling and dangerous conditions to do this.

We asked, do they ever see a doctor?  “We can’t afford food,” they responded, “so how are we going to see a doctor and purchase medicines?”  Seeing a doctor costs at least 300 taka, $4.36—which is more than 14 hours’ wages for even senior cutters, who earn just 30 cents an hour.

“It is common here to get injured” the workers explained.  We know the workers had no health care coverage, even for serious work-related accidents.  So what do the workers do?  “If injured,” they explained, “at best, a worker might get one day off, one day’s leave with pay, and only sometimes will management give you medicines.  Usually we have to purchase our own antiseptic solutions.  And workers never get paid for a second day off, no matter how badly they are hurt.”

We asked them what they did for fun.  Their response was:  “We have no time for fun.  Sleep is our only fun.”  “If we don’t work, we don’t get paid.”

To work in the shipyard, they went on, “is to invite death.”

“Here a dog is more important than a human being.”

“After a cow ploughs for one or two hours, they have to be fed.  But not us.  We have to work 12 to 14 hours with nothing.”

Smaller boats used to reach the ships in the water, with the larger ships in the background, waiting to be dismantled.

Seven Day Workweek

The shipyards operate around the clock, on two 12-hour shifts, from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., and 8:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m.  On Fridays, supposedly the workers’ weekly holiday, they work four hours, from 7:00 to 11:00.

If they do not work, they do not get paid.  The shipbreaking workers live on the edge.  “If we are healthy, we can survive.  If we get sick and can’t work, we cannot live.”

The workers’ goal is to work every day of the month, but the work is grueling, hard and dangerous, and they get sick and injured.  On average, most workers take three Fridays off a month.  This puts the workers at the shipyards for an average of 73 hours a week.

Some of the Lowest Wages in the World for some of the most Dangerous Work: 22 to 30 cents an hour

The cutters’ helpers earn 15 taka (22 cents) an hour—$2.62 for the routine 12-hour shift.  Illegally—and it has been going on for over 30 years in broad daylight—no shipyard owner pays the legal overtime premium, which is supposed to be twice the normal wage.  The helpers carry or roll the heavy metal tanks of oxygen and liquid gas for the cutters.  They also wield hammers all day, banging and chipping away at the rust as the cutters mark the metal and cut it to the right size.

Relatively new cutters—who handle the blowtorches—are paid 16.7 taka (24 cents) an hour and $2.91 for their 12 hours of work.  Senior cutters with many years experience are paid 20.83 taka (30 cents) an hour and $3.63 for the obligatory 12-hour shift.

A worker tries to cut a larger piece of the ship, into smaller parts.

The very highest wage—which only the most senior and experienced cutters earn—is 22.92 to 25 taka (33 to 36 cents) an hour--$4.00 to $4.36 for the 12-hour shift.

The workers say there is no relationship between the dangerous and grueling work that they do and the pitifully low wages they are paid. 

Such Modest Demands:  Workers Dream of Earning 55 Cents an Hour

The shipbreaking workers at the Lucky yard know better then anyone that Bangladesh is a very poor country.  Some workers even know that in the United States or Europe, workers doing similar jobs can earn in an hour what the Bangladeshi workers earn in a week, or two, or three.  Still, their “demands” are so modest that one would think the shipyard owners would blush with shame—along with the ten wealthy shipping countries that dominate the world’s cargo trade, the handful of major shipping companies, the International Labor Organization and the International Maritime Organization.

The shipbreakers’ dream is for cutters to earn 300 taka for eight hours work, that is, $4.36 for the legal regular shift, or 55 cents an hour.  Helpers dream of earning 200 taka ($2.91) for the regular eight-hour shift, or 36 cents an hour.

It is not a lot of money, but for the workers it would allow them to climb out of misery and into poverty where they and their families could survive with a modicum of dignity.

As things stand now, even a senior cutter earns just 30 cents an hour and $3.63 for the mandatory 12-hour shift.  If these workers’ wages were modestly increased to just 55 cents an hour, and they were paid the legal overtime premium of 100 percent for the four hours of overtime they work each day, they would be earning $8.72 a day, $5.09 a day more than they are paid now.  Their wages would only average 72.5 cents an hour, which includes overtime, but it would make a world of difference to them and their families.

If helpers earned just 36 cents an hour instead of the 22 cents they are now getting, and if they were paid the proper overtime premium according to the law, they would be earning $5.82 a day for the 12-hour shift, which would be $3.20 more per day than they are currently earning.

Working at some of the most dangerous jobs in the world, wages of just 36 to 55 cents an hour should not have to be a dream.  Surely the dominant shipping countries and companies, the ILO and the IMO can accomplish this much.

The shipbreaking workers also want a contract to prove that they are permanent, full-time workers employed at a shipyard.  Right now, they are treated as temporary workers with no rights.  If a worker is injured or even killed, the owner can claim that the worker was never employed in his yard.

The workers want health insurance to cover work injuries.

They want sick days, national holidays and annual paid vacation time to be respected according to the law.

And they want basic safety equipment, including helmets, goggles, real boots, welding vests to block the sparks and proper respiratory masks when they are dealing with asbestos, lead paint, gas fumes and other toxins.

And they want the right to organize.

As things stand now, accidents and even some deaths are not investigated or reported.  Workers are exposed to toxic wastes every single day, but there are no medical examinations or long-term studies to document how the workers’ health is affected.

