IFBWW

Protecting Workers’ Rights

Global Health and Safety

Programme
 Problem:
Every year around two million 
workers die as a result of bad 
and illegal working conditions

Almost all of these deaths are 
foreseeable and preventable
Costs at macro economic level

�Prevention of injuries and ill 
health is a development issue 

�4% GDP of any nation lost on 
workplace accidents and ill 
health
 Problem:
Every year around 100,000 
people suffer fatal injuries 
on construction sites.  

Almost all of these deaths 
are foreseeable and 
preventable
 Routine work - well known
hazards - but no collective
prevention measures…..
 Falls: roof work, no edge protection
 Inadequate, unguarded scaffolding
 Unprotected openings and shafts
 Inappropriate use of ladders
 Excavations: not shored up, unstable
 Struck or crushed by objects, materials, walls
or vehicles.
Wood and forestry

 Tropical Loggers run a one in ten risk of

being killed in a working lifetime
 Sawmills are increasingly subcontracted
and informal
 Woodworking machinery still causes
more injuries than machinery in any
other sector
Wood and forestry

 Machinery hazards
 Transport hazards
 Stacking of timber
 Manual handling
 Falls from heights
 Slips and trips
Invisible and ignored
 work related ill health accounts for many hundreds 
of thousands of premature deaths. Asbestos 
diseases alone kill about 100, 000 people every 
year 
 yet….
 Published data grossly underestimates the real 
number of accidents, and reporting of work related 
ill health is practically non existent.
Building Ill Health
 Deafness
 Vibration syndromes
 Back injuries
 Musculo skeletal disorders
 Respiratory illness, asthma, cancer
 Central nervous system disorders
 Reproductive ill health
 Renal, hepatic,cardio-vascular problems
 Dermatitis
 Dengue, malaria
 HIV AIDS
Why lack of  prevention?
�Globalisation­ competition and the race to 
the bottom, hostility towards unions
�Deregulation, downsizing and outsourcing
� Workers seen as a cost by employers
�Productivity and time pressure
�Precarious contractual conditions, informal 
work, migration
�Low trade union density, low social status, 
poverty, lack of respect for human and trade 
union rights
�Governments passive and permissive on 
workers rights and social protection
Leading to chaotic working 
conditions.  Lack of:
� Compliance with basic legislation. 
� Planning and co­ordination.
� Responsibilities and management          

system for health and safety
� Investment in prevention measures 
� OHS policy, supervision and 

instruction,        information and 
training.
� Possibility for workers to exercise their 
 The Trade Union Effect
rights ­based focus
 Trade Union Structure
 Institutional participation
 Legislation and policy agenda
 Collective bargaining on OHS
 Recruitment and organising
 Reps and Committees
 Information and training
 Organising informal and migrant workers
 Campaigns on health, safety and welfare 
 Legislation
Promotion activities: guidelines, 
information, and training, assistance, 
inspections.  Targeted campaigns on 
specific hazards and prevention measures.
Enforcement and real deterrents: the fear 
factor: costs of fines and compensation, 
social stigma and loss of license or liberty 
for negligent employers.  
 Role of the Safety Representative
 Participate in Health and Safety Committee
 Inspections, health /symptom surveys, accident 
book, documentation, reports and 
recommendations
 Information, training and communication with 
workers on health hazards and the prevention 
measures to be taken.
 Represent workers interests, including the right to 
refuse dangerous work without victimisation ­ not 
only injuries but exposure to hazardous substances 
such as asbestos
 Safety Representatives on site
Low union density is a key factor in explaining the 
poor safety standards in our sectors
Informal workers are widely dispersed in small 
companies.  The use of casual and temporary 
labour, subcontracting and the so­called self­
employed, creates an increasingly complex 
working environment where unions represent 
workers across multiple employers. 
Safety Representatives on site
Unions find it difficult to identify, train and retain 
trade union safety representatives given the mobile 
and temporary nature of the work in our sectors.  
Workers are often reluctant to take on a union 
position because they fear that they are risking 
their jobs. 

Imaginative structures need to be considered to 
ensure that workers have similar rights to 
representation as in workplaces with a higher level 
of union membership.
 
 Roving Safety Representatives
 
Unions at branch or regional level should be 
able to provide an appropriate union 
representative to support all members of 
that union wherever and for whomever they 
work.
 Organising on worker’s rights
 All workers have rights, regardless of
employment status, but how?
 Unorganised, exploitative working
conditions and inhumane living
conditions,rural -urban migration as
survival strategy
 Address immediate needs for shelter
and protection; water, fuel, food; chid
care and education; health and above
all employment.
Workers rights -
Educate! Agitate! Organise!
 Educate on workers rights:
 Workplace - of course
 Pick up points- early morning
 Where workers live: roadside, shelters, on
sites - night meetings or early morning; rural
organising in villages; door to door, markets;
Public and community meetings - evenings
weekends
 At the union premises - get workers along to
file complaints of rights abuses.
Workers rights -
Educate! Agitate! Organise!
 Winning a few small victories on shelter,
water, minimum wage, creches,
convinces workers about the union
 Have to recruit workers and approach
employers and middle men and
authorities
 Have to confront exploitation and
demand social justice
Workers rights -
Educate! Agitate! Organise!
 Many of our affiliates in India and Nepal are
experts in organising in the informal economy
 Use health safety and welfare as organising
tools, practical, visible and relevant
improvements
 Health camps and health insurance is a big
attraction
 Creches, childcare and education to get kids
out of work and off site
 Unionisation and respect for wokers rights is
the long term goal