Dying to work

With rare exceptions (US, Canada and Germany), most countries deflect responsibility for global OHS onto UN agencies. But the largely elite UN has had limited success. ILO conventions are intended to assist nations promote workplace safety, but conventions and recommendations are international agreements that have legal force only if they are ratified. The most important ILO Convention on Occupational Safety and Health has been ratified by only 37 of the 175 ILO member states. Only 23 countries have ratified the ILO Employment Injury Benefits Convention that lists occupational diseases for which compensation should be paid.

Labour, unlike governance and gender is not sexy, and directing funding to counter rising casualty rates and devastated living environments would belie the feel good “econospeak” about globalisation raising all boats and blessing all with prosperity.

The degree to which nations protect their workers should be regarded as central indicators of development success and equity. Labour impact statements should be part of major institutional development planning in any newly industrialising nation.

While the developed world has been asleep at the wheel, developing countries have been organising, and the first initiative has been to present the Thai government with a message signed by 100-plus labour groups protesting the Burmese worker deaths.

Korean health and safety groups have initiated the “Killer Company” award which Hyundai construction “won” last year.

Chinese workers went to Baslworld in Switzerland to protest the rapid rise of silicosis in the jewelry industry. They were rewarded by with the introduction of stringent production standards. That the workers and people of developing countries care about this issue enough to organise across regions and rivalries, should indicate to the rest of the world that this is deserving of more attention than it gets.

I doubt whether global OHS made it onto the butcher’s paper at the recent summit, More the pity. The pens used by the summiteers are probably made by solvent intoxicated workers in China, the paper in Indonesia. Workers who produce our daily, taken-for-granted, goods need more from us that we are giving.