Sparks from cutting torches leave burns and scars on workers unprotected skin

Caught in a trap

One Lucky worker, a small, very thin man who had worked 14 years in the shipbreaking yards told us there have been no improvements at all over these14 years.  Nothing has changed and no one has ever helped them.  Asked if the Ministry of Labor has ever assisted them, he and the other workers responded, “No.  Never!”  He went on to say that it was impossible to have hope, especially as the Bangladeshi government is not concerned about its own people.  He also warned the younger workers that the grueling hours worked around toxic waste would make them impotent, as has happened to him.

“The workers aren’t united,” he said. “We don’t have a union.  We can’t bargain.  If we tried to organize, we would all be fired and replaced.”

“What the owner says is the law.”

The Struggle for Hope

In several of the poor neighborhoods we visited, workers from different shipyards told us that we were the first foreigners or Western people to come to visit them.  The workers said it made them very happy and excited that foreigners cared enough to meet them, and they hoped we could work together.

One group of workers got right down to business, saying they could bring together a meeting of 1,000 shipbreaking workers if it could be held on a Friday afternoon when the workers had time off.  The workers would come if they thought there was a chance to improve working conditions and wages.  If it would help them, they would take the risk despite everyone’s fear of the powerful and wealthy shipyard owners.

The workers know they are being cheated, denied their rights and recklessly exposed to injuries and death, but they cannot fight back alone.  They are caught in a vicious trap.  But if international solidarity were offered, the workers would take the leap.

Workers tow welding gas tanks up to the top of the ship

Jiri Subedar Shipyard

We are in a trap.  No one helps.

• Mr. Najrul Islam, a 25-year-old “loader” was killed at the Jiri Subedar Shipyard on October 28, 2008 when a huge metal plate cut from a ship fell and crushed him.  Mr. Najrul died on the way to the hospital.  In teams, the “loaders” carry heavy metal plates cut from the ships to waiting trucks for transport to the rolling mills.

• Mr. Jahagir Alam, an experienced cutter who had worked at the Jiri Subedar Shipyard for four years, was critically injured on August 12, 2008 when he was struck by a huge piece of falling metal.  He died on September 6, 2008.

• On February 18, 2009, Mr. Abdul Halim, a cutter’s helper, was seriously burned at the Jiri Subedar Shipyard when a gas tank they were cutting exploded.

The standard shift at the Jiri Subedar Shipyard is 12 hours, from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., though in February 2009 when we met with the workers, they were being kept until 10:00 or 11:00 p.m. several times each week, putting in 14 to 15-hour shifts.  When they work to 10:00 p.m. or later, the workers are provided with a special 44-cent food allowance.  As is standard in the shipbreaking yards—though illegal—no overtime premium is ever paid.  “They don’t give you [overtime], a worker told us, “If you work two hours, you get two hours [regular wages].”

Junior cutters earned 36 cents an hour, while the most experienced senior cutters could earn up to 55 cents an hour, which is the highest wage we heard of in any of the shipyards.

When the workers enter the ship, it is pitch dark.  The electrical system is cut once the tanker is beached.  The only light they have comes from their blowtorches.  The first thing they do is cut small openings in the side of the ship for light.

A worker scales the inside of the ship, with no safety harness.

Inside the ship, it is…”Hot!  Very hot.  We are sweating.  Everyone is soaked.”

They often work on “floating stairs,” which are bamboo-rope ladders.  The workers explained it is “very risky.”  They hold the rope ladder with one hand and operate the blowtorch in the other.  They use their teeth to turn the liquid gas and oxygen valves on and off.

The first thing they have to do is to cut or break the asbestos, which is attached to the steel plates and pipes.  They break the asbestos “with a hammer, banging it into pieces.”  The workers wrap dirty bandanas around their faces to cover their noses and mouths in an effort to not breathe in the asbestos dust.  “It’s itchy,” they say.  “If it gets on your hands or skin it is itchy, and sometimes it tickles the face.”

With the asbestos out of the way, they can mark and begin cutting the metal plates, the largest of which is 20 by 20 feet.  Depending on where they are in the ship, the cut plates fall either in the water or on the sand and mud.  Using winches and thick wire cables, the huge metal plates are pulled up on shore.

They have gloves and hard hats, but no respiratory masks.  The workers use the same bandanas they used when breaking asbestos to try to protect themselves from the dizzying fumes and stench coming from the melting steel and lead paint as they cut with their blowtorches.  “[A bandana] is not enough.  Every time we breathe, we breathe in the fumes.”  Despite the extreme heat—it is hotter inside the ship than outside—they also wear two sets of shirts to protect themselves from the flying sparks bouncing off the metal.  It’s “common” for some sparks to burn through both shirts, reaching their skin and burning them.

The only light inside the ship comes from workers blowtorches.

Other workers drill holes in the ship to drain the gasoline, oil and polluted water out of the hold.  “Black oil…an oil and water mixture.  It stinks,” they say.

There is not much else going on in their lives than work.  “We only do the work.  We only work.  Our life is for work,” we were told. 

If they work, they get paid.  If they do not work, they do not get paid.  “No work, no pay,” they explain.  Most workers try to work seven days a week, but if a worker gets sick or is too exhausted, they may take off up to three days a month.

They have no health insurance, no sick days, no overtime pay, no vacation, no national holidays and no safety regulations.  Also illegal, management holds back one month’s wages, “To hold the workers.  To control us and keep us in the shipyard…so we cannot quit.”

We asked if conditions in the shipbreaking yard had improved over the last five or ten years.  The response was, “No.  The same as before.  No change.”

