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“WHO shall be accountable for the deaths?”
This was the question raised by the BPO Industry Employees Network during a candle-lighting activity as the group mourned the death of 38 call center employees when a mall in Davao City burned to ashes on Dec. 23.
While there must be a thorough and independent investigation of the mall fire, the gravity of the incident raises serious questions on the compliance to safety standards of call centers in general.
In previous cases of workplace fire leading to massive deaths of workers (remember Kentex, HTI, Novo Jeans among others?) justice for the victims and their families has been elusive and slow-paced. Might this also be the fate of the 38 call center workers? We hope not. And it is not unlikely that future occupational deaths will continue happen if nobody is penalized in this case.
One survivor detailed on social media his experience during the fire. Fire exits were allegedly unpassable. Others claimed on social media, too, that there were no fire drills conducted and no alarm.
Such cases of workplace deaths are massacres of working people who strive hard to earn a living. It is enraging and unacceptable that while these kinds of disaster have happened repeatedly in the past, occupational deaths happen again and again. And this is largely because no one is held accountable — there seems to be impunity in neglecting workers’ safety.
The safety practices of business process outsourcing companies should be further scrutinized. Do they, for example, conduct emergency drills? According to the BPO Industry Employees Network, even if there are drills being conducted in the buildings where these BPOs are based, or even if there is a national emergency drill, the management won’t stop its operation to join the drill. This is because operations cannot stop; workers have to keep taking calls or providing whatever service there are supposed to provide to clients because there is a service level that needs to be maintained.
It is interesting, too, that many BPOs are in shopping malls and commercial buildings whose operating hours are in the day, different from the graveyard operations of BPOs. In such cases, we wonder if BPO workers still have access to fire exits and other safety facilities of these buildings.
As the case of the call center fire shows, work in the so-called sunshine industry can be deadly; policy changes are necessary and justice must be served immediately to avoid more deaths of workers.
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