A Crisis in the Workplace, The Systematic Erosion of Workers’ Rights and Safety in India

A Crisis in the Workplace, The Systematic Erosion of Workers’ Rights and Safety in India

In the relentless churn of India’s economic engine, a grim and recurring headline has become a macabre fixture: the industrial accident. In late June, a chemical reactor at the Sigachi Industries factory in Telangana burst, claiming the lives of 40 workers. A day later, an explosion at a fireworks unit in Sivakasi, Tamil Nadu, killed eight. In September, a ten-meter-high coal-handling plant collapsed at Chennai’s Ennore Thermal Power Station, crushing nine workers to death. These are not isolated incidents; they are symptomatic of a deep-rooted and systemic crisis in workplace safety and a steady, deliberate erosion of workers’ rights.

Behind the statistics and the fleeting news cycles lies a harrowing reality of preventable death, corporate negligence, and state complicity. The British Safety Council estimates that a staggering one in four fatal workplace accidents worldwide occurs in India—a figure considered conservative due to widespread underreporting, especially among the vast, unprotected ranks of contract and informal labour. This is not merely a problem of faulty machinery or bad luck; it is a direct consequence of a political and economic philosophy that prioritizes profit over people, flexibility over safety, and “ease of doing business” over the fundamental right to life and dignity at work.

The narrative that these tragedies are the inevitable cost of progress is a pernicious falsehood. As the explainer by Gautam Mody, General Secretary of the New Trade Union Initiative, makes clear, accidents occur “because employers fail to prevent them.” The stories from Telangana, Sivakasi, and Ennore are not just reports of disaster; they are indictments of a system that has actively dismantled the very protections designed to keep workers safe.

Anatomy of a Preventable Tragedy: The Sigachi Industries Case Study

The explosion at the Sigachi chemical factory serves as a chilling case study in catastrophic safety failure. The incident was not a bolt from the blue but a disaster waiting to happen, born of a cascade of negligent practices.

First, the reactor was operating at twice the permissible temperature—a fundamental and glaring violation of basic chemical safety protocols. This was not a minor oversight but a conscious decision to push machinery beyond its limits, likely in pursuit of higher output. Second, the plant’s safety systems were either non-functional or ignored. No alarms were triggered, and no safety officer intervened to shut down the overheating reactor. This points to a complete breakdown of the monitoring and emergency response infrastructure.

Third, the machinery itself was reportedly outdated and had been improperly retrofitted with new combustion engines, a clear sign of corner-cutting on maintenance and upgrades. When the blast finally occurred, the chaos revealed the utter lack of preparedness. Workers were forced to jump factory walls to escape, a desperate act that underscores the absence of safe, clearly marked evacuation routes. The legally mandated on-site ambulance was missing, and the injured had to be transported in a damaged company bus, delaying critical medical care.

Perhaps the most damning evidence of the systemic disregard for human life emerged in the aftermath. A week after the blast, authorities could not determine how many workers were “missing.” This is a clear indication that unregistered, informal workers were employed in a highly hazardous plant with no proper entry or exit records. These workers, rendered invisible by the system, were literally erased from the official count, their families left without even the meager consolation of confirmation or compensation.

The Root Causes: From “Human Error” to Corporate Calculus

The International Labour Organization (ILO) has consistently affirmed that industrial accidents are rarely random. They are the predictable outcome of a corporate calculus where safety is viewed as a cost to be minimized rather than a right to be upheld. The driving force is the relentless pressure to reduce costs and maximize profit, which manifests in chronic underinvestment in safety infrastructure, maintenance, and training.

A common corporate defense is to blame “human error”—a lone worker making a mistake. However, this narrative is a profound misdirection. The real causes almost always lie in employer practices that create the conditions for error. These include:

• Excessively long working hours leading to fatigue and impaired judgment.

• Inadequate rest periods that prevent recovery.

• Excessive work pressure to meet unrealistic production targets.

• Poverty wages that force workers to take on double shifts or avoid reporting minor injuries for fear of losing their jobs.

In the Ennore collapse, the “human error” would be impossible to identify. The failure was structural—literally. The collapse was likely due to faulty design, poor-quality scaffolding, or inadequate anchoring—all decisions made by management long before the workers arrived on site. The root cause is the employer’s failure to invest in sound engineering and rigorous quality control.

