Factory inspections – III

During the last two decades or so, there has been a breakthrough from the traditional form of industry in Pakistan. The development of metallurgical industry, heavy engineering industries, chemical process industries, fertilizers, pesticides, dye-stuffs and the emerging petrochemical industry has brought in its train new and complex environmental health problems.

Secondly, a new profession has emerged ‘devoted to the recognition, evaluation and control of those environmental factors or stresses, arising in or from the workplace, which may cause sickness, impaired health and well-being or significant discomfort and inefficiency among workers and the citizens of the community’. This can be made possible through development of instrumentation technology which has dramatically demonstrated in the West and recently in India, the ease with which the industrial hygienist can study and solve health problems. There are now available fine instruments and precise methods. This is really significant when we consider that till only a few years back, we did not have the knowledge or skills to evaluate industrial health problems, let alone any means for controlling them. Thirdly, a number of agencies must be set up with well-equipped laboratories capable of undertaking detailed studies on dust and other industrial problems. Fourthly, in spite of the initial setback to the development of industrial medicine, government should examine introduction of the Employees’ State Insurance Scheme. Many new enterprises perforce be made to set up medical departments because of the serious risk involved in the manufacturing processes. Fifthly, the All Pakistan Society for the Study of Industrial Medicine be grown in strength, prestige which should in due course be able to create a favourable atmosphere among the industrial enterprises and be in a position to support any well-planned research programme if assistance is made available by various agencies for the evaluation of the environmental factors.

During this period, we can obtain the services of an expert from the Industrial Health Research Board of the Medical Research Council in the United Kingdom which country is well respected in our country. We can obtain WHO Consultants to advise on the organisation of occupational health service; a WHO/ILO Regional Seminar on Establishment of Occupational Health Services in places of employment be held, their recommendations solicited and adopted. We can have the benefit of advice from many eminent persons who happened to be in the country on short visits and from other experts, some of international standing, whose services can be made available for specific assignments under the various aid programmes – Dr Harry Heimann, Dr Samuel Moskowitz, Dr Ronald Lane, Dr William F. Ashe, Professor E.H. Christensen, Dr Nils Lundgren, Dr Lloyd Davies and Dr Donald Hunter, to mention but a few were the eminent personalities who have extended guidance to our neighbouring country.

In India, the concept of occupation health though of recent origin has been adopted and one does not have to look far behind in reviewing its development. The Royal Commission on Labour in India (1931) was the first to carry out a detailed examination of all aspects of labour in our Pre-Partition India. Its report served to bring into sharp focus the areas where a more searching scrutiny was essential and it has pointedly drew attention to the fact that non-detection for want of competent examination may pass for non-existence of industrial and occupational diseases. The commission stated in unequivocal terms that “although the majority of witnesses assured them that an industrial disease was seldom brought to their notice, they were satisfied that further investigation was necessary”. ‘We anticipate here, as in other countries’, they remarked, “when skilled observers are set to work, the usual diseases associated with industry will be found to exist, their non-detection possibly being due to the fact that they are either never seen by a medical man, or, if see, pass unrecognised and undetected. It is difficult to believe, for instance, that cases of anthrax never occur among workers in leather, hides and skins, when the anthrax bacillus had not infrequently been found in tanneries and in parcels of hide prepared for export”. The commission also emphasises the importance of medical knowledge in factory administration and the fact that the need for such knowledge would increase with the growing complexity of industry. They, therefore, recommended that in every province there should be one officer with medical qualifications appointed as Inspector of Factories, who should be primarily responsible for inspection from medical standpoint.

The need for investigation into industrial diseases pointed out by the Royal Commission was further emphasises by the Health Survey and Development Committee (Bhore Committee, 1946) in India. They recommended that there should be an enquiry into the prevalence of occupational diseases, that since there were very few medical officers trained and experienced in this subject they should be sent abroad for further study in industrial hygiene and occupational disease, and that Departments of Industrial Medicine, the functions of which will include the study of occupational diseases and research in industrial health problems, should be established in medical teaching institutions. The commission also emphasised that the government while having as a long-term objective the creation of an Occupational Health Service embracing, within its scope, all persons employed outside their own homes, will, in the immediate future, have to concern themselves with measures mainly for industrial workers. It is in order to meet this end that the organisation of an Industrial Health Service is also recommended in each of the province and at the Centre. The recommendation so emanated from the conviction that particularly in a situation where the development of a comprehensive health service ministering to the needs of the community as a whole had necessarily to be phased over a period of years, the creation of special facilities for the industrial population was an obligation of great urgency especially after the Baldia factory incident. The service so established can emphasise the significance in relation to the health of the workers, of his home environment, his state of nutrition and the extent of essential amenities available to him.

