Stirling Smith,
Consultant in Workers Education,
Labour and Society International
November 1999

This paper is work in progress; suggestion and comment are welcome.

Introduction: work, the unknown killer

If a new illness was discovered in India killing someone every five minutes - and that too, people in their prime, people active economically - there would be an immediate reaction.

There would be conferences and research grants; donors would field missions and discuss strategies. If there was a civil society network working against this disease, it would almost certainly be given support.

There is such a public health problem in India, but it is neglected by aid agencies. It is health and safety at work. Accidents and ill health can be prevented in the same way as cholera or typhoid. The measures are well known and in many cases inexpensive.

A worker is killed at work in India every 5 minutes. This figure will not be found in any official publication. Indian Labour Statistics 1994 lists the following fatalities for 1993:

Total fatalities in Factories 874

Total fatalities in Mines 214

Total fatalities in Railways 510

Total fatalities in Ports 26

TOTAL 1624

This paper will:

1. provide an estimate of the real numbers killed in accidents at work

1. briefly review the even greater problem of occupational disease

1. attempt to quantify the cost to India’s economy

1. survey the agencies involved in dealing with the problem

1. discuss the misconception by the aid community which has lead to the neglect of safety and health as a development issue.

Methodology

The Ministry of Labour only provides statistics for four industries. There are in fact only four central acts which refer to safety of employees - factories, mines, ports and construction. The construction workers’ legislation is not operational and there are no figures available. There is no statutory reporting requirement for railways, although the Railways Board collects statistics.

These figures are, we shall demonstrate, incomplete even for the industries which are covered. But there is a much greater loss of life in those sectors where there is no legislation, and therefore no requirement to report workplace accidents

One previous independent estimate was 100,000 fatal accidents in India annually (see Economic and Political Weekly Bombay 24/11/1990).

This paper estimates statistics for several industries. In the absence of proper statistics, we can only look at the accident rates in the UK and the European Union and extrapolate these to the Indian situation. The methodology used is quite simple.

1. incidence rates for an industry are taken from UK or EU figures. Incidence rates are calculated as the number of fatal or serious accidents per 100,000 workers.

1. the incidence rate is then applied to the known or estimated numbers of persons working in an industry in India.

1. a multiplier is then applied.

The basis for the multiplier is the World Bank. It has pointed out that work is more dangerous in developing countries:

a factory worker in Pakistan is 8 times more likely to be killed at work than a factory worker in France

fatalities amongst transport workers are 10 times in Kenya what they are in Denmark

construction workers in Guatemala are six times more likely to die at work than their counterparts in Switzerland.

In this paper, I have erred on the side of caution, and applied a multiplier of only four. Using incidence rates in this way underestimates the problem, as it takes no account of hours worked.

We will now look at a number of industries in turn.

Railways

There is no specific legislation covering occupational safety and health (OSH) on Indian Railways. When the old colonial legislation on the railways was revised in 1989, the opportunity was not taken to rectify this anomaly. The Railways Act, 1989 makes no mention of the subject of occupational safety and health (OSH). The Commissioners of Railway Safety have no duties or powers concerning workers safety and health.

In Britain, if we take the late 1980s - before the system was restructured and privatised - we find that up to 14 railway workers per 1,00,000 were killed. The inspectorate also identified nearly 300 major injury casualties per year. There was a particular problem with contractors staff. Given that the Indian Railways employs far more staff, and is a much bigger system, we can estimate that at least 250 railway workers, including contractors' workers, are killed every year in India, before a multiplier is applied.

If we allow for an accident rate in India of only four times more than in UK, the World Bank multiplier, we would get a figure of 1,000 railway workers per annum killed at work.

The Railway Board itself estimates workplace deaths as follows:

1992 234

1993 510

1994 419

Given the general efficiency of the railways, these figures might be acceptable. There is, however, a wide variation which raises doubts as to their accuracy.

The position on other parts of the transport industry may be worse. In the UK, RoSPA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents) has reckoned that up to one third of road traffic fatalities should be categorised as occasional: they happen to people in the course of their work.

True figures for the number of people killed on India’s roads are not available, 70,000 deaths per year is thought to be at the lower end of the likely scale. Even if we say only 10% of those are occupational in nature, that would account for seven thousand work related deaths that do not appear in the Ministry of Labour’s statistics.

Construction

There are agreed to be about two crores of construction workers in the country. In the UK, the average incidence rate (that is number of construction workers killed per 100,000) is 7.92. Translate to India, and this would give us a figure of 1584. To apply the multiplier would produce a figure of 6336.

There is now a central law regulating construction labour, which includes provision for safety and health. The task of enforcement lies with the states. They are supposed to make rules and collect reports of accidents. So far, little action has been taken. No statistics are available under the act as yet.

Agricultural Workers

There is no legislation dealing with health and safety in agriculture in India. No statistics are collected.

In the European Union, the fatality rate in agricultural work is 14 deaths per lakh workers annually. Translate that to India, we get a figure of 26,740 (according to the 1991 census, 191 million workers are engaged in cultivation). Assuming an accident rate in India of four times the European average, the World Bank multiplier, we get a figure of 1,06,960 people engaged in agriculture killed every year.

It might be argued that agriculture in India is ‘low tech’ and that accidents in the EU are mainly caused by machinery. This hypothesis would be worth examining - any research into safety in India would be welcome - but there is widespread use of tractors, threshing machines etc in India. The greatest hazard in agricultural work, however, is pesticides.