Was anyone helping them?  “No one.  Not government, union, Ministry of Labor.  Nothing.”  “We are in a trap,” they told us.  “Workers are isolated.  We can’t meet,”—meaning that anyone who sought improvements would be fired.

Could they at least eat half decently?  For example, doing the hard labor they do, could they afford to eat chicken or mutton even if it was just two or three times a week?  “No.  Oh, no.  With our salary, it is not possible…maybe every two months, every three months.”

“We are doing hard labor.  We have to consume more food.  Rice.  We need to eat eggs, meat, fish.  There is no relationship between what we are paid and the hard labor we do.”

Their wildest dream would be to earn 70 cents to $1.00 an hour and to be paid the legal overtime premium, to have healthcare for work injuries, one day off a week and a contract that proves they are permanent full-time workers.

As the shipbreaking yards are run now, they might as well ask for the moon.  Without international solidarity and pressure, nothing is going to change for these workers who in fact are doing one of the world’s most dangerous jobs.

The Jiri Subedar Shipbreaking Yard is owned by Mr. Lokman.  He also owns Pupali Enterprises Jiri Subedar, which is a separate operation where the large sheets of steel are cut into smaller sizes.  In addition, he owns a rolling mill, the Jiri Subedar Steel Re-rolling Mills.

Worker cuts metal in enclosed space with his face completely uncovered

Shipbreakers Exposed Daily to Deadly Toxic Wastes

Workers are exposed to:  Asbestos, Lead, Mercury, Arsenic, Cadmium, Zinc, PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyl compounds), Dioxin, Solvents, Black oil residues, carcinogenic cutting fumes (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons).

A woman sifting asbestos.  (Image By Ruben Dao/FIDH)

A 2006 study by the Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of Chittagong in Bangladesh, “Shipbreaking Activities and Its Impact on the Coastal Zone of Chittagong, Bangladesh:  Towards Sustainable Management” by Dr. Md. M. Maruf Hossain and Md. Mahmudul Islam, found deadly levels of toxic waste being released in Bangladesh’s shipbreaking yards.

Each tanker ship contains an average of 15,000 pounds of asbestos, which is used for thermal and sound insulation on the ship’s hull and pipes.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has repeatedly advised that there is no safe level of exposure to asbestos fibers and dust.  In July 2009, the National Labor Committee counted 112 giant tankers and container ships run up on the beaches of Bangladesh’s Bay of Bengal near the port city of Chittagong.  This means that for all 112 ships, Bangladeshi shipbreaking workers are handling—with absolutely no safety protections—1.68 million pounds of asbestos.  The workers use hammers to break the asbestos, which they shovel into plastic garbage bags and carry out to the beach.  Child workers are also involved in removing the deadly asbestos.

The University of Chittagong research also found that each container ship is covered with between 10 and 100 tons of lead paint.  (Lead paint is still used on ships.)  When workers cut apart the ship using their blow torches or scrape the metal to clean it, lead, mercury, cadmium, copper, zinc and arsenic are released.  All 112 ships beached in Chittagong in July 2009 would contain between 2.24 and 22.4 million pounds of lead paint.  Child workers acting as helpers to the cutters are also breathing the fumes given off when the flame of the blowtorch melts the metal and lead paint.  The polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the fumes can be carcinogenic.  Child workers also clean the metal plates by hammering off any residues or rust.

Each ship contains several thousand liters of oil (engine oil, bilge oil, hydraulic and lubricant oils and grease), for an average of 4,228 quarts of oil per ship, or 473,536 quarts for all 112 ships.  Each tanker ship also holds up to 1,000 cubic meters (35,336 cubic feet) of residual oil, or nearly four million cubic feet of residual oil on all 112 ships.  These black oil residues mix with and accumulate in the beach sand.

The International Labor Organization also lists PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyl compounds), dioxins and solvents as “hazardous substances” connected to shipbreaking.

The tanker ships are also infested with rats and insects.

The shipbreaking beaches are laced with chemicals and toxic waste, and coastal waters are seriously degraded.  Fish populations have been destroyed, wiping out the livelihood and threatening the survival of nearby fishing villages.

There has been absolutely no attempt to conduct medical examinations of the shipbreaking workers to test for their level of exposure to toxins and carcinogens.  In the 30 years that shipbreaking has been going on in Bangladesh, there has not been one long-term study tracking the health of the workers.  It is as if their lives do not matter.

It would cost almost nothing for the shipyards to install proper showers where the workers could wash with clean water and soap.

Ambia Shipbreaking Yard

“We have no fun and no time to play.
All we do is work and sleep.”

--Child worker, Ambia yard

In July, we met a child worker from the Ambia shipbreaking yard who told us he was 14 years old.  But the older workers quickly explained that he was really just 10.  He was tiny.  He worked as a “cleaner,” wielding a hammer all day, banging chips of rust off the metal plates that the blowtorch operators were cutting.  The work, he told us, was very hard, and at the end of the 12-hour shift, he was worn out and exhausted.

Child workers

Senior workers estimated that there were approximately 60 children working in the Ambia yard.

The child workers work alongside the cutters’ helpers, who are responsible for breaking up the asbestos inside the ship, shoveling it into sacks and taking it outside.  They guess that the owner sells the asbestos.

The child workers and helpers are paid 20 to 22 cents [13.75 to 15 taka] an hour—$2.40 to $2.64 for the routine 12-hour shift.

