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A long neglected area

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has again sought to place occupational safety and health high on the global agenda through the adoption of a new Convention at its 95th annual conference against the backdrop of growing recognition of the synergy between social security and productivity. The new labour standard — the third comprehensive (non-sectoral) convention in the area — aims at encouraging member-states to promote a culture of safety at the workplace with an emphasis on prevention. While two million people are estimated to die annually owing to work-related injury and illness, 250 million suffer occupational accidents and another 160 million fall ill on account of exposure to hazards at the workplace. Correspondingly, there has been an increase in the type of risks owing to a transformation in the relations of production. In addition to hazards to life from manual handling of dangerous substances and the risks from machines and tools, biological and socio-psychological hazards and musculo-skeletal disorders are emerging as serious challenges in the rapidly expanding services sector. The economic imperatives underlying this scenario are becoming ever more obvious. According to a recent report of the ILO's Committee on Employment and Social Policy, the economic cost of risks such as disability, illness, and worker absenteeism is estimated at four per cent of the world's gross domestic product, or 20 times more than official development assistance. Given that any real value addition is a direct function of the quality and efficiency of the human resource pool, investment in the provision of insurance coverage against accidents and fatalities can hardly remain optional for enterprises faced with an industrial climate of intense competitiveness. This is especially true of developing countries where barely 10 per cent of the workforce is said to enjoy any form of protection against risk.

Despite these emerging realities, there is a poor awareness of the importance of safety and health in the work environment and a corresponding lack of political will to grapple with these issues, as testified by the low level of ratification of the two broad-based ILO conventions of 1981 and 1985. While India has ratified the ILO Conventions relating to protection from the effects of radiation and benzene (of the more than 20 pertaining to other sectors of industry), it continues to remain outside the scope of the two broad Conventions. Similarly, although the Employees' State Insurance Corporation extends protection to the organised sector (which forms a small proportion of the total workforce) by treating occupational diseases on a par with industrial injuries and accidents, there is as yet no comprehensive national legislation pertaining to occupational safety and health. The United Progressive Alliance Government should move fast to enact the draft Bill that the National Commission on Labour has framed on the subject.

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