Occupational safety and health

Definition

Since 1950, the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have had a common definition of occupational health. This definition was adopted by the Joint ILO/WHO Committee on Occupational Health at its First Session (1950) and revised at its 12th Session (1995):

"Occupational health should aim at: the promotion and maintenance of the highest degree of physical, mental and social well-being of workers in all occupations; the prevention amongst workers of departures from health caused by their working conditions; the protection of workers in their employment from risks resulting from factors adverse to health; the placing and maintenance of the worker in an occupational environment adapted to his physiological and psychological capabilities; and, to summarize, the adaptation of work to man and of each man to his job."

Establishing occupational safety and health (OSH)

The primary, and in the view of many, the most prominent reason for establishing occupational safety and health (OSH) standards is moral - an employee should not have to expect that by coming to work life or limb is at risk, nor should others be adversely affected by their undertaking.

A further factor that favours OSH is economic - many governments realize that poor occupational safety and health performance results in cost to the State (e.g. through social security payments to the incapacitated, costs for medical treatment, and the loss of the "employability" of the worker). Employing organisations also sustain costs in the event of an incident at work (such as legal fees, fines, compensatory damages, investigation time, lost production, lost goodwill from the workforce, from customers and from the wider community).

OSH standards are, generally speaking, further reinforced in both civil law and criminal law; it is accepted that without the extra "encouragement" of potential regulatory action or litigation, many organisations would not act upon their implied moral obligations.

Different states take different approaches to legislation, regulation, and enforcement.

In the European Union, Member States have enforcing authorities to ensure that the basic legal requirements relating to occupational safety and health are met. In many EU countries, there is strong cooperation between employer and worker organisations (e.g. Unions) to ensure good OSH performance as it is recognized this has benefits for both the worker ( throughmaintenance of health) and the enterprise (through improved productivity and quality). In 1996 the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (OSHA) was founded.

In the UK, health and safety legislation is drawn up and enforced by the Health and Safety Executive under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. Increasingly in the UK the regulatory trend is away from prescriptive rules, and towards risk assessment. Recent major changes to the laws governing asbestos and fire safety management embrace the concept of risk assessment.

In the USA, OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, has been regulating occupational safety and health since the 1971. OSH regulation of a limited number of specifically defined industries was in place for several decades before that, and broad regulations by some of the individual states was in place for many years prior to the establishment of OSHA.

In Canada, workers are covered by provincial or federal labour codes depending on the sector in which they work. Workers covered by federal legislation (including those in mining, transportation, and federal employment) are covered by the Canada Labour Code; all other workers are covered by the health and safety legislation of the province they work in. The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS), an agency of the Government of Canada, was created in 1978 by an Act of Parliament. The act was based on the belief that all Canadians had "...a fundamental right to a healthy and safe working environment." . CCOHS is mandated to promote safe and healthy workplaces to help prevent work-related injuries and illnesses.

Occupational safety and health may involve interaction among several technical disciplines, including occupational medicine, occupational (or industrial) hygiene, safety engineering, health physics, ergonomics, toxicology, and psychology.

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