Though the overtime hours are mandatory, there is no overtime premium—no national holidays, no vacation, no healthcare, no sick days, nothing.  In every shipyard the workers told us the same thing—that the Ministry of Labor did absolutely nothing to help the workers.  Every single labor law in Bangladesh was being grossly violated in broad daylight and with complete impunity.

In fact, Ministry of Labor officials claim that there are no children working in the shipbreaking yards.  They have gone in and inspected the yards, they say.  But all their visits are announced well in advance, making it easy for the owners to keep the kids in their miserably primitive homes for the day of the visit.

There are 500 to 700 workers at the Ambia yard, where three giant tanker and container ships are being dismantled for scrap.  Depending on its size, it takes six to nine months to completely dismantle a ship.

Senior cutters earn 25 to 29 cents [17.5 to 20 taka] an hour.  In the standard, grueling 12-hour shift, from 8:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m., the cutters earn from $3.00 to $3.48, and if they toil seven days a week, including four hours on Friday their weekly holiday, they can earn $19 to $22.04 a week.

“This is our life,” the workers told us.  “If we don’t work, our family will die.  Just work and sleep.  Without hope.”  Working in the shipbreaking yards, they continued, “makes your life short, and reduces our lifespan to around 40 years of age.”

Four workers shared each small room, measuring approximately eight by ten feet.  Two workers slept on a hard wooden platform, while the other two slept directly on the concrete floor.  The rooms were depressing, dark, suffocatingly hot and airless.  There were no windows, and the door opened into a covered hallway.  There were a few pots lying on the floor in which they cooked their meager food.  Other than that, there were a few pieces of clothing hanging on ropes.  But there was no TV, no radio, no cassette player, nothing.  The workers laughed when we asked if they could afford to eat anything other than rice and vegetables.  Could they afford meat?  They told us that the only time they ate mutton was during the religious holiday, Eid, when wealthier people give food to the poor.

Standing in the room, it was unimaginable how anyone could live here for more than a day or two.

Here too, as in other yards, the owner has a network of spies—workers who are paid a few extra dollars to monitor and crush any workers seeking to improve working and living conditions.

When the Ambia shipyard workers let loose and dreamed the impossible, they wished they would earn 60 to 70 cents an hour!

Instead of raising wages or paying the proper overtime premium, yard management always holds back five days’ wages—up to 1,200 taka ($17.40) to “bond” the laborers to the yard.  The fact that workers can be “bonded” and held in the yard for just $17.40 is an indication of how desperately poor and on the edge these workers are.

Barefoot workers hauling metal in the mud

Who Is Responsible?

For the past 30 years, shipbreaking workers in Bangladesh have been maimed, burned, killed, poisoned, cheated of their wages and denied every single labor right under Bangladesh law and the International Labor Organization’s core worker rights standards.  And over the entire three decades, the shipbreaking workers recently told us, “nothing has changed, there have been no improvements.”  In addition to the extreme worker rights violations, miles of beaches and ocean have been irreparably degraded and overcome with toxic waste.

It is convenient for the major shipping nations and companies—who dominate global cargo trade—to present what is happening in Bangladesh as just another intractable example of the desperate poverty wracking the underdeveloped countries that the G-20, the United Nations, the International Maritime Organization and the International Labor Organization are all racing to fix.

In fact, it is very possible to name those who are responsible for the human and environmental crimes in Bangladesh.

Certainly the shipbreaking yard owners in Bangladesh are responsible.  They have grown fantastically wealthy and powerful on the backs of the exploited, maimed and discarded workers.  And, the Government of Bangladesh, in particular the Ministry of Labor, has not lifted a finger to implement Bangladesh’s labor and environmental laws. 

But there are much bigger fish out there who are also responsible, and who have the means and power to implement change.  The ten largest shipping nations control 72.2 percent of all merchant cargo shipments worldwide.  Certainly powerful shipping countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, Norway, Greece, China, South Korea and Singapore bear a significant responsibility.  Six of the largest shipping countries belong to the G-20, where they could forcefully raise this issue.

Moreover, just ten container shipping companies control 60 percent of all merchant cargo shipments worldwide.  If they chose to do so, these major shipping companies could also have a powerful voice demanding an end to the decades of abuse and exploitation endured by Bangladesh’s workers.  These companies could support improvements in the shipbreaking industry.

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the International Labor Organization (ILO) also bear a huge responsibility to end the abuse in Bangladesh’s shipbreaking yards.  However their track record has been extremely poor.  The International Labor Organization has been working on improving conditions in Bangladesh’s shipbreaking yards for the last 20 years with absolutely no positive results.  This is wrong and we cannot allow it.

Nothing will change as long as respect for and enforcement of labor rights standards remain a gentlemen’s game, politely played behind closed doors by powerful vested interests.

The G-20 meets in Pittsburgh on September 24 and 25.  Six of the 10 largest shipping nations (not counting the European Union) are G-20 members:  United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, China and South Korea.  Labor and human rights activists, environmentalists, students, people of faith, women’s groups and others have the right to challenge the G-20 meeting to do more than just talk while young workers and children continue to die and be maimed in Bangladesh’s shipbreaking yards.  We have the right to demand concrete steps to improve the shipbreaking industry.

Let’s send the child workers to school

Here is the question:  Could the shipyard owners in Bangladesh, joined by the ten wealthy nations that dominate shipping, along with the ten largest container shipping companies, the International Maritime Organization, the International Labor Organization and the G-20 countries afford to end child labor in Bangladesh’s shipbreaking yards?  Of course they could.  What is lacking is the will to do so.

