Friday, December 21, 2007

Hazardous job



















A young man painting poles. These poles are 30 foot or more in height. This guy was sitting on a makeshift swing. Another guy is holding the other end of the rope and lowered it bit by bit. This guy climbed up the pole with his bare hands and feet. The rope was swung over the horizontal bar that houses the lighting unit at the top of the pole. He was not wearing any gloves, helmet or eye protection. His hands and arms were covered in the silver paint he was using to paint the pole. He was using some rags instead of a brush. He dipped the rags in the can of paint and within a few seconds he was painting almost a couple of feet! It is common to see young guys painting the rapidly growing new buildings without any safety harness.
Some of the reputed builders provide their employees safety harnesses. Due to the rapid growth, all the skilled people (electricians, carpenters, plumbers) and even most unskilled people are able to find jobs easily. Some of the skilled people are able to upgrade their skills because the bigger companies that employ them use modern equipments and tools which they would not be able to learn otherwise. I am not sure if there are safety laws, but from what I have seen around, it seems that there aren't any, and even if there were, it would be extremely difficult to implement them.

"New legislation has just been adopted by the International Labor Organization on the Worst Forms of Child Labor, such as bonded labor, prostitution and hazardous work." -Carol Bellamy

"Some companies now have their own codes of conduct against the use of child labor. The problem is monitoring their implementation." -Carol Bellamy

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