Accidents and diseases at the workplace happen at a high rate all over the world
but can be prevented.
Co-ordinated action at the national and enterprise level
is improving workplace safety and health,
as well as directly benefitting business productivity,
cost-saving and competitiveness.
Building on these positive steps
to place Occupational Safety and Health -- OSH --
on the international agenda is key to ensuring
decent work across the world.
Every worker has a fundamental human right
to a safe and healthy workplace.
The ILO's convention 187 calls for a promotional framework
for OSH and the development of national profiles, policies,
and programmes to strengthen national OSH systems.
Guided by the provisions of this convention, the EU,
together with the ILO's programme
on Safety and Health at Work and the environment -- SAFEWORK --
have engaged in the joint project
"Improving safety and health at work through
a Decent Work Agenda".
This 3 year project has been implemented
in 5 countries across 3 regions of the world,
targeting governments, employers and workers.
The first step in improving occupational safety and health
is to draw up a holistic profile on OSH within each country.
"At national level we have documents
such as the national OSH profile which gives a picture of the situation
as regards occupational safety and health in a country,
and this document was approved by tripartite constituents,
so it's an agreement on what is the situation
and comes up with some recommendations and directions
on what should be done to improve that."
A significant part of the national OSH country profiles
has been to assess their capabilities for recording and notification
of occupational accidents and diseases,
which are notoriously under-reported.
It is important that all countries continuously improve and strengthen their own national
data collection system on a tripartite basis. This is key to planning effective national
and enterprise level preventive programmes.
The ILO-EU project has assisted countries
to develop tailored OSH programmes at the national level,
seeking to establish national advisory bodies
that draw on a wide spectrum of in-country expertise.
These national programmes tackle OSH issues
and promote safe and healthy working environments,
in many cases tightening and strengthening the legal frameworks
surrounding safety and health,
and improving advisory services and training.
"We have developed the national programme
on occupational safety and health,
and this national programme basically has identified
the objectives and the priorities that we need to address."
"The national programme is a living document,
it shouldn't be just left in a drawer, and it should be improved regularly
by all the constituents,
so this is what we do at national level.
Also at enterprise level our main focus was
on improving risk assessment and management practises."
"Who is at risk,
when are they at risk,
how are they at risk"
Identifying and managing risk are key steps to improve
safety and health at the enterprise level.
To ensure sustainability,
the SafeWork programme organised seminars which trained business leaders,
worker representatives and safety and health specialists
to become regional OSH advocates.
In turn, these advocates educate and disseminate the principles of OSH
at the local enterprise level,
including the importance of inspections and workplace risk assessments.
Leonard and Memory have just performed their first training on OSH.
"The audience was good,
looks like they had the hang of the knowledge,
so I was also happy with that.
The problem is that some people think that
they are wearing PPEs (Personal Protective Equipment)
because the company wants to look that it is abiding to the regulations.
But in the real sense it's yourself,
you're protecting yourself from the hazards that are there."
"It was quite a good experience,
even for me,
even for them as well.
I could see their faces,
they were looking at things
that they've probably seen for years back
but they wouldn't really notice the risks and the hazards.
But today, their eyes were wide open
and they notice that this is a risk,
this is a hazard."
"I think that there's a lot of acceptance of risk assessment
because it allows people to see a process
where they're identifying,
they're evaluating and they're controlling.
They're not just looking at health and safety
from a compliance perspective,
and I think people actually enjoy that, they can see the benefit of the process
and what it might do for their place of work."
Identical schemes have taken place in Malawi,
Honduras,
the Republic of Moldova,
Zambia
and here in Ukraine.
"I think this is just come at a time when we will actually use
the information and the skills we have learnt here in the workforce.
We've had some problems in terms of hazards in the organisation --
I think risk assessment will also help a lot."
Assessing risks at the level of the enterprise is a key step
in ensuring workers'safety and well-being.
But to be effective,
risk assessment must be part of a comprehensive OSH management system,
which establishes a system of priorities and monitoring of these priorities
at the heart of the enterprise:
decide what needs to be done, how best to do it,
measure results and identify areas for improvement.
"Surveillance of the working environment
makes it possible to identify risks to set up priorities
on the way of OSH improvement,
and thus the enterprise itself is able to plan the measures to be taken
in order to improve working conditions."
The most difficult people to persuade are not government
or local officials but the enterprises themselves.
They often believe that anything to do with safety and health will inevitably mean
increased costs and so are often suspicious.
Correcting these misconceptions through awareness raising
is a crucial component of the OSH projects.
"Our primary goal was to overcome the wrong notion that safe work
and good business are irreconcilable.
We aimed at demonstrating the real cost of occupational accident
at the enterprise level and demonstrate for the employer and employees
how to save money by means of investing in improvements
of working conditions."
"A healthy worker will be more productive.
I mean, a worker who is not at risk,
who is assured that he is not at risk
will work to the benefit of that organisation.
He'll be very productive.
It is only a happy worker who will be productive,
and how can you be happy if you're surrounded by risk?"
Occupational Safety and Health offers a sound basis for successful social dialogue
and consensus building as Governments, employers and workers
all have an interest in safe and healthy workplaces.
"I believe that through our social dialogue,
because there is what you call a tripartite system in this country
which is provided by the law.
A tripartite system where employers, government and employees meet.
So it is where we actually discuss such issues.
Of course sometimes we tend not to agree but
many many times we agree."
"The approach is quite good because the starting point,
as we noted,
was that the participants from the industry,
the participants from our inspectorate, all of them went through the process,
and these people have been trained,
they have imparted the knowledge at the enterprise level
and it is our expectation that these participants will also be able to
interact with their peers and share the information,
so it will really have the multiplier effect that we are looking for."
In Honduras,
the pilot project ran an exceptionally successful
and co-ordinated awareness raising campaign,
supported by employers, trade unions and government.
Advertising on television and radio, in street advertisements
and in the press has given OSH in Honduras a face.
The recognisable and widely publicised designs
will continue to be used in OSH promotion in the country.
And awareness raising campaigns are brought into focus
on The World Day for Safety and Health at Work,
held each year on April 28th.
"We believe there is no decent work
where there is no occupational safety and health.."
Technical cooperation is one way that the ILO SafeWork programme
extends support to countries in need.
Adopting global,
coherent preventative strategies around Occupational Safety and Health,
as represented in ILO Convention 187 and other OSH related conventions,
and in consultation with employers, workers and governments,
will contribute immeasurably to decent work.
Integrating OSH into national development programmes,
translating these programmes into action,
working towards the ratification of ILO OSH conventions
and ensuring that education is sustained at all levels
will help to lower business costs,
reduce the economic and social burden of workplace accidents and diseases,
reduce reliance on benefits and promote OSH awareness
within the formal economy,
as well as the informal economy, where it is even more crucial.
"I've learnt a lot,
so we can improve where we were failing,
but also I have seen that whatever we're implementing
I will try to apply,
and I know we will improve our standards."
The successes that we have seen in the pilot countries
can be replicated around the world,
leading to safe and healthy, decent workplaces for all.
"It doesn't matter who you are in this world
nobody wants to have to experience, manage, deal with
or be the victim of a serious accident
and I think that health and safety gets a bad reputation
because people think it's about regulatory compliance
it's not about the human issue of ensuring that everyone goes home
in the condition they arrived in."