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SAFETY AND HEALTH AT THE HEART OF THE FUTURE OF WORK Building on 100 years of experience Building on 100 years of experience 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
Building on 100 years of experience
International Labour Office Copyright © International Labour Organization 2019
First published (2019)
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ISBN: 978-92-2-133151-3 (print)
ISBN: 978-92-2-133152-0 (web pdf)
Also available in French: La sécurité et la santé au cœur de l’avenir du travail: mettre à profit 100 ans d’expérience ISBN 978-92-2-133153-7 (print); 978-92-2-133154-4 (web pdf) Geneva, 2019 and in Spanish: Seguridad y salud en el centro del futuro del trabajo: Aprovechar 100 años de experiencia ISBN 978-92-2-133155-1 (print); 978-92-2-133156-8 (web pdf) Geneva, 2019
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II Table of contents
Introduction...... 1
Global trends in safety and health: The picture today ...... 3
Chapter 1: 100 years of safety and health at work...... 7
1. Why the world needed to respond to accidents and diseases at work 100 years ago...... 7 2. The ILO: Founded on the concept of safe and healthy work...... 9 3. Post-Second World War: An increasingly global perspective on OSH...... 12 4. Towards a culture of prevention ...... 20 5. ILO and safety and health at work in the new millennium...... 23
Chapter 2: A safe and healthy future of work: Challenges and opportunities...... 29
2.1 Technology...... 29 Digitalization and ICT...... 30 Automation and robotics...... 33 Nanotechnology ...... 34 2.2 Demographics ...... 36 Young workers...... 37 Aging worker populations ...... 38 Gender...... 39 Migrant workers...... 41 2.3 Sustainable development and OSH ...... 42 Climate change, air pollution and environmental degradation ...... 43 The green economy ...... 45 ILO instruments in relation to climate change, sustainable development and OSH...... 47
2.4 Changes in work organization ...... 48 Excessive hours of work...... 49 Non-standard forms of employment ...... 50 Working time arrangements...... 52 The informal economy...... 52 The example of digital labour platforms...... 53
Chapter 3: Responding to the safety and health challenges and opportunities of the future of work...... 55
3.1 Anticipation of new OSH risks...... 55 3.2 Multidisiplinarity in managing OSH...... 58 3.3 Building competence on OSH...... 59 3.4 Widening the horizon: The link to public health...... 60 3.5 International labour standards and other instruments on OSH...... 62 National OSH legislation and management...... 63 Governance of OSH...... 65 3.6 Reinforcing the role of governments and social partners and expanding partnerships ..... 67
Concluding remarks...... 68
References...... 69
IV Introduction
Introduction
According to recent estimates released by the work for all – in particular Target 8.8, to protect International Labour Organization (ILO), each labour rights and promote safe and secure year 2.78 million workers die from occupational working environments for all workers, including accidents and work-related diseases (of which migrant workers, in particular women migrants, 2.4 million are disease-related) and an addi- and those in precarious employment. tional 374 million workers suffer from non-fatal occupational accidents. It is estimated that lost work days globally represent almost 4 per cent of the world’s GDP, and in some countries, this rises to 6 per cent or more (Hämäläinen et al, 2017; Takala et al, 2014). Nevertheless, a considerable task remains for Aside from the economic cost, there is an intan- governments, employers, workers and other gible cost, not fully recognized in these figures, stakeholders in building present and future of the immeasurable human suffering caused generations of safe and healthy workers. The by occupational accidents and work-related ILO Global strategy on occupational safety and diseases. This is tragic and regrettable because, health, adopted in 2003, provides a framework as research and practice over the past century for these activities. Crucially, the global burden has repeatedly demonstrated, they are largely of occupational accidents, work-related diseases preventable. and deaths, is a significant contributor to the growing global issue of non-communicable and Psychosocial risks, work-related stress and non- chronic diseases. communicable diseases are of growing concern for many workers in all parts of the world. At the When we look to the future of safety and health same time, many workers remain challenged by at work, we should also take stock of the devel- persistent work-related safety and health risks opments in the past century. During the last and it is important not to overlook the workers 100 years, addressing occupational accidents, who face these risks as we look to the future. work-related diseases and deaths has been increasingly recognized as a major international It is a global imperative that these challenges challenge relevant to achieving social justice and are addressed with effective prevention strate- sustainable development. gies. Achieving effective prevention, however, remains a major challenge in addressing global It is now widely acknowledged that important occupational safety and health (OSH). OSH gains can be made from improving and sharing knowledge and experience concerning Safety and health at work can be key to sus- the extent, causes and prevention of harm arising tainable development and investment in OSH from work and how worker health and wellbeing can help contribute to the achievement of the can be better supported. It is also understood 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and that, while there are enormous national and especially to the achievement of Sustainable regional differences in the ways in which work- Development Goal (SDG) 3, to ensure healthy place hazards and risks are experienced, there lives and promote well-being for all at all ages is nevertheless much in common with regard to and SDG 8, to promote inclusive and sustain- the principles of prevention and control of their able economic growth, employment and decent harmful effects. 1 Addressing work-related hazards and risks as Against the backdrop of the challenge of safety though they exist solely within a workplace or and health at work, the second chapter of the within national boundaries is an ineffective report considers the trends driving change in the and incomplete strategy. Within global supply world of work and their impact on safety and chains, both production and workers, and thus health at work. Chapter 2 focuses on four main OSH risks, relocate across national borders. ways in which the world of work is changing – This necessitates global perspectives and better covering technology, demographics, sustainable understandings of the interrelationship between development including climate change and the physical science and engineering of safe changes in work organization. From each of the work and the medical understandings of disease major developments the report seeks to identify and injuries, as well as the economic, regulatory the key opportunities and challenges for OSH and sociological understandings of the contexts and for risk prevention and control. that contribute to making work safe and good for health. Chapter 3 of the report then reflects on ways that OSH is evolving and rising to the challenge As the ILO celebrates its centenary, the first of ensuring a safe and healthy future of work for chapter of this report takes a look back on the all. evolution of these understandings over the past century and the ILO’s role in its development since it was founded in 1919.
