National Occupational Safety and Health Week:

Collective efforts to ensure workers’ safety

Address by Labour Relations and Manpower Ministry Secretary Mahinda Madihahewa at the National Workshop held on October 7, 2009 at Colombo at an event to mark the National Occupational Safety and Health Week

The National Safety Conference is one of the major events of the Safety Week 2009. This year the theme of the National Conference is ‘Safe Work Promotes Healthy Life’.

As you are aware, the Occupational Safety and Health day is celebrated globally on April 28. However, given the significance of occupational safety and health in promoting healthy and quality life in Sri Lanka, in addition, the Cabinet of Ministers has declared the second week of October each year as the ‘Safety Week’.

National event

Every year we implement many programs during this week. The National Conference which is held today is the national event of this safety week. This year, we have, among other things, organized a workshop to promote occupational safety and health among mine workers. The workshop will be held on 12th of this month with the participation of around 250 workers in the Bogala Graphite mine. We have also taken action to issue a special edition of the Sri Lanka Labour Gazette, development and distribution of promotional literature and conduct small group promotional activities throughout the country by the Labour Department.

According to ILO statistics, 2.2 million people die world over due to occupational accidents and diseases. Some 270 million suffer annually from serious non-fatal injuries and another 160 million suffer from short or long-term illnesses from work related causes. The total cost of such accidents and ill health have been estimated at four percent of the worlds gross domestic product. ILO statistics also show that more than four percent of the global GDP is lost due to occupational accidents. In Sri Lanka about 4,000 accidents have been reported yearly. The number of working days lost due to accidents is estimated to be around 600,000 workdays every year. According to the Commissioner for Workmens’ Compensation 156 fatal accidents have been reported during the year 2008. The Compensation paid during year 2008 has been reported as Rs. 65,922,095.03.

Economic impact

This is a colossal amount of money and this reflects only the economic impact of occupational accidents. How about the psycho social impact of occupational accidents? It is enormous and cannot be quantified only in monetary terms.

As you are aware, around 8.2 million Sri Lankans are economically active. This is nearly 1/3rd of the population of Sri Lanka. These people constitute our Labour Force and they are the backbone of our economy who propel the country towards development. We should not forget the fact, that every worker who leaves his or her home for work has the right to return home after work, safely.

Health and safety

One may argue that providing protection to the workers is the responsibility of the employer, while some may think that it is the responsibility of the Government. But the employer or the Government alone cannot ensure health and safety, unless the workers take care of themselves. It is only through the collective efforts of all of us, health and safety of the workers could be ensured.

There are three main causes of occupational accidents. Human factor or unsafe acts; environmental factor or unsafe conditions; and organizational factor or management factors.

According to research findings, about 80 percent of work related accidents were due to human error or unsafe acts. Operators’ error has been identified as the main contributory factor of human error.

Prevention of occupational injuries and occupational diseases is a multi-disciplinary and multi-faceted exercise. Collective efforts of occupational physicians, safety engineers, ergonomic specialists, occupational hygienist and toxicologists are mandatory.

In the Labour Department, three technical divisions are providing OSH services to industries. They are the Division of Industrial Safety, Division of Occupational Hygiene and the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health. These divisions and National Institute provide the necessary services.

These services are provided by professional engineers, doctors and officers who have been trained and have vast experience in OSH.

We have found that the existing legislation on Occupational Safety and Health is limited in scope and applies only to factories. It covers around 30 percent of the total workplaces in the country. We are currently in the final stages of the process of introducing a new Occupational Safety and Health Law. This new law covers almost all the workplaces. The new law also will have safety and health standards relating to a wide spectrum of sectors. The other significant feature of the new law is the promotion of self regulation.

European countries

A survey carried out recently has revealed that 70 percent of the consumers in the European countries answered that ‘Protecting health and safety of its workers’ was an important area for the companies to support.

The initiative of ‘Responsible care’ is also another voluntary commitment to improve its performance in respect to safety, health and environment.

In a globalized economy, self-regulation has become a powerful aid to the process. I find that the new law is also leading us to new areas of safety and health. It is self regulation, and also developing a safety culture within the enterprise. Self regulation also addresses some of the problems encountered by the enforcement authorities due to resource constraints. For enforcement of the occupational health and safety law, we have only a handful of technically qualified persons.

Different strategies

With the new law coming into force we will find that the existing cadres are extremely inadequate. Therefore, we need to think of different strategies, different tools and involvement of the services of different personnel.

One such strategy is to get the services of the Labour Officers. The integrated Labour inspection system introduced under the modernization of Labour Relations and Manpower Ministry requires the Labour Officers to look into the occupational safety and health aspects in the workplaces. They, of course, may not be able to advise on the technical aspects. But they could look into the compliance with certain occupational safety and health standards.

OSH legislation

Their observations could be reported to the Occupational Safety and Health officers to enable them to carry out technical inspections.

Under the new law, we intend granting authority of enforcement of OSH legislation to officers of Health Care and Nutrition Ministry. We could successfully enlist the services of the officers who are involved in community health activities. There are officers attached to different Ministries such as the Agriculture Ministry, Fisheries Ministry, Environment Ministry etc., whose services could be enlisted in the promotion of OSH in the country.

The Trade Unions and the workers themselves also could closely watch the situation and bring to the notice of the management or to the concerned officers.

In order to get the involvement of all the stakeholders in promoting safety and health in the workplace, we have a major task of creating awareness among them, empowering them and disseminating information to them. For this purpose, we have set up the National Institute of Safety and Health. It has been established under the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health Act, No. 38 of 2009.

Occupational safety

The Institute is responsible to design suitable programs to educate all stakeholders on the significance of occupational safety and health, training of OSH Officers and setting-up national OSH standards. The Institute would also act as the centre for networking with organizations dealing with safety and health world over.

I believe that, it is of paramount importance that employers and employees prioritize occupational safety and health in their corporate agenda and make the maximum use of the services provided by the Labour Department and the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health. Collective efforts should be taken by employers, employees and the Government to achieve highest possible level of occupational safety and health in our country. Let us make synergies by working together towards one common objective, that is, promoting health life through promoting safe work.