The Weakening Shield: The Dismantling of India’s Labour Protection Framework

India does not lack laws for worker safety; it lacks their effective enforcement and political will to uphold them. The struggle for safer workplaces dates back to the industrial age, culminating in the Factories Act of 1948, which became the cornerstone of labour regulation. This comprehensive legislation governed everything from factory licensing and machinery safety to working hours, rest breaks, and the provision of canteens and crèches. It was founded on the principle that decent working conditions and safety are inseparable from productivity.

This framework was enforced through a system of licensing and inspections, a combination of scheduled and surprise checks by government officials. While imperfect and susceptible to corruption, as tragically exposed by the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, it provided a mechanism—especially for unionized workers—to file complaints and compel employers to act.

Since the 1990s, and accelerating in recent decades, this protective shield has been systematically dismantled. Bowing to corporate demands for “flexibility”—a euphemism for the freedom to hire and fire at will and extract work without oversight—successive governments have weakened inspections and diluted laws, branding safety regulations as “obstacles to business.”

Key policy shifts exemplify this dangerous trend:

1. Self-Certification: In a move that epitomizes the abdication of state responsibility, the Maharashtra government in 2015 allowed employers to “self-certify” compliance with various labour laws. This is akin to allowing students to grade their own exams, removing the crucial independent scrutiny of the regulator.

2. The “Ease of Doing Business” Campaign: This central government initiative, while aimed at improving India’s global ranking, has often been interpreted by states as a mandate to dilute labour protections and reduce the “burden” of inspections on businesses.

3. The OSH Code, 2020: The proposed Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, which seeks to subsume the Factories Act, represents the culmination of this regressive shift. Though currently in abeyance, its underlying philosophy is alarming. It seeks to transform health and safety from a non-negotiable statutory right into a matter of executive discretion. What was once a worker’s legal entitlement risks becoming an act of government generosity, vulnerable to political and corporate influence.

4. Increased Working Hours: Several states, like Karnataka, have made permanent the increase in daily working hours that was initially an emergency measure during the COVID-19 pandemic. Longer hours directly contribute to worker fatigue, a primary cause of accidents, and represent a major blow to safety standards.

The Accountability Deficit: From Criminal Negligence to Charitable Compensation

A critical failure of the current system is the lack of meaningful criminal accountability for employers. When preventable accidents occur, the response is often limited to governments announcing ex gratia (voluntary) payments to the victims’ families from public funds. This practice is deeply problematic. It turns compensation, which is a right, into charity. More perniciously, it absolves the actual culprits—the employers—of their financial and criminal responsibility. The cost of their negligence is socialized, paid for by the taxpayer, while their profits remain private.

While compensation mechanisms like the Workers’ Compensation Act, 1923, and the Employees’ State Insurance Act, 1948, exist on paper, accessing these benefits is a labyrinthine process for grieving families. The compensation, even when secured, remains meagre and does not equate to justice. There are few high-profile prosecutions or convictions of company owners and top executives for culpable homicide or criminal negligence, sending a message that the lives of workers are cheap and disposable.

The Path Forward: Restoring the Right to a Safe Workplace

The solution to this crisis is not novel; it is a return to fundamental principles of justice and governance. It requires a multi-pronged approach:

1. Restore and Strengthen Independent Inspection: The system of scheduled and surprise inspections by a well-staffed, empowered, and transparent inspectorate must be reinstated as the bedrock of enforcement. Self-certification must be abandoned.

2. Enforce Criminal Liability: Employers must be held criminally, not just civilly, liable for preventable workplace deaths and injuries. Prosecutions for culpable homicide must become the norm in cases of gross negligence, such as operating a reactor at double its safe temperature.

3. Empower Workers and Unions: Strong, independent trade unions are the first line of defense for workers. They provide a collective voice to demand safety measures, report violations, and resist exploitative practices without fear of retaliation.

4. Reject the OSH Code’s Dilution: The proposed OSH Code must be fundamentally reworked to ensure that safety remains an enforceable right, not a discretionary privilege.