2 Introduction
Global trends in safety and health: The picture today
Occupational accidents and work-related diseases have a major impact on individuals and their families, not only in economic terms, but also in terms of their physical and emotional wellbeing in the short- and long-term. Furthermore, they can have major effects on enterprises, affecting productivity, leading to potential disruptions of production processes, hampering competitive- ness and reputation of enterprises along supply chains, and impacting on the economy and society more widely.
Although the importance of improving safety and health at work is increasingly widely recog- nized, providing an accurate picture of its global scale remains difficult. The systematic collec- tion and analysis of reliable and comparable data have varied both geographically and over time, which means that comparing trends and data is challenging. In addition, even in countries with the longest and most well-established data collection systems, under-reporting, particularly of non-fatal occupational accidents and especially work-related diseases, is common (Rushton et al, 2017, Takala et al, 2017). It is critical that countries establish effective OSH data collection systems, as to improve the collection and utilization of reliable OSH data for reporting and analysis.
Nevertheless, the latest figures and estimates indicate a huge problem. Globally 1,000 people are estimated to die every day from occupational accidents and a further 6,500 from work- related diseases. The aggregate figures indicate an overall increase in the number of deaths attributed to work: from 2.33 million deaths in 2014 to 2.78 million deaths in 2017 (Hämäläinen et al, 2017).
Estimates suggest that circulatory system diseases (31 per cent), work-related cancers (26 per cent) and respiratory diseases (17 per cent) contribute to almost three-quarters of the total work-related mortality. Diseases are the cause of the great majority of work-related deaths (2.4 million deaths or 86.3 per cent), in comparison to fatal occupational accidents (which make up the remaining 13.7 per cent). Together, these account for 5 to 7 per cent of deaths globally (Christopher and Murray, 2016; ILO, 2006; Murray and Lopez, 1996).
7,50 0 people die due to unsafe and unhealthy working conditions every day 5-7% of deaths globally 6,500 1,000 die from work related diseases die from occupational accidents 3 In addition, the most recent estimates from the Recent research indicates that worldwide about WHO show that when accounting for both deaths 20 per cent of lower back and neck pain and 25 and disability, the fraction of the global disease per cent of hearing loss in adults are attribut- burden in the general population due to occupa- able to occupational exposures (WHO, 2018). tion amounts to 2.7 per cent (WHO, 2018). This suggests both that occupational exposures to traditional and well-known harmful physical, Most recent figures suggest that ergonomic chemical, and biological agents continue to factors, injury risk factors, particulate matter, occur on a large scale, and that there is still gases, fumes and noise make the largest con- some way to go before the trend of increasing tributions to the total global burden of occu- levels of occupational exposure to such risk fac- pational disease (Driscoll, 2018). There is also tors is reversed globally. some evidence that the relative contributions of various occupational risk factors are changing. According to estimates, the burden of occu- Of 18 exposures measured in the Global Burden pational mortality and morbidity is not equally of Disease Survey 2016, only occupational expo- distributed across the world. About two-thirds sure to asbestos had fallen between 1990 and (65 per cent) of global work-related mortality is 2016 while all other exposures increased (by estimated to occur in Asia, followed by Africa almost 7 per cent) (Gakidou et al, 2017). (11.8 per cent), Europe (11.7 per cent), America
Figure 1: Accident fatality rates per 100,000 persons in the labour force, by region, 2014