18GA - FINAL RESOLUTION - 15 - A 21ST CENTURY APPROACH TO OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY FOR TRADE UNIONS
INTERNATIONAL CONFEDERATION OF FREE TRADE UNIONS
EIGHTEENTH WORLD CONGRESS
Miyazaki, 5 – 10 December 2004
FINAL RESOLUTION - A 21ST CENTURY APPROACH TO OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY FOR TRADE UNIONS
1. Congress condemns the fact that over two million women and men die each year as a result of occupational accidents and work-related diseases, an average of more than 5,000 people every single day. Across the globe, there are some 270 million occupational accidents annually and 160 million workers suffer from occupational diseases. The cost amounts to some 4% of gross world domestic product every year.
2. Congress denounces the conditions imposed by a neo-liberal form of globalisation which induces the replacement of safe and healthy workplaces in one part of the world by more dangerous working environments in others. The aftermath of the Bhopal, India chemical factory accident 20 years ago, which so far has killed over 20,000 people is a vivid reminder that the protection of workers’ health and their compensation for injuries are still only a distant reality for the vast majority of the world’s population.
3. Action is needed to stop the social dumping that can result from the export of work processes, machinery and chemicals or chemical products for use in workplaces of recipient countries. Increased vigilance and concerted initiatives are needed to prevent the appalling number of worker fatalities, injuries and illness that result from new and existing chemicals and products, such as asbestos and persistent organic pollutants (POPs).
4. Dangerous working methods and machinery present a particular threat to workers’ safety, particularly where old and unsafe machinery is exported to developing countries. Moreover, the rise in precarious working conditions and informal employment world-wide is bringing about a generalised increase in occupational risks, especially in small and medium sized enterprises where the rate of occupational injuries is markedly higher.
5. Congress reaffirms that one of the most effective measures that has been shown to reduce injury and illness is the involvement of workers and their representatives in all aspects of health and safety. The increased protection that trade unions provide constitutes a major benefit from trade union membership. The right to join a trade union confers the right to health and safety at work.
6. Congress pledges the ICFTU to strengthen occupational health and safety for all workers, especially for vulnerable groups, and to get governments, employers and international organisations to do the same.
7. The ICFTU and its member organisations must work to promote international and national initiatives between the social partners and at the tripartite level as part of their efforts to promote health and safety at work and the well-being of workers.
ICFTU Action Programme
8. Congress instructs the ICFTU and regional organisations, working together with Global Unions partners and affiliates, to:
a) strive for the right to decent, safe and healthy work to be recognised as an inalienable right for all workers and the cornerstone of a civilised society;
b) assist unions in obtaining the ratification and full implementation of ILO instruments related to health and safety and the well-being of workers, particularly ILO Convention 155, the Occupational Safety and Health Convention;
c) support the development of a new ILO promotional instrument on occupational safety and health based on the conclusions of the 2003 International Labour Conference discussion on this theme, which would promote the concept of “preventative safety and health culture”, workers’ rights for union safety representatives, union rights for access to workplaces and protection from victimisation for raising safety concerns;
d) work to promote programmes for the improvement of health and safety standards in all countries, to use collective bargaining to protect occupational health and safety, and to prevent competition from undermining progress in occupational health and safety anywhere;
e) promote training and education at the national level, and the establishment and enforcement of safety standards for dangerous machinery and practical safety measures for workers using machinery or other potentially dangerous technological processes or products, especially for the most vulnerable groups like young and aging workers, as well as women;
f) ensure that workplace practices protect the reproductive health of men and women, do not cause infertility and do not harm the health of future children;
g) ensure that migrant workers have the training and health and safety measures, suited to their situation and special needs, so as to have equal protection at the workplace as others;
h) ensure that all workers have access to trade union safety representatives who have the right to inspect workplaces, see all relevant information, and stop production if there is a risk to health or safety;
i) broaden unions’ understanding of and response to musculoskeletal and repetitive strain injuries (which are particularly common among women workers), including through supporting the negotiation of a new instrument of the ILO and working for those suffering from such occupational diseases to be entitled to national employment injury compensation and benefits;
j) develop union actions to address mental difficulties and stress at work, with its negative impact on mental and physical health;
k) increase unions’ actions against violence in the workplace, particularly to prevent violence against women and sexual harassment;
l) encourage cooperation between the ILO and the World Health Organisation (WHO), particularly in order to review the ILO’s list of occupational diseases, and further endeavour to ensure that lists of occupational diseases at national level are fully comprehensive and up-to-date and that such diseases are compensated;
m) promote the provision of occupational medicine and specified centres for occupational medicine;
