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Challenges of healthy workforce

By Collins Olayinka
03 May 2016   |   1:12 am
The workplace arena is one place that inhabits various industrial idiosyncrasies but are all geared towards promoting higher efficiency.
Workforce

Workforce

The workplace arena is one place that inhabits various industrial idiosyncrasies but are all geared towards promoting higher efficiency.

In the midst of seeking higher returns and wanting to please and satisfy the employers of labour, workers that also include chief executive officers engender their wellbeing without even knowing it. Indeed, cases of workers who simply collapse and die in the course of their work abound while those that die in their sleep as a result of exhaustion and stress are countless.

Here in Nigeria, many workers now have various types of blood pressure reading machines to check their blood pressure and other equipment that monitor state of health is on the increase. It is no longer uncommon to see chief executives checking their blood pressure in their offices. With the increasing pressure on chief executives to deliver on profit margins within the leanest staff strength and limited resources, stress on workers is on the upward movement.

Expressing concerns over the precarious health situation of workers, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), said one worker dies every 15 seconds due to employer negligence.

ITUC stated this as the world marks the International Commemoration Day for Dead and Injured Workers.
ITUC General Secretary, Sharan Burrow, said: “Over two million workers die needlessly every year because their workplaces are dusty, dirty and dangerous. The risks are as obvious as they are preventable, whether they are falls from height, crippling workloads or chemical exposure. Every single death represents an employer’s failure to act.”

Burrow hinted that occupational cancers alone kill at a rate of one worker every minute worldwide, adding, “yet pressure from corporate interests means that even asbestos, one of the worst industrial killers, is banned in only a minority of countries. This is not legitimate business activity – it is criminal behaviour.”

Trade unions in more than 70 countries marked the International Commemoration Day with a demand for ‘Strong laws, Strong enforcement and Strong unions’ as the only way to stop the carnage at work.

Again, Burrow added: “Many studies show that the presence of a union in any workplace has a strong positive effect on the health of the workforce and the economy. Combined with effective enforcement, active workplace participation delivers safer, healthier workplaces. Responsible businesses know this and benefit as a result – in retention of valued and trained staff, reduced costs and higher productivity. But there are still governments, which are intent on removing ‘regulatory burdens’ by weakening labour laws and safety requirements. They are putting lives at risk, and also jeopardising safety-related productivity gains. The best-regulated economies are usually the safest and most successful.”

ITUC declared that public scrutiny of corporations, and their top executives, is now at an all-time high and will continue to increase, meaning that companies that seek to hide dirty and dangerous work down their supply chains can expect to suffer reputational damage.Repression of press freedom and curtailment of social media, evident in an increasing number of countries, is not stopping the world at large hearing of the tragic consequences of company negligence and disregard for workers’ lives.

“From the Rana Plaza garment factory disaster to the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion, the global firms responsible have been subjected to a previously unheard-of level of sustained criticism and public scrutiny,” Burrow said.

She stressed that workers would rather see safe and healthy workplaces than an irresponsible employer behind bars.

Burrow added: “But if workers don’t get prevention, they will seek justice. The right to come home safely from work, and live a full life without suffering occupation illness, is a permanent campaign for unions everywhere.”

On its part, the International Labour Organization (ILO) said it is time to lift the burden off workers.

The 2016 edition of the World Day for Safety and Health focuses on the toll taken on the health and wellbeing of workers worldwide by stress in their working environment.

Indeed, target 8 of Goal 8 of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development calls for “safe and secure working environments for all workers” – securing safe workplaces extends beyond the protection of workers’ physical safety to their mental and psychological wellbeing.

Work-related stress affects workers in all professions in developed and developing countries alike. It can gravely harm not only workers’ health but also, and all too often, the wellbeing of their families.

The Director-General of the ILO, Guy Ryder said: “Globalization and technological change have transformed work and employment patterns in ways that sometimes contribute to work-related stress.

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