ILO: Beware the workplace

The world of work today is much more hazardous than safe and healthy. Workers have to deal with well-known hazards presented by dangerous chemicals, machinery and tools but they must also deal with biological hazards and psychosocial hazards including stress, violence, alcohol and drug abuse said Paula Robinson, senior specialist (workers activities) with the Inter-national Labour Organisation. She said every year two million women and men are deprived of work because of occupational accidents and work-related diseases. “By conservative estimates workers suffer 250 million occupational accidents and more than 160 million workers fall ill each year because of workplace hazards.”

Death and injuries take a particularly heavy toll in developing countries where many workers are concentrated in extractive activities such as logging, fishing, and mining, which represent some of the most hazardous industries. Robinson said research has shown that the poorest, least protected workers who are often women and children are among the most affected. She said workers involved in micro and small enterprises are often excluded from labour protection although these areas account for 90 percent of enterprises. While human suffering cannot be measured, Robinson said estimates from the US, UK, Germany and Norway put the direct cost of accidents in billions of US dollars. The death rate in developing countries is five to six times that of industralised countries. Robinson said the phenomenon is largely undocumented “and there is little political will to address the problem.”

Robinson said HIV/AIDS is a work issue because it affects labour and productivity. “It is an issue because the workplace has a vital role to play in the wider struggle to limit the spread and effects of the epidemic.” Twenty-six million workers worldwide between the ages 15-49 are HIV positive. In the Caribbean there are 12 countries with more than one percent of the population living with the virus. Robinson said Haiti has an estimated prevalence of six percent while Barbados, British Virgin Islands, Grenada and Jamaica have less than two percent. TT is estimated at 2.7 percent—or 40,000 people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHAs). The virus impacted on the workplace in discrimination against PLWHAs, threatened fundamental principles and rights at work and undermined prevention and care efforts. HIV/AIDS also reduced income when workers lose their jobs and the labour force is reduced. Projections have been made that the labour force will be “greatly reduced” by the year 2020.