Title: Workplace Health and Safety: Global Problems, Global Approaches
Author:
Section/SPIG: Occupational Health and Safety
Issue Date:
Steven Hecker, University of Oregon
A national work security index developed by the International Labour Organization reveals that two-thirds of countries provide unsatisfactory levels of worker protection. The limited labor and environmental provisions in existing trade agreements like NAFTA show little evidence of being effective tools for preserving or enhancing either labor rights or health and safety protections. Trade agreements currently being negotiated or debated in Congress lack even these minimal mechanisms and threaten to further weaken the ability of national or state governments to regulate workplace and public health. This lack of enforceable international standards for occupational safety and health combined with the increasing mobility of capital place tremendous market pressures on working conditions in both developing and developed countries. But even against this daunting backdrop delegates came away from the Workplace Health and Safety in the Global Economy conference in April at the University of Oregon inspired by many stories from the frontlines of global production. Speakers from unions, NGOs, universities, and corporations spanning five continents shared their approaches to improving working conditions in developing and developed countries.
A theme that ran from beginning to end was the inseparability of workplace safety and health from other key elements of security at work, including the basic rights of freedom of association, voice at work, and some measure of economic security. Monina Wong of the Hong Kong Christian Industrial Committee reminded the delegates that while technical help on OHS hazards from individuals and organizations in the industrial countries is useful, it is not enough. Political assistance and support for organizing is essential if progress is to be made on working conditions in China and elsewhere. Garrett Brown of the Maquiladora Health and Safety Support Network reinforced Wong’s view, adding that the Network’s last 10-12 years of support activities in Mexico, Central America, and Asia have taught that work at multiple levels is essential - technical support, yes, but also a rights-based approach to safety and health.
Conference sessions highlighted both differences and similarities in workplaces and issues facing workers in the developing and developed countries. Cathy Walker, OHS director of the Canadian Auto Workers Union, visited several Chinese joint venture auto factories in 2004. She noted that in a GM Shanghai plant the physical operation and safety and health protections were almost indistinguishable from a CAW-represented plant in Ontario. In other cases physical conditions were similar, but the pace of work was much faster than would be found in Canada. These, of course, don’t represent typical conditions in Chinese industry, but they demonstrate the pace at which global industrialization is proceeding and the range of conditions that can be found in the developing nations.
Meanwhile Karen Hui described the dual initiatives of the Guangzhou Occupational Health & Occupational Rehabilitation Center to 1) provide OHS training to improve prevention in the factories of South China’s export zones and 2) deliver social and rehabilitation services to injured workers in these same regions. Many of these workers are migrants from the rural interior to coastal areas with little industrial experience and no support network once they are disabled. While these are projects developed and implemented by her NGO and others, Hui is hopeful that by demonstrating the need and success on a small scale these can become models for government supported programs serving much larger populations.
Richard Hirsh, an industrial hygienist with Rohm and Haas, outlined the global safety and health programs his company has in place and the tools used to implement and monitor standards in far-flung operations. His description sparked questions of how uniform are standards, programs, and conditions on the ground in corporate-owned facilities in countries with different levels of development, regulatory regimes, and resources. Furthermore, what happens when you go beyond the multinational-owned plants with a well-resourced owner to locally operated facilities, and what are mechanisms for getting OHS resources to these more marginal locations?
Following a session on cross-border training and technical assistance programs, Garrett Brown demonstrated that this was more than just talk by presenting industrial hygiene sampling kits to each of the grassroots organizations represented at the conference. The conference itself illustrated the multi-directional and multi-level exchange that can and must take place if we are to make progress on these issues. Julia Quinonez of the Comite Fronterizo de Obreras in Mexico commented on how valuable it was to meet colleagues from Bangladesh, the Philippines, and elsewhere who are engaged in similar work. As an early participant in cross-border projects sparked by NAFTA, she felt inspired to renew relationships with some of their collaborators from that work. She also remarked on the work of the Hesperian Foundation in drawing from the experiences of workers and their organizations in a number of developing countries in preparing and publishing training materials for use in export processing zones.
The conference planners had set as one major goal to insure that the information, strategies, and contacts exchanged at the event form a basis for continuing activity. The closing session on strategies and future activities elicited a number of ideas and themes. Much discussion centered on networking and particularly on the nature of networking in the age of the Internet when so much information is available. The discussion recognized a number of excellent information resources, particularly Hazards and the ICFTU, and that regional and topical networks already exist. We don’t need to reinvent resources, but there is value in linking existing networks to make them as accessible as possible to people needing assistance on particular topics. Networking and resource sharing efforts still must confront and overcome language barriers as well.
Numerous speakers also addressed the issue of terms of exchange between organizations in developing and developed countries. While the disparity in technical resources is obvious and undeniable, Nick Henwood of the Industrial Health Research Group of South Africa reminded us that the conference itself showed that the global south has great resources of its own, among them courageous and inspirational stories of organizing, educating, and making change. Some good examples of north-south collaboration already exist, including the work of a number of international labor federations. Linking academic expertise with grassroots organizations that need it is another priority. Participatory action research is a method that can help bridge these worlds, but it is far from universally accepted in academia. Those of us in academic institutions need to challenge our programs to channel expertise and resources to workers, unions, and community-based organizations, whether they are organizations of immigrant workers in the U.S. or grassroots organizations in developing countries.
There has been progress. Just weeks before the conference, Nike for the first time disclosed the location of all its contract suppliers. Deanna Robinson of Gap, Inc., addressed the conference and described the evolution of Gap’s social responsibility program, which has taken similar measures and has collaborated with NGOs and unions in OHS training. Transparency is one step toward improving working conditions, but much more is needed. And none of these steps has come without aggressive organizing, campaigning, and monitoring in the producing and consuming nations.
The work of the conference will continue into the future. Currently most of the conference presentations are posted on <http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~lerc/olshep/globaleconconf.htm>, and additional material and links will be added in the future. Comments and suggestions from those who are interested in the issues are welcome to <shecker@uoregon.edu>.