The Green Institute
The International Labour Organisation released its clarion call for the World Day for Safety and Health 2021- “anticipate, prepare, and respond to crises and invest now in resilient Occupational Health Systems.”
‘Occupational heath hazards,’ or more generally, ‘the hurdles that the workers face in the courseof their employment by virtue or nature of the work they are indulged in,’ are gaining prominence widely in today’s times. The theme is a lush garden that has sundry fragrances. While some travellers herein might get carried to the dark days of industrial revolutionwhen the workers staunchly protested against the undue wage cuts, the others might be reminded of tired and battered professionals putting their best foot forward in the present pandemic. The background becomes blurry with the reverberated voices of the women in Civil Rights Movement demanding gender parity. Turning away, flashing scenes of health professionals pulling back at their hair drenched with sweat.
The pandemic has plummeted the world economy. The social setup has been endangered and the geopolitics is either witnessing one of the most advancing, or the most challenging discourse ever in the world history. The resilience to protect the workers against occupational health hazards is the most required right now. Even though all the countries have certain legislations in place to regulate the safety of the employed people, are those enough?
The Occupational Health System was formed originally to maintain the safety, health, and welfare of the people involved at a workplace. With the passage of time, the sphere enlarged so as to include the general public within its ambit as well (as the common law developed with the understanding that ‘the companies are responsible to the societies they grow in’). The International Labour Organisation Occupational Health Services Convention (No. 162) addresses “occupational health services” as “services entrusted with essentially preventive functions and responsible for advising the employer, the workers and their representatives in the undertaking on the requirements for establishing and maintaining a safe and healthy working environment which will facilitate optimal physical and mental health in relation to work and the adaptation of work to the capabilities of workers in the light of their state of physical and mental health.”[1]
There is a universal requirement to amplify the coverage of OHS around the world. Workers’ access to services must not be seen as an expenditure, but as an investment made with due cost-effectiveness. This was a policy shift that was mainly witnessed in the 1970s and 1980s. As a result, many international instruments gained momentum in aspiration of a common goal, including the Improvement of Working Conditions and Environment (PIACT), 1976, the International Labour Organisation Occupational Safety and Health Convention, 1981, the International Labour Organisation Occupational Health Services Convention, 1985, inter alia. By May 1995, 40 ratifications were entered into, whose ideal focus was an improvisation of:
The occupational health (and safety) of all workers in developed and developing economies alike,
Establishment of infrastructure for carrying out occupational health practice through laws and agreements,
Development of a liability system for the governments, employers’ organization, in collaboration with the workers’ organizations,
Development of a work environment that minimizes the occupational health hazards.
The same principles were reiterated in the terms of “right to lead healthy and productive lives in harmony with nature,” when Agenda 21 made the advent in the world striving towards sustainable development.
However, in reality, the OHS schemes are daunted by multitudinous hurdles. The most inadvertent challenge is that many OHS laws placed in various parts of the world are still archaic. These out-of-date provisions do not only offer inadequate justice to the employees of the organization but also leave gray area for the corporates to mismanage and oppress their rights for maximization of profits. Even at places where the laws are fairly adept, the work inspectors have a toxic lax attitude. Due to the inactivity of the bureaucracy, the safety systems in these nations have been functioning in a vacuum.
From their formulation to prioritizing, strategizing, and application, the stakeholders in OHS are many, including the employers’ organizations and the employees’ organizations, coupled with autonomous organizations, the public, etc. Yet so, the end goal is the attainment of the standard benchmark which would help the nations achieve their ideal social justice in due proportion with the economic growth. Truth be told, the employee welfare schemes have, at least until the day, not attained the status that they should have. In the attainment of Corporate Social Responsibility objectives and compliance, the corporates, in their defense, find it legitimate to lose their resources enough to spare any for the employees at the desired level. They could be right, maybe. But the question to be determined is, are they being fair?
REFERENCES
JormaRantanen& Igor A. Fedotov, “Standards, Principles, and Approaches in Occupational Health Services,” available athttp://www.ilocis.org/documents/chpt16e.htm (Last accessed on April 28th, 2021).