At a minimum, every 10, 11, 12 and 13-year-old worker should be sent back to school.

First, the children will need a living stipend to at least replace their regular wages of $10.56 a week, $549.12 for the year. [22 cents/hour x 48 hours = $10.56]  In addition, although public schools are free, there are costs for purchasing necessary school materials, such as uniforms, school bags, notebooks, pens, pencils, etc.  This would cost 12,000 to 15,000 taka ($174.42-$218) a year—or an average cost of $196.22.

The 10 to 13-year-old child workers could return to school with a living stipend and the necessary school supplies for just $745.72 a year and $1,491.44 for two years.

Child worker

No one knows exactly how many child workers there are in the shipbreaking yards, but credible estimates we heard from the senior workers were that there are approximately twenty 10 to 13 year-olds working in each yard.  If that is the case, it would cost each shipbreaking yard less than $30,000 to send their child workers back to school for two years.

This is not a lot of money, and one would think that the wealthy shipyard owners in Bangladesh, along with the dominant shipping nations and companies, the International Maritime Organization, the International Labor Organization and the G20 nations, could accomplish this much.

It is critical that we challenge these major players to do the right thing.

As an aside, according to the ILO, no one under 18 years of age should be employed in dangerous occupations that may damage their health.  Surely shipbreaking is among the most dangerous jobs in the world—but the convention is completely ignored in Bangladesh.

Mamun Enterprise Shipbreaking Yard

“We work.  We eat.  We sleep.  We don’t have any life.”

We had the chance to meet with several groups of workers from the Mamun Enterprise shipyard, which the workers called “Shafi” after the owners’ name.  The yard was always busy, and there were up to 1,000 workers.

Grueling hours, dangerous conditions, pitifully low wages, miserable living quarters and some child workers:

The “Shafi” yard operates 24 hours a day on two 12-hour shifts—from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. and from 8:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m.  The yard works seven days a week, though on Fridays—the workers weekly holiday—the shift is ‘just’ four hours, from 8:00 a.m. to noon.   This puts the workers in the yard 76 hours a week.

Helpers are paid just 22 cents (15 taka) an hour and $2.61 for the standard 12-hour shift.  Cutters, operating blowtorches to cut the ships to pieces, earn 29 to 33 cents (20 to 20.5 taka) an hour, depending upon seniority and experience.  Working the mandatory 12-hour shift, cutters earn $3.49 a day, up to a high of $3.92, which few workers earn.  Despite the forced overtime every day, no overtime premium is paid.

If the shipbreakers do not work, they do not get paid.  They have no paid sick days, no public holidays, no religious festivals, no vacations.

The work is exhausting.  Most of the helpers are so poor that they carry the heavy sheets of metal all day long in scorching temperatures, going barefoot or wearing the cheapest flip flops because they cannot afford shoes.

The helpers told us they had to take one or two days off a month—unpaid—as they were too exhausted or sick.  The night shift workers knew of at least a dozen 12 and 13-year-old children who also worked the whole night through.

The living conditions are not fit for animals.  Five workers share each primitive room, sleeping on a dirty concrete floor.  There are no beds, no mattresses.  The rooms have paper-thin roofs of woven bamboo slats, which leak when it rains.  When it rains, the workers sit up all night, covering themselves with pieces of plastic.  The workers can only afford to subsist on the cheapest rice and vegetables.  Chicken, fish and meat is out of the question and only a distant dream.

Workers on the outside of a ship with no safety harness.

The owner has started taking the workers’ timecards away at the end of each month so that there are no records of how many hours they work each week or month or of how many years they have worked at the yard.  This way, if a worker gets badly hurt or even killed, the owner can claim that the worker never worked in his yard.  Also, without timecards there is no way to document how many hours of legal overtime pay the workers are cheated of.

The workers also report that “Shafi” management uses “spies”—workers who have been paid off—to make sure that the workers can never unify around a set of basic demands, such as respect for their basic legal rights.

The Bangladeshi Ministry of Labor never helps.  Like every other group of shipbreaking workers we spoke with, the “Shafi” workers were adamant in saying that over the years, there have been no improvements at all.  Nothing has changed.  The workers are trapped in danger and misery.

“Bhatiary Steel” Yard/Bhatiary Shipbreaking Ltd.

To survive, we have to die…
We laugh to release our sorrow.

--Worker, Bhatiary Steel Shipbreaking Yard

In February 2009, a newly hired helper at the Bhatiary Steel Yard was seriously injured and crippled when a heavy sheet of metal crushed his back.  He was fired with no compensation or medical care.

There are approximately 400 workers at the Bhatiary Steel yard, working two shifts around the clock, from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. and from 7:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m.  On the dayshift, the workers are often kept to 8:00, 9:00 or 10:00 p.m., putting in a 13 to 15-hour shift.  This routinely happens four or five times a week.  On Fridays—the weekly holiday—the workers toil five hours, from 7:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon.  The shipbreakers work every day they can.  It is only when they are sick, exhausted or injured that they take a day off.  If they do not work, they receive no pay.  If they were healthy enough to work all seven days, they would be at the shipyard 80 hours a week.

On the day shift, the workers get an hour for lunch at 1:00 p.m. and a half-hour break at 5:00 p.m. when management provides tea and a small biscuit.

Senior cutters—using blowtorches to cut the ship to pieces—earn 29 cents an hour, while helpers are paid 18 or 19 cents an hour.  The legal overtime premium is never paid.  If the workers dare ask for their proper pay, the response from the owner is:  “The gate is open.  Get out.  Go.”

