Compromising Health to Gain Wealth: A Legal Response to Adverse Health Effects of Night Work

Abstract

Although night work has responded to a variety of social, technical, and economic reasons, it has adversely affected the health, safety, and work-life balance of such night workers. Thus, this article aims to explore the hiatus in Sri Lankan law in devising effective legal measures responding to such health issues encountered by night workers due to their engagement in irregular work time. This research is conducted as a literature review based on secondary sources approaching both qualitative and quantitative methods. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) and its recommendations provide for an effective mechanism for an organised night working culture in response to the health effects of such working community. However, Sri Lanka, not being a signatory to those Conventions, failed to address the issue through legislative measures. Further, the delinquency of statistics and medical researches on the health status of night workers in Sri Lanka also worsened the situation. Thus, the author attempts to draw a Constitutional justification to delineate the fundamental duty of the State to address the said issue and recommends suitable strategies and mechanisms to truncate the adverse health effects to those workers by drawing examples from initiatives taken by the European Union, especially from Spain.