The report of Dr Bedford, who was invited by the government of India to advise on the organisation of research in industrial health, has highlighted the inter-relationship of home and workplace recognised in the report of the Bhore Committee in 1946. To quote him: “The health of the industrial workers has to do with the environment of the workers and the worker himself. It is concerned not only with the conditions of the workplace but with other questions such as housing, general sanitation, water supply and nutrition which lie outside the walls of the factory or workplace and it is related to education and to far-reaching social or even moral questions… However satisfactory the actual working conditions within the factory or workplace may be made, it cannot be hoped that the industrial worker will achieve and maintain full vigour unless his other conditions of life are improved. Better nutrition, improved housing, better sanitation and an ample supply of pure water are all of vital importance.” After indicating the diverse dimension of industrial health, Dr Bedford has made specific recommendations with regard to improvement of working conditions in factories. He stressed the need for strengthening the Factory Inspectorate as also the need to ensure that factory inspection was not treated as a divisible function between medical and lay inspectors. In other words, factory inspection was pointed out to be a highly technical job embracing a wide variety of subjects required to be fused by training into a single organised functions. The recommendations of Dr Bedford in respect of factory inspection served to underscore the fact that while the significance and scope of industrial health were increasingly appreciated, the only means sanctified by statute were those enforceable under the Factories Act. Efforts, in all sincerity, be made to obtain full extent of the report either from our embassy in India or the ILO office in Geneva.

Though the first Factories Act was enacted in 1881 in Pre-Partition India, there was no provision under this Act or the subsequent Act of 1891 requiring the appointment of inspectors to enforce the provisions of the Act, and the District Magistrate and Civil Surgeons were ex-officio inspectors. The Factory Labour Commission (1907) in India has severely criticised the system of inspection by District Magistrates and Civil Surgeons and stated that it was their deliberate opinion that such inspections so far as the enforcement of the Act was concerned, were useless formality which ought to be abandoned. The commission recognised that the fault did not lie with the officers, who they said, had neither the time nor the special knowledge necessary for the purpose. It was only under the Factories Act of 1911 that special provision was made for the appointment of factory inspectors. The hazards resulting from the application of mechanical power in production seems to have been uppermost in evolving the inspection machinery and the inspectors were drawn from the mechanical engineering field and hardly any attempt was made to meet the situation brought about by technological development.

The need for introducing measures for the effective administration of the Factories Act was recognised and the Indian government in 1946 requested for the services of Sir Wilfred Garrett, who had just then retired as HM’s Chief Inspector of Factories in the UK, to advise on the administration of the Factories Act and the improvement of working conditions in factories. This was about the same time Dr Bedford was in India to advise on the organisation of research in Industrial Health. Sir Wilfred Garrett made many valuable suggestions for improving the quality and effectiveness of the factory inspection services, and in his report, he suggested the setting up of an Industrial Safety, health and Welfare Centre on the lines of the Industrial Health and Safety Centre of the Ministry of Labour and National Service in UK for promoting the safety, health and welfare of industrial workers. The UK Centre is a permanent exhibition of methods, arrangements and appliances which are in actual use in industry and which represent good practice and highlights what has been achieved throughout British industry as a result of co-operation between government departments, employers and employees, manufacturers of plant, machinery and other equipment, research institutions, universities, and various voluntary bodies concerned with the well being of industry and the men at work. The recommendation was accepted by government. We in Pakistan could have set up an institute similar to the UK Health and Safety Centre, but it would serve no useful purpose unless the environment which had helped the development and growth of the Safety Centre did not obtain here, nor other sought to be created. A beginning has to be made to tackle the problem, but in the circumstances prevailing in he country, it is felt that even in this limited field of industrial safety no progress can be possible unless efforts were first made for creating the necessary environment in which prevention of accidents would not be looked upon as a matter of individual responsibility and risks, and accepted as a function of management who should discharge in due recognition of their social and industrial advantages of accident prevention measures. The industrial conditions and the environment in our country presently seem to call for a more comprehensive approach to the labour and management problems. This should be the starting point in the development of the concept of the Central Labour Institute suggested above in Pakistan.

Technological progress in the older industrial countries has been gradual. The introduction of measures to promote good working conditions and good human relations for ensuring the efficiency and the general well being of the industry could adjust itself without much time lag to each technical advance aided considerably by the traditions set up by the gradual evolution of the industrial pattern in the respective countries. These advantages, however, do not obtain in Pakistan.

