International Occupational Health and Safety Risk Transfers

1
International Occupational Health and Safety Risk
Transfers

• Andrew Watterson
• Occupational and Environmental Health Research
  Group
• Improving Health Outcomes Research Programme
• University of Stirling, Scotland

2
International Occupational Health and Safety Risk
Transfers Workshop

• Workshop framework
• The issues
• Case studies
• Controls and standards
• Trade union/NGO actions
• Campaigning

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The issues

• Increase/reduction of risks (hazards/exposures
  - export) in materials, processes, work
  organisations etc
• Increase/decrease in numbers of workers exposed
• Increase/decrease in types of workers exposed and
  possible community/environmental exposures
• Increase/decrease in monitoring, surveillance of
  hazards and risks
• Increase/decrease in regulation/inspection/enforce
  ment of laws on risk movement and risk arrival
• Increase/decrease in civil society checks and
  balances on risk transfer. Freedom of
  information, media investigation, rights of trade
  unions and NGOs.

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International Occupational Health and Safety Risk
Transfers

• Through capital movement companies and
  industries
• Through science and technology movement such as
  biotechnology techniques, nanotechnology, nuclear
  technology
• Through labour movement

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Trends which may lead to OHSE issues?

• Movement of people
• Between countries
• Within countries

• Movement of industries and services
• High wage to low wage countries and regions
• High technology to low technology
• High technology to high skills, low wages and low
  technology

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Case studies

• from workshop members

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Risk transfer from Latvia

• In December 2004, Swedish trade unions launched a
  boycott of Laval Partneri, a Latvian
  construction firm doing building work near
  Stockholm, calling for the Latvian workers
  involved to be paid the same as their Swedish
  counterparts. The conflict has attracted
  considerable attention in Latvia, with the
  government stating that EU free market rules are
  being breached, and employers' organisations and
  trade unions becoming involved
• The Latvian company obtained a contact to build a
  school building. The construction work started in
  late 2004, and 14 Latvian building workers are
  involved.

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Risk control in Latvia?

• Baltcom GSM, a limited liability company,
  incorporated in Latvia to construct and operate a
  mobile communications network using the GSM 900
  standard. The commercial service launch of the
  company took place on 18 March 1997
• During the selection and planning of buildings
  and construction activities, Baltcom has taken
  account of all relevant environmental and worker
  health and safety standards. Technical
  inspectors, with responsibility for occupational
  health and safety, will be responsible for
  enforcing health and safety requirements to
  ensure prevention of accidents, work safety and
  occupational health. Noise and exhaust emissions
  from emergency power generators will meet
  international standards.

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Examples
10
Roznov
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Promoters and inhibitors of occupational and
environmental health standards How to export
OHSE promoters with risks?

• Promoters
  
  Inhibitors
• Effective standards (EU,ILO and other)
  economic decline low wages,
• 
  conditions
• Effective information
  de-regulation
• Effective training
  non-enforcement
• Effective enforcement
  weak/passive workforce
• Committed managers
  workforce
• 
  ? foreign investment??
• Adequate investment/economy
  professionalized workforce?
• Strong workplace organization
  isolated workforce/community
• TUs
  no TUs/sweetheart TUs
• Active environmental NGOs
  inactive or uninterested NGOs
• Vigilant media
  captured media/
• 
  lack of
  information about hazards
• Modifiers
• Regional and national economic, political and
  social variations.
• Company variations
• Enforcement traditions and resources

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Underpinning controls on risk transfer in the
electronics industry

• the development of a charter for labor inspectors
  that offers meaningful protection and support for
  them in their work, adequate staff and resources,
  and promotes best practice and autonomy from
  industry and state influences national
  governments commitment to introducing enforcing
  good health and safety laws prescriptive where
  necessary and risk based where appropriate - that
  are properly enforced and linked to meaningful
  criminal and civil sanctions for those companies
  that break the OHSE laws.
• government and industry recognition of the rights
  of workers to organize generally and specifically
  on occupational health and safety matters linked
  to rights to receive information, negotiate with
  companies, inspect workplaces and stop work when
  hazardous conditions are identified
• an organized, well equipped in terms of
  information education, rights workforce which
  has clear trade union rights to address workplace
  health and safety. These will provide both
  another line in enforcing regulation perhaps
  through the Swedish worker rights not only to
  inspect workplaces but to stop work in
  potentially dangerous situations.
• an alert, active and independent media not cowed
  or corralled by government and industry
• community and environmental groups willing to
  work with trade unions and employees to press for
  effective enforcement of work environment as well
  as wider environmental laws.
• better educated and informed boards and managers
  who take the rhetoric of corporate governance and
  OHSM systems and apply them to raising standards
  and practices further in their own semiconductor
  plants

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Agricultural risk transfer?
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Polish agricultural workers in UK
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(No Transcript)
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Chinese cocklers on Morecambe Bay UK
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Controls

• Legislative safeguards at various levels

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Obstacles to regulation of risks that underpin
economic drivers

• Nature of organizations technical and political
  controls over civil servants and local government
  officers
• Lack of transparency and limited or no freedom
  of information rights
• Lack of resources to support staff workloads/
  needs, fund investigations and possible
  prosecutions
• Lack of staff enforcement, technical,
  scientific and legal staff - to pursue
  prosecutions
• Patronage overt and covert of those who do the
  bidding of those who control or employ them.
• Political and commercial interference difficult
  to assess but indicated by recent research
• Lack of accountability technocratic
  decision-making divorced from public
  accountability?
• Legal constraints in drafting of laws and legal
  constraints in operations of courts.

