Ship Breaking Workers’ Trade Union Forum formed human chain protesting recent accidental injury and death at Chittagong Ship Breaking yards on January 12, 2018 at the premises of Hafiz Jute Mill, Sitakunda in Chittagong.

The meeting during the hour-long human chain formation program was presided over by Ship Breaking Workers’ Trade Union Forum convener and veteran TU leader Tapan Dutta. The meeting was addressed among others by Forum Joint Convener labour Leader A M Nazim Uddin, Md. Mosiuddowla, Mahboobul Alam, Rizwanur Rahman Khan, Dilip Kumar Nath, Md. Nurul Absar, Md. Ali, Abdur Rahim Master, BILS-LO/FTF Information & Training Centre Coordinator Pahari Bhattacharjee and IndustriAll Global Union Country Coordinator Md. Shariful Islam. Nearly 192 ship breaking workers took part in the protest and human chain program from different ship yards.

Speakers in the meeting said, due to the improper monitoring and vigilance of government department accidents and injuries are occurring every now and then. The yard owners are careless about improving the existing risky working environment. Moreover, there is absence of TU rights in the yards and the Labour Law is not functioning. So the accidents and deaths are rampant-the speakers claimed. They demanded implementation of minimum wage, workplace safety and TU rights in ship breaking sector. Beside, all the injured & dead workers should be given adequate compensation-they said.

It is to be mentioned that, on December 25 and 26, 2017 two workers Md. Manik of M S Trading and Md. Masum of Sagorica Ship Breaking yard died in fatal accidents. A total number of 19 ship breaking workers died in 2017 in various accidents.