Educational Intervention to improve fire safety among garment workers in Bangladesh

Background: To prevent loss of life due to factory fires, the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety (Alliance) trained over 1.1 million garment workers in Bangladesh on fire prevention, protection, and evacuation in 2014. The Alliance commissioned the University of Texas Health Science Center to conduct an independent impact assessment of the training.

Methods: The assessment included two components: (1) a 60-question iPad-based survey of 5,324 workers in 36 stratified random Alliance factories, and (2) focus group discussions (FGDs) including 220 workers in their communities. Both were administered by Phulki, a Bangladeshi NGO. Results were compared against a 2013 pre-training baseline study.

Results: There was significant improvement in workers’ knowledge of fire safety procedures; 52% of workers recognized fire hazards (compared to 2% in the baseline), and most workers knew what to do in an emergency (increase from 61% to 90%). Workers showed an increased sense of responsibility for health and safety in the factory (from 46% to 57%) and reported feeling safer. While 98% of workers indicated the presence of safety committees in their factories, FGDs suggested they are not effective.

Conclusions:  The training has had significant impact on workers’ abilities to prevent and protect themselves in the event of fires. Coupled with other Alliance initiatives (e.g. factory inspections), training contributes to workers feeling safer in the workplace. In spite of progress, there is a need for continued training and the development of effective worker representative structures.