The workers estimate that there are about 15 children between the ages of 11 and 13 working on the dayshift.

Workers working in the polluted waters, retrieving barrels of fuel and oil to take to shore.

Inside the ship, fumes from gas leaks, burning metal and lead paint burn the workers eyes and make them dizzy.  Many vomit.

When we met with the workers, they were basically dressed in rags.  One older man was wearing a torn, worn-out MIT tee shirt. 

Four workers share a small room which leaks when it rains.  It costs the workers 500 taka, or $7.22 a month.  They subsist on rice, mashed potatoes, the cheapest of vegetables, and dahl (lentils)—which they can afford twice a week.  A pound of mutton costs $2.91, the equivalent of nearly eight-hours’ pay.  They never eat meat more than once a month.

Similar to what we heard in other shipbreaking yards, the most experienced Bhatiary workers, who had been around the longest, confirmed that there had not been any changes over the years, and absolutely no improvements.  Actually, the situation may have even gotten worse, as the cost of basic food was constantly rising.  So in some ways, the workers said, “We are going backwards.”

Khaja Shipmaster Trading Shipbreaking Yard

We don’t know when we will die…
We have to take death into our hands.

       --Shipbreaking worker

A Clandestine Meeting with the Workers

Our visit, they told us, was the first time they had seen an outsider in over ten years.  Ministry of Labor officials had never come to meet the workers.

“How can we see hope?” the worker said, in response to our question.  “The owner sees us as dogs.   He ignores us… hates us, and we have to accept this because we have to work.”

As in other shipbreaking yards, the night shift workers toil from 8:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m., seven days a week.  On Friday—their supposed weekly holiday—the shift is reduced to four or five hours.  The workers are allowed a half-hour break for supper from 10:00 to 10:30 p.m., and at 2:00 a.m., the workers get a tea break when management provides a cup of tea and a small biscuit, which the workers say costs the owner about four cents to purchase at a local store.  The day shift is from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.

The workers use bamboo rope ladders both outside and inside the ships.  It’s an 80-foot climb from the sand or water to reach the deck.  There are no safety belts.  Inside, cutters cling to the rope ladder with one hand while using their other hand to work the blow torch.

Workers climbing 80 feet to enter the ship using a bamboo rope ladder.

We saw one thin worker standing in a small plastic bucket being pulled up to the deck with a rope tied around the bucket.  It was frightening to even watch.

The owner provides a new pair of cheap welding gloves to the cutters every two weeks.  Everything else, the workers have to buy, wearing cheap sunglasses rather than proper goggles and wrapping their faces with bandanas in place of respiratory masks.  Without welding vests, the workers wear two sets of shirts to ward off the flying sparks of burning metal.

They use hammers to tear down the asbestos that is wrapped around the ship’s pipes.  The young workers pile the asbestos on the sand.  Some yards sell the asbestos, while others wait for rain to wash it to sea.

Another standard practice is to drill holes into the ship in order to drain used oil, gas and other toxic chemicals into the sea.

For safety, the workers have to rely upon their own folklore.  Everyone knows how extremely dangerous it is to cut apart a gas tank—or cut into any chamber where gas fumes could have built up—with a red-hot blowtorch.  Deadly explosions are all too common.  To protect themselves, the workers first drill holes in the tanks and then put sand in the hole, which they believe may prevent an explosion.

When they breathe in too many gas fumes, the workers say it painfully swells their stomachs in addition to causing headaches, dizziness and fever.  In some parts of the ship, almost everyone is coughing.

Every worker is a specialist, and some workers spend the entire day in the water, roping together and pulling dozens of large metal barrels to land.  Oil is constantly leaking into the water and the workers suffer painful rashes.

On the day shift, the workers report, there are about two dozen child workers who are 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15 years old.

Injuries are common.  One worker we spoke with was idled for 15 days after a large piece of metal fell, cutting and bruising his leg.  The 15 days it took him to recover were unpaid.

In the beginning of February 2009, another young teenage worker was struck with an iron rod, which fractured his foot.  For two days, the workers related, he lay crying in pain.  The workers took him in a bicycle rickshaw to see a doctor.  He will be unable to work and without pay for at least two months.  “How is he going to survive?  He can’t,” a worker told us.  In the shipyards, no matter how bad your injury, if you do not work, you do not get paid.

A child worker works on a heavy plate of metal.

At the Khaja Shipmaster yard, senior cutters earn $3.05 to $3.44 for the standard 12-hour shift—or 25 to 29 cents an hour.  Helpers are paid 19 to 20 cents per hour.  Not only are shipbreakers’ wages pitifully low, but the owner often delays paying their wages for one or two weeks.  When the workers beg for their wages, it is the owner who feels abused and curses them, yelling, “Get out!”

Six workers sleep in a single room.  They cannot afford a TV or radio, and few have enough money to get married.  They go to the movies once every year or two.  The workers save every cent they earn so they can send $14.50 to $21.80 home to their parents each month.  Their villages are in the north of Bangladesh.  The shipbreaking workers usually go home twice a year, staying each time for about ten days.

These workers’ dream is to earn 300 taka ($4.36) a day for the regular eight-hour shift, or 55 cents an hour.  When they work 12 hours, they should, by law, be paid double time for the four overtime hours, earning $1.10 an hour.  So, for the twelve-hour shift, they should earn $8.76—an average regular and overtime wage of just 73 cents an hour.