The modern concept of a factory as a social unit was evolved in these countries over a period of 80 or 90 years. Here, while great advance has been made in the technological field, there has been little concurrent development in the socio-economic aspects relating to industry. In the older industrial countries the activities of the government departments and agencies, trade research associations, trade unions, professional bodies and other voluntary associations have helped to promote a progressive outlook on human problems. The study and research carried out by these bodies and associations, and the pooling and disseminating of information on these problems have helped the employers and workers to realise the community of interest between them in the running of an effective and successful enterprises. Of course, the ferment of idea resulting from the two wars has helped rapid development towards this direction. Here, we have had the ferment of ideas partly as a result of the growing strength of the trade unions and partly as a result of the activities of the various international agencies but without concurrent development in allied fields. Super-imposed on this has been the social renaissance of a new democratic country committed to the development of a Welfare State. In our anxiety to catch up with the progress made in the industrially advanced countries attempt should be made to introduce in industry in this country, such techniques, which have proved of value in those countries, little appreciating that the success or otherwise of any new technique to a large extent depends upon the local environment. There is no doubt often a tendency to conceive of institutions, more or less, as prototypes of similar institutions elsewhere without the least regard being paid to the basic factors which have helped the development of such institutions in those countries. One might say that in the older industrial countries the industrial picture is almost complete and when a new activity is initiated in any particular field of specialisation it is more like an artist giving finishing touches to his picture by adding a little colour here and adding a little colour there to bring out the delicate hues and to highlight any particular aspects. In Pakistan, the canvas is wide and yet to be filled in and the socio-economic factors effecting industry have yet to be recognised. It is high time this is done.

During my effect aimed at formulation of concrete proposals for giving effect to any recommendations for promoting safety and health and welfare of industrial workers, one of the points that can be brought out could well be that no activity in relation to any one particular field of specialisation could make any appreciable impact without support from concurrent activities in other fields which are inter-related to it. Hence any decision to set up a composite institute equipped and staffed to deal with the various aspects of the problem should be a comprehensive whole.

The suggested Central Labour Institute should be designed to function as a socio-economic laboratory and as a national institute dealing with the scientific study of industrial development as relating to the human factor. It should be Centre for specialised training in labour and allied problems and provides a common platform for all groups concerned with the well-being of labour and industry.

The Institute should comprise of the following Sections: 

1. Industrial Safety, Health and Welfare Centre,

2. Industrial Hygiene Laboratory;

3. Training within Industry Centre;

4. Productivity Centre;

5. Industrial Physiology Division;

6. Industrial Psychology Division;

7. Literary-cum-Information Centre; and

8. Training Centre.

The Industrial Safety, Health and Welfare Centre if established can be the most important Section in the Central Labour Institute. The principal function of the Centre would be to explain and to illustrate the dangers to life and limb and health incidental to industrial processes and to demonstrate the most effective methods of safeguarding against such hazards. It should also function as a Centre for education, training and research in the principles and methods for ensuring safety and health and for promoting welfare. The Centre will also service the equally important function of establishing clearly that measures for the preservation of health of the workers, prevention of accident and promotion of welfare consist only in the application of sound engineering and technological principles in the design of factories and in the working of the industrial process and that they do not constitute a system with a separate identity of its own. Unlike the display in the Safety Centres elsewhere, in illustrating any particular hazard, the subject be dealt with in a comprehensive way. It is well known dust is a very serious industrial hazard. The display should show how dust is generated in industrial processes – formation, properties and dissemination; its behaviours in air-distribution, setting and aggregation; its determination the various types of sampling equipments, particle number concentration, concentration of constituents and particle size; unhygienic effects external, dermatitis, internal metal fume fever, pneumoconiosis and systematic poisoning, control measures capture velocities, the design of hood and ducting, and mechanical and exhaust ventilation systems and personnel protective equipment as the last line of defence.

No doubt, establishment of this Centre after the 18th Amendment in the Constitution and abolition of the Concurrent List, and Item No 26 & 27 of the erstwhile Concurrent List to the provinces may pose constitutional impediment. Fortunately, our apex court in the new famous case of Air League reported in 2011 SCMR 1254, has provided the guidelines whereby Federal Legislation can be made in the labour matters by recourse to the provisions of Article 144 (1) of the Constitution whereby provincial assemblies pass resolution that Majlis-e-Shoora (Parliament) may by law regulate any matter not enumerated in the Federal Legislative List.

The Industrial Hygiene Laboratory should be set up at Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, Quetta and Peshawar to provide professional assistance in the study and solution of industrial health problems with a view to contributing to the technical advance of industrial hygiene through research, surveys and allied activities at the Centre and each of the Provinces. It should provide facilities for field investigations for the detection of health hazards in industry, for the determination of environmental conditions as to exposure to various hazards and toxic substances used in industrial processes and for the development of new techniques and for preventive measures for counteracting and eliminating such hazards. The proposed industrial Safety, Health and Welfare Centre and the Industrial Hygiene Laboratory are complementary and attempt be made to provide a service to industry in planning good working conditions and an environment in which work can be carried out safely. But in the final analysis, much would depend on how work is organised and carried on and to a large extent, it would depend on how many measures for ensuring the safety and health are translated on to the shop-floor. Since management’s contact with the workers is through the first line supervisors, it is through them that continued efforts for improvement would have to be directed. It has all along been recognised that if the activities of the proposed Labour Institutes were to develop to effectively fulfil the purpose and objective in view, it was essential that there should be active participation of industry in the development of these projects. The various sections in the Safety, Health and Welfare Centre should be so planed and equipped with the active co-operation and assistance of industry.

(To be continued)