TUAC - TRADE UNION ADVISORY COMMITTEE TO THE OECD

13/11/2014

Despite chronic under-reporting, available figures on occupational death and disease are alarming: each year about 2.3 million men and women die from work-related accidents and diseases. This means that by the end of today nearly 1 million workers will suffer a workplace accident and around 5’500 workers will die due to an accident or disease from their work.

Statistics and the tragedies related to the building collapse in the Rana Plaza Bangladeshi complex, the Soma mining disaster – which has been followed by other deadly accidents in this sector, as well as the silent, anonymous suffering of millions of families due to illnesses contracted at work, show that there is a need for more bold, ambitious and massive action to stop what we call a workplace carnage.

If some sectors come recurrently in the list of the most hazardous ones, such as mining, construction, logging and agriculture, the working conditions are degrading fast all over the world and across sectors, notably because of the spread of precarious forms of employment.

Precarious work, including out-sourcing, agency work, fixed-term and sub-contracting, by weakening the link between the worker and its capacity to organize on a workplace level, has increased workers’ exposure to occupational hazards and risks. The Sewol Ferry tragedy in South Korea for example demonstrated the catastrophic consequences of deregulation, outsourcing and casualization.

Some categories of workers such as women, migrants, part-time, domestic and contract workers are particularly vulnerable to occupational hazards and risks, as they rarely access to safety training and protection.

For workers and their families, the social consequences of occupational accidents and diseases are dramatic. Costs for societies are also extremely high. It has been estimated that annual losses resulting from occupational diseases and injuries amount to some 4% of the world gross domestic product. There is therefore a strong moral and economic case for improving the situation in the area of occupational safety and health. Preventing occupational accidents and diseases should therefore be given the highest priority at enterprise, national and international levels.

Trade unions around the world are actively working to build safe and healthy workplaces as part of their promotion of a sustainable and fair globalization and strategies to promote decent employment. There can indeed be no decent work if jobs are not safe for workers. This highlights the importance of analysing occupational health and safety within the broader context of what remains an unbalanced model of globalized production, and the grim reality of unsafe and unhealthy working conditions resulting from deregulatory approaches and business choices which very often wrongly put the burden of dealing with the consequences of unsafe and unhealthy working conditions on workers and their families while ignoring the States’ and employers’ responsibility in ensuring that workplaces are safe.

Trade unions have been advocating for workplace, sectoral, national and international action on this issue.

At the workplace, by their participation and representation trade unions play an essential role in promoting healthy and safe working conditions. This implies the recognition of the right to organise and bargain collectively. There is ample scientific and practical evidence showing that unionized workplaces have better records in terms of health and safety than unorganized ones.

At the sectoral and national levels, the need for strengthening regulations and compliance, in accordance with a solid body of ILO standards, has been at the heart of several campaigns from trade unions. Mobilisations have been on process-based rights –such as the right to information, to training, to protective equipment-, based on substances –the need for a global asbestos ban, or for banning the most hazardous chemicals-, and also on targeting occupational risks that still today are ill recognised, such as psychosocial hazards.

This said, much remains to be done to bring occupational health and safety to the international level. Trade unions believe that there is clear potential for the G20 to enhance work on Occupational Health and Safety by showing that it is possible to transform global supply chains in engines for upward working conditions, and not as drivers of the lowest common denominator, as it happens to be the case today.

Workers around the world are living difficult times. Poverty is increasing, labour rights are under pressure and decent work for all remains a dream for many. Ensuring occupational health and safety is fundamental for building a fair and sustainable development model and while the challenge could seem daunting, trade unions will maintain their pressure to build the culture of prevention we are all willing to consolidate.