Thousands of workers have been killed or
maimed dismantling the world’s ships in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan
Mohamed Edris’s life as he knew it in the
Bangladeshi ship recycling yards ended at 11.30am on Saturday 11 April 2015.
The 38-year-old metal cutter had been working with 100 others on the
19,600-tonne container ship Eurus London at the Ferdous Steel Corporation
shipyard in Chittagong when catastrophe struck.
His task had been to cut away the huge
40-tonne propeller with a blow torch. Alarm bells rang, he said, when he saw
that a large metal platform had been placed below the propeller to stop it
falling into the mud on the beach.
“I told the supervisor and two others that it
was dangerous because it could bounce back when the propeller fell. I told them
I could not do it, but they insisted that I did,” he said. He obeyed and nearly
died. The propeller broke free, hit the metal plate and sprung back as he
predicted. It sliced off his left leg below the knee, blinded him in one eye
and nearly broke his back.
The yard paid for his hospital treatment,
gave him 125,000 Bangladeshi taka (£1,142) compensation and 460 Bdt (£4.32) a
week for nine months. Now he, and the seven family members he supported, rely
on handouts from friends. But in a legal test case Zodiac Maritime, the
London-based shipping company that managed the Eurus London until it was sold
for scrap, could be held responsible.
In a case that could see British, American
and European shipowners and managers being made liable for the many deaths and
accidents that take place every year in Bangladeshi, Indian and Pakistani
shipbreaking yards, UK law firm Leigh Day is suing Zodiac for negligence on
behalf of Edris. It claims that Zodiac, which manages about 150 large ships and
is owned by Eyal Ofer, son of the late Israeli shipping magnate Sammy Ofer,
should have known how dangerous the Chittagong breaking yards were when the
vessel was sold for scrap to GMS, a US-based “cash buyer” or middle man.
“Zodiac knew, or ought to have known, that
there was a foreseeable risk of physical harm to workers when they allowed
their vessel to be sold to a Chittagong yard through a cash buyer,” says Martyn
Day, a director of Leigh Day.
New legal action is needed, say
environmentalists and unions, because of the steady number of deaths and
injuries to workers. On one level, shipbreaking is one of the world’s
“greenest” industries, with every nut, bolt and sheet of metal on a ship being
recycled. It also employs hundreds of thousands of people in some of the
world’s poorest countries. But, say critics, owners knowingly cause suffering
to workers by sending their ships to be recycled on Asian beaches. British-based
companies have sent 28 ships to be beached in the past two years, including six
to Chittagong. Two vessels waiting to be dismantled in that yard last week were
managed by Zodiac.
“Shipowners shield themselves from
responsibility through the use of cash buyers. These scrap dealers sell off the
ships for the highest price offered,” says Ingvild Jenssen, director of
Shipbreaking Platform, a Brussels-based coalition of environmental, human
rights and labour groups. “All ships that end up on the beaches of Bangladesh,
Pakistan or India pass through cash buyers, and all sales to cash buyers are
clearly scrap deals where the higher price paid indicates that the vessel will
be beached.”
More than 800 large ships are broken up each
year, the vast majority on Asian beaches. Owners can earn an extra $1m to $4m
(£740,000 to £2.96m) per ship when selling to Asian yards via cash buyers,
instead of opting for recycling yards with higher standards, says Jenssen. “No
one forces the industry to send ships to be dismantled there. They choose to
send them,” she says.
Edris, who came to Chittagong aged 14 and
who, until his accident, worked six 14-hour shifts a week, earning £3.20 a day,
is one of thousands of workers who have been injured in the yards since they
appeared in the 1960s. There are no official statistics but labour groups say
that in the past 10 years there have been more than 125 deaths.
Chittagong is now the world’s largest
shipbreaking centre, last year recycling 230 ships and generating 10m tonnes of
steel – up to 60% of all the steel used in Bangladesh. Most of the workers
migrate from rural areas. Hired out in gangs, they live in overcrowded shacks
close to the yards. The Ferdous yard is like many others. Hidden behind high
metal gates, it slopes down to the Bay of Bengal. It can take months for young
men, wielding only sledgehammers and metal cutters, to dismantle a large
vessel.
“Chittagong is the cheapest place to scrap
ships but the price is suffering. Nine men have died here this year. Nobody
feels responsible for these men’s lives,” says Muhammed Ali Shahin, Bangladesh
coordinator of Shipbreaking Platform. The law offers little protection, he
says. “EU laws stop EU-flagged ships being broken up on Asian beaches, but
because owners can easily ‘reflag’ ships it has little strength.”
Pressed by labour groups, the UN’s
International Maritime Organisation passed the Hong Kong Convention (HKC) in
2009. This demands that ship owners and states do not pose a risk to human
health, safety and the environment. But, says Shipbreaking Platform, it does
not stop the beaching of vessels, which is blamed for most accidents, and it is
unlikely to come into force for years because it requires 15 states, and 40% of
world merchant shipping, to have signed up.
“The industry is moving to adopt Hong Kong
standards,” says Nikos Mikelis, a non-executive director of GMS. “There is a
good likelihood of the convention entering into force within the next five to
seven years. Ratifying and reaching the HKC targets will not be too difficult.”
He argues that groups such as Shipbreaking Platform are naive and, by demanding
the end of beaching, are endangering the livelihoods of workers in some of the
world’s poorest countries.
He does see progress. “Japan and India are
investing $100m in upgrades. Forty-one yards out of 120 in Alang, India, now
meet HKC standards and 15 others are moving towards safer and cleaner work. But
in Bangladesh only one yard [PHP Shipbreaking] meets international standards.”
Mikelis says the major shipping companies
such as Maersk now have arrangements with individual yards. “The industry wants
improvement but it needs to invest to improve,” he says.
In the case of Zodiac, Martyn Day argues that
the company knew the methods involved in dismantling vessels in Chittagong, yet
it sold the Eurus London on in the full knowledge that it would be broken up in
unsafe conditions. “They had a duty not to sell vessels to Bangladesh shipyards
via their contractors or cash buyers,” he says. “Zodiac sold it to a cash buyer
in the knowledge it would be dismantled in unsafe conditions.”
In a statement to the Observer, Zodiac said
the accident occurred four months after the ship had been sold to a third-party
buyer. As a result, it said: “We deny any liability for the injuries suffered
by Mr Edris and we dispute the claim.”
It added: “The yard where Mr Edris was
employed was not Zodiac’s contractor and Zodiac did not select the yard used to
dismantle the vessel. Zodiac has no control over the working practices at
shipbreaking yards. The claim seeks to extend the law of negligence beyond any
recognised boundaries. It is the law of Bangladesh which applies to this case.”
The impact of an injury on workers’ families
is immense. “Edris provided for seven people,” said one man who knows him. “He
has no savings. He is angry. He is now wholly reliant on the generosity of
friends and family. His children have become scared of him because he cries a
lot and screams in pain.”
Edris said: “I feel like a dead man. I have
no hope. I will never be able to go back to work. I have steel plates in my
body and I can only walk on sticks, I am in constant pain. I want to open a
shop, but that needs 500,000 Bdt.
“I have seen many men killed and injured. It
is very dangerous work. I tell people not to work there.”
Source:
the
guardian. 02 December 2017
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