Safety and Health at the Heart of the Future of Workpdf
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
SAFETY AND HEALTH AT THE HEART OF THE FUTURE OF WORK A Compilation of Think Pieces A Compilation of Think Pieces SAFETY AND HEALTH THE HEART AT OF THE FUTURE OF WORK ILO Labour Administration, Labour Inspection International Labour Office Tel: +41 22 799 67 15 and Occupational Safety and Health Branch Route des Morillons 4 Fax: +41 22 799 68 78 (LABADMIN/OSH) CH-1211 Geneva 22 Email: [email protected] Governance and Tripartism Department Switzerland www.ilo.org/labadmin-osh SAFETY AND HEALTH AT THE HEART OF THE FUTURE OF WORK A Compilation of Think Pieces International Labour Office Copyright © International Labour Organization 2019 First published (2019) Publications of the International Labour Office enjoy copyright under Protocol 2 of the Universal Copyright Convention. Nevertheless, short excerpts from them may be reproduced without authorization, on condition that the source is indicated. For rights of reproduction or translation, application should be made to ILO Publications (Rights and Licensing), International Labour Office, CH-1211 Geneva 22, Switzerland, or by email: [email protected]. The International Labour Office welcomes such applications. Libraries, institutions and other users registered with a reproduction rights organization may make copies in accordance with the licences issued to them for this purpose. Visit www.ifrro.org to find the reproduction rights organization in your country. Title: Safety and Health and the Future of Work: A Compilation of Think Pieces Language: English ISBN: 978-92-2-133717-1 (print) ISBN: 978-92-2-133718-8 (web pdf) The designations employed in ILO publications, which are in conformity with United Nations practice, and the presentation of material therein do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the International Labour Office concerning the legal status of any country, area or territory or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers. The responsibility for opinions expressed in signed articles, studies and other contributions rests solely with their authors, and publication does not constitute an endorsement by the International Labour Office of the opinions expressed in them. Reference to names of firms and commercial products and processes does not imply their endorsement by the International Labour Office, and any failure to mention a particular firm, commercial product or process is not a sign of disapproval. Information on ILO publications and digital products can be found at: www.ilo.org/publns. Printed in Switzerland ILO TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 Gender perspectives on the impact of technological change in mining ......................... 1 2 Health, Safety, Well-Being and Economic Security Implications of Gig Work: An Interdisciplinary Perspective .............................................................................. 4 3 Mainstreaming OSH: Putting people and their work at the centre to ensure healthy and safe workplaces for the future .......................................................................... 6 4 The Work Stress Conundrum .................................................................................. 9 5 Critical perspectives on OSH management systems and the future of work ................. 12 6 The future of work and occupational cancer ........................................................... 17 7 Make healthy employees a priority and prevent chronic diseases ............................... 19 8 Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) professions: Who are they and why do we need them? ............................................................... 23 9 Safety and health in small businesses – between a rock and a hard place .................. 26 10 Sick pay, compensation and the future of work ....................................................... 30 11 Integrating the OSH management system with the general performance management system ........................................................................................... 33 12 Alcohol and Drugs at work: The interface between safety and health and health promotion .......................................................................................... 37 13 The OSH Challenge: Understanding Our Emerging World and its Workforce Development Needs ........................................................................................... 40 14 Safety, and safety science, past, present and future ................................................ 45 15 Major changes in working lives and the ill health this might bring ......................................................................... 48 16 Operational Excellence and Safety Management: Reflections from the Longest Serving Administrator of the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration ......................50 17 Asbestos: limitless, endless contamination – with complete impunity .............................. 52 18 The Essential Contribution of Human Factors/Ergonomics to the Future of Work We Want ............................................................................................................ 54 19 Global union strategies on OSH and the future of work ........................................... 57 20 How to turn good intentions into successful action: Developing and implementing initiatives to address safety and health at work ....................................................... 60 21 Rising to Greater Heights - Industrial Hygiene in Asia ............................................. 63 22 Towards a healthier future of work ........................................................................ 66 23 Minimizing the adverse effects of restructuring on employee health and wellbeing ....... 68 24 New and Emerging Risks of Chemicals (NERCs) and the future of work ..................... 71 25 Difficulties of recording and notification of accidents and diseases in developing countries ........................................................................................ 73 26 Innovative legislation and osh ............................................................................... 76 iii 72 The Promises and Perils of the Platform Economy: Occupational Health and Safety Challenges, and the Opportunities for Labour Inspections .......................................79 28 The impact of technology on work and the workforce ............................................... 84 29 Connecting the Dots: Occupational Safety and Health and Business Performance ....... 88 30 Work and Nanotechnology .................................................................................... 93 31 Innovative, creative and adaptable – how to keep pace with the digital transformation . 96 32 Changing work and workers’ health in the 21st century – a view from Kuwait .............. 99 33 Working for world class performance; approaches to administration and governance in Worksafe New Zealand ................................................................................... 103 iv 1 GENDER PERSPECTIVES ON THE IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE IN MINING Lena Abrahamsson Chair Professor of Human Work Science, and Dean, Luleå University of Technology, Sweden The purpose of this think piece is to reflect on the re-sistance are more difficult to understand how the implementation of new technol-ogy, because it can be hindering OSH development such as digitalisation and automation, at indus- and, as I will argue in this think piece, it is con- trial workplaces, engender changes in work and nected to the gender systems at the workplaces. organisation and how this may challenge existing gender systems in work life and also effect of the Large-scale industrial mining has long been a development of safety and health at work (OSH). male-dominated and homosocial work context, in Sweden (85-90% of the mining workers are Gender, especially the industrial worker form of men) as well as globally, where the gender mark- masculinity, and the male-dominated work organi- ing as masculine is seemingly stable, both when sations, are involved in the complex processes of it comes to work identities and workplace cul- both resistance and change when meeting the digi- tures as well as the technology itself. Entering talization. the mining environment is, or at least has been, like stepping into the very heart of a classic mas- culinity construction, the blue-collar masculinity. Digitalization in traditional male- The current local mine worker masculinity has dominated organisations its roots in the old mining work and is still to a great extent constructed around the aura of The underground workplaces in the Swedish dark, dangerous, heavy, and dirty work, manual mining industry is a context where such pro- competences and the mystery of the rock. cesses are extra visible. Step-by-step the min- Although some may argue that the extreme form ing industry moves toward a vision of automated of this mas-culinity (macho, boyish, risk-taking) and digitalized mines and recently we can see is practically outdated and no longer exists, it an accelerated pace of change. These are essen- re-mains commonplace. It is a form of masculinity tially technology-driven changes with optimistic that serves as a safe and stable refer-ence point (almost naïve) visions for future work. Even if the depicting what a “real man” is, or should be; development will not be as the visions predict, even for people, professions and masculinities there will be new types of industrial work, new that have quite different expressions, experiences types of