KEY PRINCIPLES IN OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

A number of key principles underpin the field of occupational safety and health. These principles and the provisions of international labor standards are all designed to achieve a vital objective: that work should take place in a safe and healthy environment.

Core OSH principles

Occupational safety and health is an extensive multidisciplinary field, invariably touching on issues related to scientific areas such as medicine – including physiology and toxicology – ergonomics, physics, and chemistry, as well as technology, economics, law and other areas specific to various industries and activities. Despite this variety of concerns and interests, certain basic principles can be identified, including the following:

• All workers have rights. Workers, as well as employers and governments, must ensure that these rights are protected and must strive to establish and maintain decent working conditions and a decent working environment.

More specifically:

— Work should take place in a safe and healthy working environment;

— Conditions of work should be consistent with workers’ well-being and human dignity;

— Work should offer real possibilities for personal achievement, self-fulfillment, and service to society (ILO, 1984).

• Occupational safety and health policies must be established. Such policies must be implemented at both the national (governmental) and enterprise levels.

They must be effectively communicated to all parties concerned.

KEY PRINCIPLES IN OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH

Fundamental principles of occupational health and safety

• A national system for occupational safety and health must be established.

Such a system must include all the mechanisms and elements necessary to build and maintain a preventive safety and health culture. The national system must be maintained, progressively developed and periodically reviewed.

• A national programme on occupational safety and health must be formulated. Once formulated, it must be implemented, monitored, evaluated and periodically reviewed.

• Social partners (that is, employers and workers) and other stakeholders must be consulted. This should be done during formulation, implementation and review of all policies, systems and programmes.

• Occupational safety and health programmes and policies must aim at both prevention and protection. Efforts must be focused above all on primary prevention at the workplace level. Workplaces and working environments should be planned and designed to be safe and healthy.

• Continuous improvement of occupational safety and health must be promoted.

 This is necessary to ensure that national laws, regulations and technical standards to prevent occupational injuries, diseases, and deaths are adapted periodically to social, technical and scientific progress and other changes in the world of work. It is best done by the development and implementation of a national policy, national system and national programme.

• Information is vital for the development and implementation of effective programmes and policies. The collection and dissemination of accurate information on hazards and hazardous materials, surveillance of workplaces, monitoring of compliance with policies and good practice, and other related activities are central to the establishment and enforcement of effective policies.

• Health promotion is a central element of occupational health practice. Efforts

must be made to enhance workers’ physical, mental and social well-being.

• Occupational health services covering all workers should be established. Ideally, all workers in all categories of economic activity should have access to such services, which aim to protect and promote workers’ health and improve working conditions.

• Compensation, rehabilitation, and curative services must be made available to workers who suffer occupational injuries, accidents and work-related diseases. Action must be taken to minimize the consequences of occupational hazards.

Key principles of occupational safety and health

• Education and training are vital components of safe, healthy working environments. Workers and employers must be made aware of the importance of establishing safe working procedures and of how to do so. Trainers must be trained in areas of special relevance to particular industries so that they can address the specific occupational safety and health concerns.

• Workers, employers and competent authorities have certain responsibilities, duties,

and obligations. For example, workers must follow established safety procedures; employers must provide safe workplaces and ensure access to first aid; and the competent authorities must devise, communicate and periodically review and update occupational safety and health policies.

• Policies must be enforced. A system of inspection must be in place to secure compliance with occupational safety and health measures and other labour legislation. Clearly, some overlap exists among these general principles. For example, the gathering and dissemination of information on various facets of Occupational safety and health underlie all the activities described. Information is needed for the prevention as well as the treatment of occupational injuries and diseases. It is also needed for the creation of effective policies and to ensure that they are enforced. Education and training demand information.

While these key principles structure occupational safety and health programmes and policies, the above list is by no means exhaustive. More specialized areas have corresponding principles of their own. Moreover, ethical considerations regarding such matters as individuals’ rights to privacy must be taken into consideration when devising policies. These basic principles are discussed in the following chapters of this

book and in other ILO publications.

Rights and duties

The responsibilities of governments, employers and workers should be seen as complementary and mutually reinforcing in the common task of promoting occupational safety and health to the greatest extent possible within the constraints of national conditions and practice.

Workers’ rights

It is increasingly recognized that the protection of life and health at work is a fundamental workers’ right (see box 8); in other words, decent work implies safe work. Furthermore, workers have a duty to take care of their own safety,

Fundamental principles of occupational health and safety

As well as the safety of anyone who might be affected by what they do or fail to do. This implies a right to adequate knowledge, and a right to stop work in the case of imminent danger to safety or health. In order to take care of their

own safety and health, workers need to understand occupational risks and dangers. They should, therefore, be properly informed of hazards and adequately trained to carry out their tasks safely. To make progress in occupational safety and health within enterprises, workers and their representatives have to cooperate with employers, for example by participating in elaborating and implementing preventive programmes.

Employers’ responsibilities

Because occupational hazards arise at the workplace, it is the responsibility of employers to ensure that the working environment is safe and healthy.

This means that they must prevent, and protect workers from, occupational risks. But employers’ responsibility goes further, entailing knowledge of occupational hazards and a commitment to ensure that management processes promote safety and health at work. For example, an awareness of safety and health implications should guide decisions on the choice of technology and on how work is organized.

Training is one of the most important tasks to be carried out by employers.Workers need to know not only how to do their jobs, but also how to protect their lives and health and those of their co-workers while working. Within enterprises, managers and supervisors are responsible for ensuring that

Safety and health at work – A human right

The right to safety and health at work is enshrined in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948, which states: Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work …

The United Nations International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 1976, reaffirms this right in the following terms:

The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to the enjoyment of just and favorable conditions of work, which ensure, in particular:

Key principles in occupational safety and health

Workers are adequately trained for the work that they are expected to undertake. Such training should include information on the safety and health aspects of the work, and on ways to prevent or minimize exposure to hazards.

On a larger scale, employers’ organizations should instigate training and information programmes on the prevention and control of hazards and protection against risks. Where necessary, employers must be in a position to deal with accidents and emergencies, including providing first-aid facilities.

Adequate arrangements should also be made for compensation of work-related injuries and diseases, as well as for rehabilitation and to facilitate a prompt return to work. In short, the objective of preventive programmes should be to provide a safe and healthy environment that protects and promotes workers’ health and their working capacity.

Governments’ duties

Governments are responsible for drawing up occupational safety and health policies and making sure that they are implemented. Policies will be reflected in legislation, and legislation must be enforced. But legislation cannot cover all workplace risks, and it may also be advisable to address occupational safety and health issues by means of collective agreements reached between the social partners. Policies are more likely to be supported and implemented if employers and workers, through their respective organizations, have had a hand in drawing them up. This is regardless of whether they are in the form of laws, regulations, codes or collective agreements.

The competent authority should issue and periodically review regulations or codes of practice; instigate research to identify hazards and to find ways of overcoming them; provide information and advice to employers and workers; and take specific measures to avoid catastrophes where potential risks are high. The occupational safety and health policy should include provisions for the establishment, operation and progressive extension of occupational health services.

 The competent authority should supervise and advise on the implementation of a workers’ health surveillance system, which should be linked with programmes to prevent accident and disease and to protect and promote workers’ health at both enterprise and national levels. The information provided by surveillance will show whether occupational safety and health standards are being implemented, and where more needs to be done to safeguard workers.

A concise statement that encapsulates the main purposes of occupational health is the definition provided by the joint ILO/WHO Committee.

As the definition indicates, the main focus in occupational health is on three different objectives: