11 February, 2025On 3 February, a cutter man was injured in a fire at SN Corporation's shipbreaking yard in Chattogram, Bangladesh.
This is the second incident at SN Corporation in under five months. In September, last year, a deadly explosion claimed the lives of seven workers and seriously injured over ten. Following this, Bangladesh’s ministry of industries had imposed a fine of 2.6 million BDT (US$ 21,096) on the company along with suspending all operations at the yard for three months.
IndustriALL affiliates Bangladesh Metal Workers' Federation- BMF and Bangladesh Metal Chemical Garment and Tailors Workers' Federation- BMCGTWF indicated that the 3 February incident occurred on the same ship. A cutter named Sohel Rana, 32, was working when a fire broke out, injuring his left ear. He was immediately rushed to the yard hospital. Later, he was taken to a diagnostic centre for further check-up as he continued experiencing sharp pain in his left ear and difficulty hearing.
While talking to the IndustriALL South Asia co-ordinator and local union leaders, he also shared about harsh working conditions on the yard, particularly since January. Issues he highlighted included intensification of workload, 12-hour workdays without any overtime, no provisions for lunch or refreshments and workers have not yet received wages for January.
SN Corporation has a Hong Kong Convention (HKC) compliance certificate issued by ClassNK - Nippon Kaiji Kyokai. HKC compliant companies are required to report industrial incidents, including a minor one, which occurs in their yards. On the contrary, not only did SN Corporation not report the incident but also publicly denied that any such incident occurred in its yard on 3 February or at any time recently.
Walton Pantland, IndustriALL director for shipbuilding and shipbreaking, says:
“The fact that another accident happened so soon after the company was given permission to reopen and that the company publicly denied the occurrence of the accident suggests that no lessons were learnt from the previous industrial homicide. Companies like SN Corporation undermine the whole industry and faith in the HKC as a mechanism for improvement. Government of Bangladesh needs to urgently improve its industrial safety inspectorate to ensure that shipyards are complying.”