If nothing changes to formally hold the shipyard owners accountable to respect Bangladesh’s labor laws, the workers will continue to be cheated, paid just 29 cents an hour with no overtime premium—for doing one of the most dangerous jobs in the world.

Kabir Steel Shipbreaking Yard

“We have no security in our lives.”

Twenty-five-year old Mr. Masud was killed at the Kabir Steel shipbreaking yard on November 14, 2008.  He was struck by a heavy piece of metal and died on the way to the hospital.

Mr. Masud worked in a “loader group” of a dozen or more workers who lifted heavy pieces of metal—typically measuring five by fifteen feet—onto their shoulders all day long to carry them from the ship to trucks waiting to take the scrap to nearby rolling mills.  The metal sheets are so heavy that the workers must all step in perfect unison, following a rhythmic chant or grunt.  If even a few workers were to move out of coordination with the rest, the heavy weight could crush them all.  Watching them, we could not help but think of the slaves who built the pyramids in Egypt.

The Kabir shipbreaking yard is huge, with approximately 1,500 workers and eight beached ships lined up to be dismantled.

A large flame from the blowtorch, used to cut the metal.

Bangladesh is a Muslim country, and many of the shipbreaking workers are fasting for the month of Ramadan leading up to one of the most important religious festivals, Eid Al Fitr.  When we questioned our friends in Bangladesh, they described Eid as a combination of Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Everyone wants to go home, to the villages of their parents, bringing gifts and food.  Across Bangladesh, it is traditional for government offices and many businesses to give their workers time off for the Eid holiday and to provide an Eid bonus equal to one month’s pay.  But the Kabir shipbreaking yard “celebrates” Eid a little differently.  If workers take off for the religious Eid holiday, they are neither paid nor provided with the traditional Eid bonus.  In fact, before Eid, Kabir management holds back 500 taka ($7.27) in wages to assure that if the workers go to visit their family homes in northern Bangladesh, they will return to work immediately after the holiday.  It speaks volumes about how poor and desperate these workers are that $7.27 in withheld wages is enough to make some workers return on time.  Rather than giving their workers the Eid bonus, management holds back the poor workers’ wages to bond them to the miserable conditions at the Kabir shipbreaking yard.

What Should Be Done

Global Trade Rules Fail to Protect Worker Rights

The world is a desperate place for the poor, and as that desperation grows, more workers are fighting to keep jobs that they know will kill them.  With no alternatives, the workers have no choice.  Their families must survive.

The shipbreakers in Bangladesh do not want the yards to be shut down.  In fact, they will fight to defend jobs that are exploiting, maiming and killing them.  Such is the desperation they face.  “To live, we have to die,” the shipbreakers told us.

One fact:  For 30 years, 30,000 workers in Bangladesh’s shipbreaking yards have been trapped in danger and misery.

Second fact:  The global institutions and bureaucracies that oversee the global economy are miserably failing workers across the developing world.  The G-20 countries (and the G-7 before that), the World Trade Organization, the United Nations’ International Maritime Organization and International Labor Organization have all failed to produce a single improvement over the last 30 years in the lives of Bangladesh’s 30,000 shipbreakers.  What a track record!

It is frightening to think that the way the global trading system is currently set up, we might not see any improvements over the next 30 years either.  In a global trading system where “free trade” is a sacred and immutable right trumping all human rights, shipbreaking is just the last cycle in the race to the bottom in the global sweatshop economy.  Even if the International Labor Organization (ILO) wanted to help, it is as if they are starting out with their arms tied behind their back.  A lot of conferences and meetings have been held on shipbreaking in the developing world; reports and videos have been distributed and money spent, but to no end, with no concrete improvements. 

A Common Sense Approach:

In truth, if the rights—including worker rights—of the human being were afforded similar legal protections as are currently granted to corporate products and trademarks, it would not be so difficult to improve conditions.

What We Should Do:

1. The ILO could work in partnership with Bangladesh’s Ministry of Labor and with local nongovernmental human and labor rights organizations—including providing sufficient funding when necessary—to bring the Ministry of Labor up to par so that it could effectively enforce Bangladesh’s labor laws.

2. Child Labor: Child workers 10, 11, 12 and 13 years of age employed in Bangladesh’s shipbreaking yards should be returned to school where they belong.  It would cost less than $750 a year—including a stipend to replace their wages and to cover all school costs—to do this.  Child and teenage workers 14, 15, 16 and 17 years old should be relocated out of the shipbreaking yards and into less dangerous jobs in accordance with ILO convention 182 on the worst forms of child labor.

3. Establish the rule of law in Bangladesh’s shipbreaking yards:  Bangladesh’s labor laws are modest and clear:

• A legal eight-hour day, six days a week, for a regular 48-hour workweek.

• All overtime must be voluntary and paid at a 100 percent premium.

• Workers must receive one day off each week.

• Paid sick days, national holidays and vacations must be respected.

• Workers must be provided appointment cards, proving they are permanent, full-time workers at a particular shipyard.

• Workers have the right to organize independent unions and to bargain collectively.
  The workers have two further dreams—to earn 60 cents an hour and to have health insurance for work-related injuries, just as government workers have.

4. Implementing basic safety provisions:  It would cost almost nothing to provide workers with basic safety trainings.  Also, showers and clean water should be made available in the shipyards so workers can wash in case they are exposed to toxins and at the end of every shift.

We have shown that for less than $350, workers could be outfitted with hardhats, welders’ gloves, welding vests and protective visors, safety belts, steel toe boots and respiratory masks and clean filters if they are working around asbestos, lead or other toxic dust.

