Four More Shipbreaking Workers Die in Bangladesh

http://ens-newswire.com/2014/04/04/four-more-shipbreaking-workers-die-in-bangladesh/?9

This article talks about the death of four workers in Bangladesh, India. They worked at a ship breaking yard. This job consists of breaking down old ships in order to recycle the parts or reuse the steel. Since this job deals with objects that are large and heavy, they need proper protection and protocol in order to prevent accidents. This indian company failed to provide the proper equipment, and once the accident that killed four workers and injured others occurred, the yard management tried to hide the bodies. One of the survivors stated that he could have saved some of the workers if there had been oxygen, this is one of the requisite of a basic first aid kit, a breathing device is necessary. They also mention that it is easier to deny all the casualties and incidents since there is no official record of workers. These companies hire around 200,000 people weather it is direct or indirect employment.It is said that in 2013 alone there were around 23 known deaths in the same ship breaking yard.

I connected this article to the industrial revolution and the invisible hand in many ways. The lack of safety measures is the same as those in a factory during the industrial revolution, the workers had no protective gear. There is also a lot of toxic waste, and the workers are exposed to these on a daily basis, these fumes can lead to sickness and even death, for example the workers who died due to inhaling carbon dioxide. Apart from terrible working conditions the workers are not registered, just like we read in class, the workers are not officially hired, since this way the company can avoid certain obligatory costs, like health care and less pay. Since there are so many workers, they don't receive the proper training, so they are more prone to accidents and malfunction of the machinery. This port doesn't have any inspectors, so the workers are unsupervised, this gives more risk since no one is aware of the workers whereabouts or if there are any safety breaches. This industry may have a large web of corruption behind it, but since there are no records or no one checks the working conditions, the workers can be mistreated, overworked, and even abused of. Just like in the industrial revolution, the owner of the establishment would state that they provided everything necessary, just that the workers chose not to use it. In this case the yard claims that ale safety measures and equipment were presented to the workers, yet they did not use them. The father of one of the dead workers mentions that they never had safety equipment, and that even one of the workers had previously alerted his family of the accident. After the accident an inspector declared that the accident occurred due to negligence and that the owner would have consequences, this is different than what would have normally happened in the industrial revolution, were all the people who enforced the law fell victims to bribe and corruption. The invisible hand is involved in this because these accidents wouldn't occur if the company had no ships to break. If we think about it, the owners of the boat benefit from selling it to this company since it will give them more money in exchange. There are clearly other yards that have better working conditions, yet they pay a lot less for the ship, therefore greed plays a curtail role between life and death.