Director of ILO Office for China and Mongolia Commemoration of the World Day on Safety and Health at Work and Seminar on Safety Culture at Enterprises
I would like to welcome the participants from local work safety authorities, ACFTU and enterprises as well as friends from the media. My special thanks are extended to the people’s governments of Hebei Province and Tang Shan City as well as their work safety authorities for your support and excellent preparation of the events here.
On this important day – the World Day for Safety and Health at Work – we recall that every year around the world, approximately 337 million people are victims of work accidents and more than 2.3 million people die because of occupational injuries and work-related diseases. From mines to chemical plants, from offices to fields, work-related accidents and illness take a heavier toll in terms of lives lost and disability than global pandemics such as HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis.
The tragedy is that so many accidents, illnesses and deaths could be prevented with appropriate managerial measures. It is a matter of respecting the dignity of the human being through the dignity of work, of shaping policies that reflect the central role of work in people’s lives and in building peaceful communities, stable societies and resilient economies.
On this commemorative day, it is important to highlight the role of occupational safety and health management systems as a tool to secure continual improvement. Successfully building a strong preventative safety and health culture is not the work of technical experts alone. It depends on the strong commitment, collaboration and concerted action by governments, employers, workers and other stakeholders.
As we all know, according to international Conventions and national laws, it is the employer who is responsible for providing a safe and healthy working environment for workers. In order to do so, the enterprise should develop a safety culture in which the top management gives priority to OSH and involves workers in common efforts to improve safety and health at work. To achieve continuous improvement in OSH performance, the enterprise should establish an occupational safety and health management system, which includes a dynamic process of identifying hazards, assessing their risks and controlling the risks in a prioritized and logical order. To promote such an approach, the ILO developed the Guidelines on Occupational Safety and Health Management Systems (ILO-OSH 2001). The Guidelines apply the modern management methodology, that is, the Plan-Do-Check-Action cycle and reflect ILO values and the principles laid down in the ILO OSH Conventions such as Convention No. 155.
The purpose of the Guidelines is to establish a comprehensive and structured mechanism for the joint action of management and workers in the implementation of safety and health measures. The OSH management system can be adapted to a range of situations, from the simple needs of a small scale enterprise to the multiple needs of hazardous and complex industries, such as chemical manufacturing, where risk assessment is legally required and the application of the highest safety standards is important. China has ratified the ILO Chemicals Convention (No. 170), which provides a framework for the safe use of chemicals in the workplace, and has begun to implement Globally Harmonized System (GHS) for the classification and labeling of chemicals, which is a vital step towards protecting human health at the workplace and beyond in China and throughout the world.
The OSH management system cannot function properly without the existence of effective management and workers’ cooperation, whether in the context of joint safety and health committees, or other mechanisms for collaboration and workers’ participation. Management commitment and the active participation of workers are key elements for its success.
Ladies and gentlemen,
The OSH management systems approach has retained the attention of enterprises, governments and OSH practitioners, both at national and international levels, for more than a decade. The Guidelines have become a widely used tool for developing national standards and programmes at national and enterprise level. It is expected that more and more countries will integrate the OSH management system into their national OSH programmes as a means to strategically promote the development of sustainable mechanisms for continuous improvements in the safety, health and general management practices of their organizations.
Experience in recent years shows that established prevention measures are effective in reducing traditional hazards and risks. However, many dangers persist and new ones are emerging. New technologies and new forms of work organization bring new challenges. Risks associated with chemicals and bio-technologies are on the rise. So too are psychosocial risks as workers deal with the pressures of modern working life, exacerbated in times of dramatic economic change.
Today, technological progress, intense competitive pressures, and emerging challenges in the world of work call for systematic management of risk. OSH management systems save lives and health. As we celebrate together on this World Day, let us mobilize nationally and internationally to promote OSH management systems, to secure a safe and health working environment for all, in order to prevent accidents, preserve health and save lives. It is a matter of respecting human dignity and the dignity of work.