[badpun]

Shouldn't it be a Bangladeshi government responsibility to make sure that their companies aren't abusing their workers? And, if the government doesn't care, why should foreign governments intervene? That sounds like a return of patronising colonialism.

[ElevenLathe]

It should be the business of other countries too, because their workers have to compete with Bangladeshi workers. It's harder for a German shipyard worker to tell the boss to pound sand when asked to do something needlessly dangerous without the right gear if their job can easily be moved somewhere where worker safety is just not a consideration at all.

Therefore German workers should use their government to stop this practice using whatever levers they have, which mainly means going after German companies.

Not to mention that forcing companies to internalize the full cost of breaking up ships safely will put pressure on shipbuilding firms to design ships that are easier to break up, probably increasing full-lifecycle efficiency without anyone needing to risk their life for a couple tons of scrap metal.

[JamesBarney]

But then this really isn't about the safety of Bangladeshi workers, but protecting German jobs.

[ElevenLathe]

It's about protecting German workers' safety, not just "German jobs". They're inseparable goals. One abused worker is a threat to all workers.

Anyway yeah, realistically, the reason rich-world workers should care about poor-world worker safety is because it's in their material interests: They will be forced to do unsafe things at work, or else face being fired/laid off and the company will move the work to locales where (expensive) worker safety isn't done.