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Which bodies act and how?

• 1. Organisations
• ILO
• WTO- in the past IMF linked to World Bank
• EU genetic modification, antibiotics in food
• National legislation
• 2. Actions
• Health and safety laws and codes ( general laws
  and specific controls eg gangmaster laws in UK
• Inspections
• Enforcement through labour inspectors and courts
• Prior informed consent on materials and not
  processes, work organisation

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ILO policy affecting risk transfer

• ILO Convention 139 1974 on Cancer causing
  substances calls for the substitution of known
  cancer causing substances
• Article 1
• 1. Each Member which ratifies this Convention
  shall periodically determine the carcinogenic
  substances and agents to which occupational
  exposure shall be prohibited or made subject to
  authorisation or control, and those to which
  other provisions of this Convention shall
  apply.2. Exemptions from prohibition may only
  be granted by issue of a certificate specifying
  in each case the conditions to be met.
• Article 2
• 1. Each Member which ratifies this Convention
  shall make every effort to have carcinogenic
  substances and agents to which workers may be
  exposed in the course of their work replaced by
  non-carcinogenic substances or agents or by less
  harmful substances or agents in the choice of
  substitute substances or agents account shall be
  taken of their carcinogenic, toxic and other
  properties.

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ILO action on risk transfer

• The International Labour Office (ILO) is to
  pursue a global ban on asbestos, the worlds
  biggest ever industrial killer. The landmark
  decision came with the adoption of a resolution
  on 14 June 2006 at the ILO conference in Geneva
  and followed a high level union campaign (
  Source Hazards 2006)

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ILO C187 Convention concerning the promotional
framework for occupational safety and health,
2006

• Article 2
• 1. Each Member which ratifies this Convention
  shall promote continuous improvement of
  occupational safety and health to prevent
  occupational injuries, diseases and deaths, by
  the development, in consultation with the most
  representative organizations of employers and
  workers, of a national policy, national system
  and national programme.
• 2. Each Member shall take active steps towards
  achieving progressively a safe and healthy
  working environment through a national system and
  national programmes on occupational safety and
  health by taking into account the principles set
  out in instruments of the International Labour
  Organization (ILO) relevant to the promotional
  framework for occupational safety and health.
• 3. Each Member, in consultation with the most
  representative organizations of employers and
  workers, shall periodically consider what
  measures could be taken to ratify relevant
  occupational safety and health Conventions of the
  ILO.

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ILO C184 Safety and Health in Agriculture
Convention, 2001

• Article 4
• 1. In the light of national conditions and
  practice and after consulting the representative
  organizations of employers and workers concerned,
  Members shall formulate, carry out and
  periodically review a coherent national policy on
  safety and health in agriculture. This policy
  shall have the aim of preventing accidents and
  injury to health arising out of, linked with, or
  occurring in the course of work, by eliminating,
  minimizing or controlling hazards in the
  agricultural working environment.

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ILO Standardsfor migrant workers

• C97Migration for Employment Convention
  (Revised)1949
• R86Migration for Employment Recommendation
  (Revised)1949 
• C143Migrant Workers (Supplementary Provisions)
  Convention1975
• R151Migrant Workers Recommendation1975
• C118Equality of Treatment (Social Security)
  Convention1962
• C157Maintenance of Social Security Rights
  Convention1982
• R167Maintenance of Social Security Rights
  Recommendation1983

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EU controls
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EU directives that may impact on risk transfer

• General directives
• Specific directives such as REACH

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WTO

• The WTO, the Environment and Health and Safety
  Standards
•  
• Because the WTO is more powerful than its
  predecessors, critics claim that it poses a
  threat to national sovereignty. Concerns about
  the ability of nations to set their own
  environmental and health and safety agendas have
  figured prominently in these critiques. In
  addition, critics suggest that the WTO
  prioritises trade objectives at the expense of
  environmental and health and safety objectives.
• The paper explores the extent to which the
  WTO has been able to reconcile trade,
  environmental and health and safety objectives by
  analysing its rulings on these matters. Overall,
  this analysis suggests that the WTO dispute
  resolution process has balanced all three sets of
  objectives. However, it is important to note the
  small number of disputes to date only 21of the
  175 disputes before the WTO involve environmental
  and OHS matters. WTO has only made a decision in
  6 cases ( Kelly T The World Economy 2006)