n) support trade union involvement to achieve the best possible outcome at important forthcoming international meetings including the XVIIth World Congress on Safety and Health at Work in September 2005;
o) work for the principle of Prior Informed Consent (PIC) in the export of chemicals and dangerous products;
p) support legislation to provide adequate information concerning all chemicals (both existing and new) used in production processes, through measures such as those included in the proposed REACH regulation in the European Union;
q) campaign for a total world ban on the use and commercialisation of asbestos; promote ratification of relevant ILO Conventions; work with affiliates to apply pressure on national governments to cease the further use of asbestos; ensure proper, strengthened, safeguards to protect workers and communities that are or will be exposed to asbestos products; and implement employment transition programmes for workers displaced by the banning of asbestos, including economic support for regions that are particularly affected;
r) support and seek resources for just employment transition programmes wherever safety and health measures have negative impacts on working people;
s) work to ensure fair compensation payments and continuing adequate assistance for victims of occupational illnesses and accidents, and specifically, support its affiliates in India to achieve proper resolution of unresolved compensation issues for workers affected by the Bhopal disaster;
t) support the right for all workers to a smoke-free workplace;
u) strengthen efforts by trade unions to promote precautionary and prevention principles and measures in corporate and in government programmes, together with effective and rigorously enforced inspections systems, while opposing exemptions from health and safety legislation for small and medium-sized enterprises or for certain public sector employers;
v) demand the establishment of enquiry procedures, which must include trade union representatives, in the event of worker fatality or serious occupational injury;
w) focus on the extent and gravity of death at the workplace by supporting or promoting campaigns for the implementation of corporate legal liability on the part of business and of state bodies for the health and safety of their workers;
x) promote world-wide recognition of 28 April as the International Commemoration Day for Dead and Injured Workers, as a way of educating workers and the public about workplace hazards and to promote safe and sustainable workplaces, whilst retaining the specific character of 28 April as a day primarily led by trade unions;
y) maximize effective trade union co-operation, including through exchanging information and trade union know-how and full use of the technical resources of the European Trade Union Technical Bureau for Health and Safety (TUTB) and other such institutes;
z) encourage governments, intergovernmental bodies, trade unions and all other relevant bodies to build and strengthen occupational health and safety institutions, practices and services through measures to promote sustainable workplaces and communities.
___________
6 December 2004
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18GA - FINAL RESOLUTION - 15 - A 21ST CENTURY APPROACH TO OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY FOR TRADE UNIONS
EIGHTEENTH WORLD CONGRESS
Miyazaki, 5 – 10 December 2004
FINAL RESOLUTION - A 21ST CENTURY APPROACH TO OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY FOR TRADE UNIONS
1. Congress condemns the fact that over two million women and men die each year as a result of occupational accidents and work-related diseases, an average of more than 5,000 people every single day. Across the globe, there are some 270 million occupational accidents annually and 160 million workers suffer from occupational diseases. The cost amounts to some 4% of gross world domestic product every year.
2. Congress denounces the conditions imposed by a neo-liberal form of globalisation which induces the replacement of safe and healthy workplaces in one part of the world by more dangerous working environments in others. The aftermath of the Bhopal, India chemical factory accident 20 years ago, which so far has killed over 20,000 people is a vivid reminder that the protection of workers’ health and their compensation for injuries are still only a distant reality for the vast majority of the world’s population.
3. Action is needed to stop the social dumping that can result from the export of work processes, machinery and chemicals or chemical products for use in workplaces of recipient countries. Increased vigilance and concerted initiatives are needed to prevent the appalling number of worker fatalities, injuries and illness that result from new and existing chemicals and products, such as asbestos and persistent organic pollutants (POPs).
4. Dangerous working methods and machinery present a particular threat to workers’ safety, particularly where old and unsafe machinery is exported to developing countries. Moreover, the rise in precarious working conditions and informal employment world-wide is bringing about a generalised increase in occupational risks, especially in small and medium sized enterprises where the rate of occupational injuries is markedly higher.
5. Congress reaffirms that one of the most effective measures that has been shown to reduce injury and illness is the involvement of workers and their representatives in all aspects of health and safety. The increased protection that trade unions provide constitutes a major benefit from trade union membership. The right to join a trade union confers the right to health and safety at work.
6. Congress pledges the ICFTU to strengthen occupational health and safety for all workers, especially for vulnerable groups, and to get governments, employers and international organisations to do the same.
7. The ICFTU and its member organisations must work to promote international and national initiatives between the social partners and at the tripartite level as part of their efforts to promote health and safety at work and the well-being of workers.