5. Promote a Cultural Shift: It is well-established that safe workplaces enhance long-term productivity and sustainable profits. India’s dominant business culture, focused on extracting maximum labour with minimal responsibility, must be challenged and transformed.

The choice before India is stark. It can continue on its current path, where the “ease of doing business” is paved with the lives of its workers, or it can choose to build an economy that values human dignity. Until the state reclaims its role as a regulator and a guardian of public safety, and until employers are held truly accountable, the lives of millions of workers will continue to hang in the balance, vulnerable to the next preventable explosion, the next avoidable collapse.

Q&A: Understanding India’s Workplace Safety Crisis

Q1: The article states that employers often blame “human error.” Why is this a misleading explanation?

A1: Blaming “human error” is misleading because it individualizes a systemic failure. It places the responsibility on the individual worker—a cog in the machine—while absolving the management that designs and controls the machine. The real causes are almost always rooted in employer practices that create the preconditions for error. For example, a worker might operate a valve incorrectly because they are exhausted from a 12-hour double shift (a management decision), were never properly trained (a management failure), or are working under extreme pressure to meet production targets (a management policy). Focusing on “human error” ignores the root causes: underinvestment in safety, poor maintenance, and exploitative work conditions.

Q2: What is the significance of the authorities not knowing how many workers were “missing” after the Sigachi explosion?

A2: This is a profoundly significant and damning detail. It provides clear evidence that the factory was employing unregistered, informal workers. These workers have no official records, no employment contracts, and are often not covered by social security or insurance schemes. Their invisibility means:

• They are denied basic rights: They have no legal claim to minimum wages, safe working conditions, or compensation in case of injury or death.

• It enables evasion of responsibility: The company can underreport its workforce size to avoid compliance with labour laws that are based on the number of employees.

• It highlights a culture of impunity: The fact that a hazardous chemical plant operated with such lax record-keeping shows a blatant disregard for the law and for human life. These “missing” workers symbolize the most vulnerable and exploited section of the labour force, whose deaths may not even be officially acknowledged.

Q3: How does the shift from mandatory inspections to “self-certification” endanger workers?

A3: Self-certification fundamentally undermines the entire regulatory framework. It replaces independent, objective oversight with a system that relies on the honesty of the very entities—the employers—that have a direct financial incentive to cut corners on safety. It is a conflict of interest. An inspectorate provides a crucial check and balance; it can identify hazards that management may have overlooked or deliberately ignored. Removing this independent scrutiny is like disbanding the police force and asking citizens to self-certify that they have not committed any crimes. It effectively allows businesses to regulate themselves, leading to a predictable and dangerous decline in safety standards.

Q4: What is the problem with governments announcing ex gratia payments after such accidents?

A4: While ex gratia payments provide immediate relief to grieving families, they are problematic for two major reasons:

1. They Socialize the Cost of Negligence: The payments come from public funds, meaning taxpayers foot the bill for corporate malfeasance. The responsible employer, who failed to provide a safe workplace, escapes their financial liability to the victims’ families.

2. They Obscure Accountability: Ex gratia payments are framed as an act of government charity or compassion. This shifts the focus away from the employer’s criminal negligence and the state’s regulatory failure. It turns a matter of justice and legal right (compensation from the guilty party) into a discretionary handout, absolving the actual perpetrators of their responsibility.

Q5: The article mentions that safe workplaces enhance productivity. Can you explain this connection?

A5: The connection between safety and productivity is well-established in occupational health research. A safe workplace:

• Reduces Downtime: Fewer accidents mean less disruption to production processes from investigations, repairs, and work stoppages.

• Lowers Costs: It reduces direct costs associated with accidents, including medical expenses, insurance premiums, legal fees, and compensation payouts.

• Boosts Morale and Retention: Workers who feel safe and valued are more motivated, engaged, and loyal. This leads to higher-quality work, lower absenteeism, and reduced employee turnover, which is costly for businesses.

• Enhances Reputation: Companies with strong safety records attract better talent and are viewed more favorably by investors, customers, and the community.
  Therefore, investing in safety is not just an ethical imperative; it is a smart business strategy that fosters sustainable, long-term profitability, as opposed to the short-sighted, dangerous pursuit of profit through cost-cutting on essential protections.