Two million work deaths a year

Luc Demaret & Ahmed Khalef*

Work kills more people than wars. And it injures and mutilates, 
too. Almost 270 million accidents are recorded each year, of 
which 2.2 million are fatal, that's six thousand a day. Many of 
these tragedies could be prevented, the International Labour 
Organisation believes. And yet, 20 years after the Bhopal 
disaster [in India], which killed 2500 people and injured 200,000 
in the space of a few hours, the situation has scarcely 
improved.

In Kemerevo, Siberia on April 10, 2004 a fatal explosion in a 
mine killed at least 44 miners. The Russian mining industry is in 
bad shape. Due to a lack of maintenance, accidents happen 
frequently.

Between January and October 2003, 13,283 fatal work accidents 
were registered in China's industries and mines — an increase of 
9.6 percent over the previous year. The rise is particularly 
steep in the construction sector.

A study made in Dublin, Ireland, (April 13, 2004) revealed that 
hundreds of thousands of workers suffer from stress. Four million 
working days were lost in 2003 at a total cost of US$300 million.

In Phnom Penh Cambodia, this February, dozens of workers at a 
textile plant fainted next to their machines. The premises were 
badly ventilated and the company was making uncontrolled use of a 
highly toxic product, trichloroethylene. Workers at the factory 
were regularly putting in two hours more than the permitted 
working day.

In January 2004: An explosion at a liquified natural gas complex 
in Algeria killed 27 workers.

In November 2003 a gangway leading up to the liner Queen Mary 2, 
then under construction at Saint-Nazaire in France collapsed 
killing 10 persons.

As work nears completion at the venue of the 2004 Olympic Games 
in Athens, no less than 154 work accidents have already occurred 
there. Twelve building workers have been killed. Last October, 
600 workers at the Olympic village went on strike in protest over 
the poor conditions on site.

Work causes injuries, mutilations, sickness and, still all too 
often, death. Not by fate, but through negligence. Due not to the 
absence of standards, but to their violation. Not because of 
poverty, but because of the lack of preventive measures.

Six thousand deaths a day

The International Labour Organisation, estimates that 2.2 million 
people die from work-related causes every year — 750,000 women 
and 1,500,000 men. The difference in the figures for men and 
women is mainly due to the distribution of the two sexes within 
dangerous jobs. However, the large number of women working in 
agriculture in developing countries makes them particularly 
vulnerable to work-related infectious diseases.

Experts also point out that the statistics underestimate the real 
situation, given the lack of information and reporting in many 
countries.

More than 400,000 deaths are caused by exposure to chemicals. 
Every year, one thousand new chemicals come on to the market, and 
more than a hundred thousand different ones are used each day. 
Many of them, if handled incorrectly, constitute a hazard. More 
than 300,000 cancers per year are due to dangerous substances.

Employer responsibility

Health and safety in the workplace are the sole responsibility of 
the employer. Some employers take this obligation seriously and, 
increasingly, they draw competitive advantage from it in their 
advertising campaigns. Others seem to put short-term profit 
before safety.

Asbestos

Why are millions of workers still exposed to asbestos, when we 
know that its fibres kill more than 100,000 people each year? 
This is clearly down to negligence on the part of certain 
employers and governments who persist in using this substance.

Many governments appear to be in no hurry to ratify and implement 
the international Convention adopted by the ILO in 1986, banning 
some kinds of asbestos. To date, this Convention has been 
ratified by only 27 of the ILO's 177 member States.

"Asbestos is already banned in 25 countries, but that means that 
almost 150 others are still using it", says the head of the ILO's 
occupational health and safety work. "Although asbestosis is not 
an infectious disease, it is tempting to call it an epidemic. 
This is especially true of mesothelioma caused by asbestos. And 
don't forget that, after a worker has been exposed to asbestos, 
the disease may take 20 or even 35 years to appear."

Thousands of children sacrificed

Another clear sign of negligence is that every year 22,000 
children, who ought to have been at school, die at work. This 
despite a whole arsenal of international conventions, 
declarations and legislation.

"We want to see more serious penalties imposed on employers who 
violate safety measures," says the International Federation of 
Building and Wood Workers.

"We work to live, but work still means death", says the Food, 
Agriculture And Allied Workers' international IUF.

Of the 270 million work accidents recorded each year worldwide, a 
large proportion are in agriculture. 

In 2002 governments, employers and unions adopted a new 
international Convention on safety and health in agriculture. It 
would give workers the right to refuse tasks that would put their 
lives at risk.

Many countries have brought in legislation to tackle the most 
obviously negligent attitudes to work safety. But the penalties 
are often derisory.

The price of negligence

Expenditure due to occupational illnesses and work accidents 
(invalid benefits and compensation to victims' families, medical 
expenses, lost time etc.) adds up to four per cent of the GNP of 
all the countries on the planet. That is more than a thousand 
billion dollars, or 20 times more than the public assistance 
provided to the developing countries.

The industrialised countries must take part of the blame. An ILO 
specialist says, "one of the trends is that industrialised 
countries are exporting their hazards to developing countries. 
Labour there is not only cheaper but also significantly less 
protected. Dirty and difficult jobs are left to the South. That 
includes mining, of course."

Silicosis

So while the mining diseases commonly known as pneumoconiosis, 
including silicosis, have disappeared in the industrialised 
countries, they are still claiming fresh victims every day in the 
developing world. For instance, on current estimates 10 million 
workers are at risk from silicosis, and it causes 5000 fatalities 
every year.

In Vietnam, it is the source of 90 per cent of compensated 
occupational illnesses. In India, more than two million miners 
are exposed to this hazard, six million in Brazil and almost two 
million in Colombia. In Latin America, according to an ILO report 
37 per cent of miners suffer from silicosis — a figure that 
rises to 50 per cent for miners aged over 50.

Social coverage for occupational safety and health varies greatly 
from one part of the world to another. Workers in the Nordic 
countries have almost universal coverage, whereas only 10 per 
cent — or even less — of developing country workplaces are 
covered in any way.

Boosting safety

Almost half of the 184 Conventions adopted by the ILO have a 
bearing on health and safety issues. Ratification of these 
standards, that is, the formal commitment of countries to respect 
them, is uneven. Some have been widely ratified, such as 
Convention 81 on labour inspection (130 ratifications). Others, 
however, have produced less encouraging results. The Convention 
155 on worker safety and health has garnered just 42 
ratifications. [Australia ratified it in March this year — Ed]

Studies confirm that where unions are fully recognised and there 
is a workplace health and safety committee (with equal 
representation of management and the unions), the serious 
accident rate may be halved compared to workplaces where unions 
are not recognised and no such committee is in place.

Although trade union freedom is a vital factor in workplace 
safety, all too often it is still flouted. In fact, trade 
unionism is a high-risk occupation. And the price to be paid for 
improving conditions at work is sometimes high.

Trade Unionists murdered

Across the world, two hundred trade unionists are murdered every 
year. Although he was receiving death threats, Cambodian union 
leader Chea Vichea never abandoned his struggle, which secured 
marked improvements in working conditions for some 200,000 women 
in the country's garment industry. On January 22, 2004, in Phnom 
Penh, he was killed by three bullets fired at close range.

"Safe Work is not only sound economic policy", declared UN 
Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2002, "it is a basic human 
right". Getting that basic right respected everywhere will take 
some major changes of attitude.

* * *

*From Flashes, published by the World Federation of 
Trade Unions Asia Pacific Regional Office. New Delhi, June 2004.

wftuasiapacific@vsnl.net