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WTO

• 4 health and safety cases raised but only one was
  OHS others related to food. The WTO upheld
  France's asbestos ban, the other three rulings
  went against the country imposing health and
  safety restrictions. ( Kelly 2006)
• The WTO appellate body upheld the panels
  findings that France's ban could be justified
  under the agreements health safety exemptions.
  The panel rejected Canadas claim that
  controlled use of asbestos could meet Frances
  health safety objectives. While the panel
  recognized that controlled use reduces risks to
  certain individuals involved in the manufacturing
  or processing of asbestos, it ruled that
  controlled use did not offer protection
  sufficient to meet the level of risk acceptable
  to France. The appellate body concurred
  emphasizing WTO members right to set their own
  risk levels (WTO 2000c and 2001a). (Kelly 2006)

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World Bank and risk controls
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International Finance Corporation

• The International Finance Corporation (IFC the
  World Bank's
• private-sector lending arm) today posted
  additional sector-specific draft
• environmental, health and safety guidelines which
  it proposes to adopt
• for 63 different sectors. The sector guidelines
  posted in August have a
• closing date for consultation of 30 September.
  The sectors currently
• Cover 20 industries and more will follow
• Geothermal Power Generation, Electric Power
  Transmission and
• Distribution, Poultry Processing, Breweries, and
  Offshore Oil and Gas
• Development. 
• The IFC will accept comments on these guidelines.
  Emphasis is mainly
• on pollution

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ITGWFU view on what should be in IFC consultation

• a)      The relevant ILO Conventions and
  Instruments that address occupational and
  environmental protection or promotion,
• b)      The OECD Guidelines for Multinational
  Enterprises and other guidelines for the related
  oversight of governments, e.g. for chemicals, and
  
• c)      Global agreements and guidelines for the
  protection of the environment by UNEP, WHO and
  others.

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TU/ NGO controls and wider campaigning
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Campaigning? Who, what, how etc

• Through NGOs
• International trade secretariats/ Global Union
  Federations eg BWI etc
• EWHN and Hazards groups
• PAN Europe on pesticides
• ICRT on electronics
• TIE
• No Sweat campaign targets consumers on clothes
• War on Want on poverty
• CAFOD on food, electronics
• Collegium Ramazzini on asbestos
• WWF and FOE on pollution

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Trade Union actions

• International
• Regional ETUC ?ETUI-REHS ?Nanocap
• National
• Sectoral
• Workplace
• Other elements that TUs may engage with?
• Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR?)
• ISO 14001(environment) and OHSAS 18001
  (occupational health and occupational safety).

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International Framework Agreements BWI view 2004

• Risk management, became one of the strongest
  components for MNCs to sign Global
• Company Agreements with Union Federations
  which have a global network of member
  organisations around the world.
• The value added for MNCs is that TUs are able to
  discover severe workplace problems (which are not
  solved locally) at an early stage and take action
  before it becomes an issue for the media and the
  image of the company is damaged. Workers and
  their trade unions function as an alerting system
  for partner companies, which receive "in house"
  information on bad management practices,
  corruption and bribery in subsidiary companies or
  in the supply chain.
• Multinational companies signing Global Company
  Agreements with Global Union Federations (GUF)
  commit themselves to respect workersÕ rights
  based on the core conventions of the
  International Labour Organisation (ILO).
• The company should also agree to offer decent
  wages and working conditions as well as to
  provide a safe and healthy working environment
  and in many cases they contain a complaint and/or
  monitoring system and cover also suppliers and
  subcontractors.
• Some consider framework agreements to be
  negotiated codes of conduct with complaints
  systems however, this is not a useful way of
  looking at these agreements which are
  qualitatively different from codes of conduct.
• These framework agreements constitute a formal
  recognition of social partnership at the global
  level. These agreements provide a global
  framework for protecting trade union rights and
  encouraging social dialogue and collective
  bargaining.
• Therefore they complement and do not substitute
  for agreements at the national or local level.

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International Framework Agreements

• Global Union Agreements Agreements concluded
  between Transnational Companies and Global Union
  Federations
• Agreement includes explicit health and
  safety clauses.
• Company Country Sector
  GUF Year
• Euradius Global
  Print industry UNI 2006
• RoyalBAM Grp Global
  Construction BWI 2006
• Securitas Global
  Security services UNI 2006
• PSA
• Peugot/Citroën France Auto
  industry IMF 2006
• Arcelor Global
  Metal Industry IMF 2005
• Lafarge Global
  Construction BWI/ICEM 2005
• Stabilio Germany
  Retail BWI 2005
• Gebr. Röchling Germany Auto supply
  IMF 2005
• BMW Germany
  Automotive IMF 2005
• EADS Netherlands
  Aerospace IMF 2005
• Veidekke Norway
  Construction BWI 2005
• Rhodia France
  Chemical ICEM 2005
• Electricite de France

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International Trade union action

• On specific issues-
• BWI campaign on asbestos bans through ILO

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International controls on corporate harm?

• Corporate homicide laws (Australian and Italian
  models?)
• - that apply both to workplace fatal injuries
• and fatal diseases
• Corporate harm laws that would cover injury and
  non-fatal diseases
• Laws that would allow companies that transfer and
  fail to control risks to be prosecuted in their
  home countries
• Recovery of costs personal, medical, economic
  from those companies that damage workers in risk
  transfer enterprises. OHSE polluter pays
  principle