ICFTU Action Programme
8. Congress instructs the ICFTU and regional organisations, working together with Global Unions partners and affiliates, to:
a) strive for the right to decent, safe and healthy work to be recognised as an inalienable right for all workers and the cornerstone of a civilised society;
b) assist unions in obtaining the ratification and full implementation of ILO instruments related to health and safety and the well-being of workers, particularly ILO Convention 155, the Occupational Safety and Health Convention;
c) support the development of a new ILO promotional instrument on occupational safety and health based on the conclusions of the 2003 International Labour Conference discussion on this theme, which would promote the concept of “preventative safety and health culture”, workers’ rights for union safety representatives, union rights for access to workplaces and protection from victimisation for raising safety concerns;
d) work to promote programmes for the improvement of health and safety standards in all countries, to use collective bargaining to protect occupational health and safety, and to prevent competition from undermining progress in occupational health and safety anywhere;
e) promote training and education at the national level, and the establishment and enforcement of safety standards for dangerous machinery and practical safety measures for workers using machinery or other potentially dangerous technological processes or products, especially for the most vulnerable groups like young and aging workers, as well as women;
f) ensure that workplace practices protect the reproductive health of men and women, do not cause infertility and do not harm the health of future children;
g) ensure that migrant workers have the training and health and safety measures, suited to their situation and special needs, so as to have equal protection at the workplace as others;
h) ensure that all workers have access to trade union safety representatives who have the right to inspect workplaces, see all relevant information, and stop production if there is a risk to health or safety;
i) broaden unions’ understanding of and response to musculoskeletal and repetitive strain injuries (which are particularly common among women workers), including through supporting the negotiation of a new instrument of the ILO and working for those suffering from such occupational diseases to be entitled to national employment injury compensation and benefits;
j) develop union actions to address mental difficulties and stress at work, with its negative impact on mental and physical health;
k) increase unions’ actions against violence in the workplace, particularly to prevent violence against women and sexual harassment;
l) encourage cooperation between the ILO and the World Health Organisation (WHO), particularly in order to review the ILO’s list of occupational diseases, and further endeavour to ensure that lists of occupational diseases at national level are fully comprehensive and up-to-date and that such diseases are compensated;
m) promote the provision of occupational medicine and specified centres for occupational medicine;
n) support trade union involvement to achieve the best possible outcome at important forthcoming international meetings including the XVIIth World Congress on Safety and Health at Work in September 2005;
o) work for the principle of Prior Informed Consent (PIC) in the export of chemicals and dangerous products;
p) support legislation to provide adequate information concerning all chemicals (both existing and new) used in production processes, through measures such as those included in the proposed REACH regulation in the European Union;
q) campaign for a total world ban on the use and commercialisation of asbestos; promote ratification of relevant ILO Conventions; work with affiliates to apply pressure on national governments to cease the further use of asbestos; ensure proper, strengthened, safeguards to protect workers and communities that are or will be exposed to asbestos products; and implement employment transition programmes for workers displaced by the banning of asbestos, including economic support for regions that are particularly affected;
r) support and seek resources for just employment transition programmes wherever safety and health measures have negative impacts on working people;
s) work to ensure fair compensation payments and continuing adequate assistance for victims of occupational illnesses and accidents, and specifically, support its affiliates in India to achieve proper resolution of unresolved compensation issues for workers affected by the Bhopal disaster;
t) support the right for all workers to a smoke-free workplace;
u) strengthen efforts by trade unions to promote precautionary and prevention principles and measures in corporate and in government programmes, together with effective and rigorously enforced inspections systems, while opposing exemptions from health and safety legislation for small and medium-sized enterprises or for certain public sector employers;
v) demand the establishment of enquiry procedures, which must include trade union representatives, in the event of worker fatality or serious occupational injury;
w) focus on the extent and gravity of death at the workplace by supporting or promoting campaigns for the implementation of corporate legal liability on the part of business and of state bodies for the health and safety of their workers;
x) promote world-wide recognition of 28 April as the International Commemoration Day for Dead and Injured Workers, as a way of educating workers and the public about workplace hazards and to promote safe and sustainable workplaces, whilst retaining the specific character of 28 April as a day primarily led by trade unions;
y) maximize effective trade union co-operation, including through exchanging information and trade union know-how and full use of the technical resources of the European Trade Union Technical Bureau for Health and Safety (TUTB) and other such institutes;
z) encourage governments, intergovernmental bodies, trade unions and all other relevant bodies to build and strengthen occupational health and safety institutions, practices and services through measures to promote sustainable workplaces and communities.
___________
6 December 2004
Download this file ("pdf"):
18GA - FINAL RESOLUTION - 15 - A 21ST CENTURY APPROACH TO OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY FOR TRADE UNIONS