5. The ten countries and ten shipping companies that dominate global merchant cargo trade must guarantee that all toxic waste will be removed before ships are sent to Bangladesh—or India, Pakistan, China or Turkey—for scrapping.

Surely if these very modest steps were implemented in Bangladesh’s shipyards, the global economy would not collapse like a house of cards.  So what is holding us back?  If the anointed institutions and bureaucracies directing global trade are stuck in the mud, international human and worker rights activists can take the lead.  It might prove very effective to focus on one high-profile campaign at a time, concentrating our efforts, winning, and then moving on to the next campaign.  Putting a human face on the global economy is far too important to leave to the bureaucrats.

Rolling gas tanks out to the ship

Key Organizations Working to Improve Shipbreaking

Young Power in Social Action (YPSA)
House # F10 (P), Road # 13, Block-B,
Chandgaon R/A Chittagong-4212 - Bangladesh
Tel: +88-031-672857 / Tel + Fax: +88-031-2570255
E-mail: info@ypsa.org
www.ypsa.org

Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity (BCWS)
House # 446 (Ground Floor) West Rampura
Dhaka-1219
Tel: 8802-7282025
 Email: bcws2003@yahoo.com

Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA)
House # 15/A ,  Road # 3, Dhanmondi Residential Area
Dhaka-1205, Bangladesh
Tel: 8802-8614283, 8618706
Email: bela@bangla.net
www.belabangla.org

NGO Platform on Shipbreaking
Rue de la Liniere, 11
BE 1060 Brussels, Belgium
Tel: +32 (0) 2 6094 419
http://www.shipbreakingplatform.com/

International Metalworkers’ Federation (IMF)
54bis, route des Acacias, Case Postale 1516
CH-1227 Geneva, Switzerland
Tel:  +41 22 308 5050    Fax: +41 22 308 5055
E-mail: info@imfmetal.org
www.imfmetal.org

International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)
17, passage de la Main-d’Or
75011 Paris,  France
Tel : (33-1) 43 55 25 18 / Fax: (33-1) 43 55 18 80
www.fidh.org

GreenPeace
702 H Street NW, Suite 300
Washington, D.C. 20001  USA
Tel:  (202) 462-1177 or (800) 326-0959
www.greenpeace.org

Excerpt of interview with Ms. Syeda Rizwana Hasan, attorney

Star Weekend Magazine, “The Environment’s Friend, May 8, 2008
Director, Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association
Recent winner, Goldman Environmental Prize

To you shipbreaking is…
To me shipbreaking is not just a national issue, but an international one, because developed countries are sending their waste to our countries and using our coastal areas as nothing more than dumping sites. My first fight was against converting our coastal areas into dumping sites. The second was about protecting the environment of our country as well as the laborers who are involved in the industry. On a different note, although we do the campaign (shipbreaking) with our government, it not only confined to the Government of Bangladesh. We also have to do international lobbying with the EU and the US and with other developed countries such as Japan who are sending their dirty ships to Bangladesh. So although it a national advocacy issue, it not limited to national. It has got trans-boundary and international dimensions as well.

What should the government do to deal with shipbreaking?
The government has to take a decision, does it want to continue with this shipbreaking, if yes than how does it ensure that toxic ships will not enter Bangladesh. If they enter into Bangladesh after they are cleaned, which only removes 80% of its toxicity, then what happens to the remaining 20%? Who will give Bangladesh funds for containing that 20%? The government must also come forward to protect the laborers, and ensure that the laborers are given basic rights. The right to from organization, right to get compensation, the right to know that they are working in an environment that can end up giving them cancer. The government also has to take very strict measures against the defiant shipbreaking yard owners.

You have often spoken up against the two main ideas that the shipbreaking industry uses to justify their existence. Could you please inform us of your thoughts on those issues?
The shipbreaking industry is currently operating on two main pleas, one is that they are supplying 80% of the iron to Bangladesh and the other is that they employ up to 20,000 workers. Now there are only 14 countries in the world that have a natural supply of iron and only five countries in the world that are doing shipbreaking, what about the rest of the countries? How are they meeting their iron demands? Are the people in Sri Lanka buying iron at a higher rate than us, the answer is no.

If you read the draft policy that the department of shipping prepared on shipbreaking, it has said that the shipbreaking industry supplies 80% of the iron to Bangladesh. And yet after a price rise in 2007 when the shipbreakers were blamed for the increase, the owners openly came out and said they do not supply 80% of the iron, but merely 25%. Then one could ask, if they did not artificially increase the price then who did? The answer is that whichever is the source of getting iron, whether its imported iron billet or from shipbreaking, all of it is sent to the re-rolling mills. Who owns the re rolling mills? It the shipbreaking companies. That is where they do the manipulation and increase the price. But the point is clear, that they do not supply 80% of the iron. Their second plea is that they employ 20,000 laborers, but when you ask them they will never be able to give you a list of those workers. I have not come across another sector where every two weeks a minimum of 1 person is dying and there is no labor unrest. These workers are dying, getting cancer, getting skin diseases; they are also losing their hands and legs. After working in the shipbreaking yards for a few years their bodies are in such a horrible condition that they can barely do any other form of labor. It is essentially crippling them for life. Often people worry what will happen if this industry is shut down, many will lose their jobs. To them I would say, if it a choice between unemployment and gross exploitation then I would chose unemployment. So basically both the pleas on which they are operating are futile to say the least.