To achieve optimal workplace safety standards, factory layouts should be well-designed to prevent various workplace hazards.

It’s perhaps not shocking to describe communication as an essential factor in promoting workplace safety. What may come as a surprise, though, is how critical it is for departments to speak to one another in regard to health and safety within an organization.

When you think about the most important things that keep your factory running smoothly, raw materials and a trained staff are likely top of mind. Corporate executives often overlook the importance of factory-floor communication as they make investment decisions to move their organizations forward.

For workers on the factory floor, machinery and high-voltage systems can pose serious safety risks. According to OSHA, electrocutions are one of the “fatal four” — the leading causes of fatalities in the workplace.

Words fail at times like this – another garment factory fire in Bangladesh; 112 dead and 150 injured; another round of despair and anguish for the workers and their families; another round of denials by international garment brands that they bear any responsibility; another round of promises by the brands and their contractors that they will “do better” while refusing to acknowledge that it is their “profits first and foremost” production system that has led to fire after fire after fire.

Here is a roundup of the week’s top news stories from www.ISHN.com:

The International Labour Organization (ILO) has called for national action to protect workers' health and safety, following the deaths of at least 240 workers in a garment factory in Karachi, Pakistan.