Over at boingboing, somebody commented that it's probably just a pad for carrying stuff on his head. It seems an entirely reasonable explanation to me.
The workers are probably heavily exploited Indian workers, who have been told that they must buy their own safety clothing or equipment, but who are paid such unethically low wages that they can not afford to do so, and are instead resorting to using bits of foam from the building site.
If they are injured or killed by things falling on them, the company employing them would most likely just say "well, we told them to buy hard-hats and they didn't, so it's not our problem"
The workers are probably heavily exploited Indian workers, who have been told that they must buy their own safety clothing or equipment, but who are paid such unethically low wages that they can not afford to do so, and are instead resorting to using bits of foam from the building site.
If they are injured or killed by things falling on them, the company employing them would most likely just say "well, we told them to buy hard-hats and they didn't, so it's not our problem"
That's pretty common.