Factories

The Factories Act only applies to premises using power with more than ten employees or with more than 20 workers without power. A very large number of workshops, therefore, are not covered by the act which is enforced by states.

Many premises which should register under the factories do not. Premises are used for activities which are unsuitable. On May 31^st 1999, for example, there was an explosion at a godown (warehouse) in old Delhi, in which at least 48 persons were killed. The godown had no license to store chemicals. Many of those killed were not working in the godown, but were just nearby.

Even in registered premises conditions can best be described as appalling. The Indian Express reported that only 1 in 4 of the workers in slate pencil factories in Sultanpura, Madhya Pradesh, survived working there. Working in sheds, the workers slice slate for the pencils. This creates silica dust, causing silicosis.

There are a number of factors we can apply to estimating the number of urban workers in workshops etc, not covered by the Factories Act, who are killed at work.

1. the comparative size of the small scale sector

1. the fact that small scale workplaces have a higher accident rate than large workplaces

1. the problem of under reporting

Taking all these factors into account, a realistic estimate of the numbers killed in factories and workshops, including both premises covered and excluded from the purview of the Factories Act, would be 10-5,000 per year.

It may be mentioned that some states had declared a moratorium on inspection of factories, in the name of ending 'inspector raj' and promoting a business friendly environment.

Safety in mining

There is a sophisticated and well established structure of safety for mining in India. The first legislation dates from 1901 (mining in British India started in 1774) and generally reflects the older UK mining laws. National tripartite conferences on safety in mines are held, and each mining company is supposed to comply with its recommendations as well as the law. The Mines Inspectorate which in India is called DGMS (Directorate General for Mines Safety) issues many circulars.

The law provides for Workmens Inspectors and for mine Safety Committees. See appendix.

Despite all this, India's safety record has been marred by some serious accidents in recent years and annual fatalities remain at nearly 190 in Coal India Ltd. Other fatalities in other coal mining as well as non coal mines should be added. A common complaint in India is the 'implementation gap' - good policies or legislation, not actually carried out on the ground. This seems to happen with mines safety.

While most attention is concentrated on the disasters like New Kenda (1994) and Gaslitand (1995), where poor safety management led to fifty-four and sixty five deaths respectively, there is a steady toll of smaller accidents. Roof falls in underground mines, and being run over by machinery in open cast mines are amongst the major hazards.

While the Mines Act and various rules framed under the act are reasonable, there is an increasing problem with widespread use of contract labour in mines. Untrained and improperly supervised, they are vulnerable themselves and endanger the permanent mineworkers as well. A study by the Directorate General of Mines Safety (DGMS, the equivalent of the Mines Inspectorate in the UK) in Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd (MCL) in Orissa found that all the fatal accidents in open cast mines were to the contractors workers, although they are only 50% of the workforce. The National Union of Mineworkers in the UK found that accident rate of contractors workers was double that of permanent workers.

There is evidence that fatal accidents to contractors workers are not recorded, so do not show up in the statistics. It is alleged by unions that the bodies of contractors workers killed in open cast mines are sometimes dumped by the side of public roads to pass off the death as a road accident.

The official number of workers mines registered with DGMS is approximately 750,000. But workers in informal and small scale mining in Rajasthan alone has been calculated at 1.8-2 million. Assuming a fatality rate of only double that of the "formal sector" we would arrive at an estimate of six hundred.

In September 1998, the press reported that Coal India had spent US$1.2 million on 30,000 self rescuers. These were substandard, but CIL had not checked them. In this instance, a union safety expert had raised concerns about the supplier, but these were ignored by CIL management. CIL had not even withdrew the faulty self rescuers when asked to by DGMS.

DGMS is under-resourced; it has only sanctioned 167 inspecting officers (in 1993, only 143 of those posts were filled). It has also to be mentioned that the then head of DGMS was suspended in 1996 amid allegations of taking bribes to permit a contractor to operate an unsafe mine. The case has yet to come to trial.

Shipbreaking

This industry is concentrated in Gujarat where old ships are brought for breaking up. This used to be fairly ‘high tech’ industry in developed countries. It has now shifted to South Asia and China, where labour costs are so low and ships are broken up by hand. There are estimated to be 40,000 workers at Alang, the best known ship breaking spot in Gujarat. It is the best known example of an unregulated unsafe industry in India.

No statistics are kept of deaths at Alang. The only study of health and environment there mentions a single accident in 1996/7 in which 50 people died. Guesses range from a minimum of forty workers killed annually to much higher figures.

This may well be the most hazardous occupation in the country. Toxic substances, like asbestos and polyvinyl chlorides are released in to the water, air and land around Alang. A German expert has calculated the risk of contracting cancer to workers there to be in the order of 25%. The Indian average is 7-11% in the major metros.

Occupational Disease

Introduction

If official statistics for occupational accidents are questionable, then those for occupational disease are even more so. Occupational diseases are defined as diseases caused by a person’s work. Occupational diseases cannot be cured.

There is immense difficulty even in developed countries, in diagnosing the causes of a disease. Very few illnesses have an exclusively occupational cause. Lung cancer can be caused by smoking, but it can also be caused by dust or a toxic chemical. The TUC estimates that one in five, ie 400,000, of adults who suffer from asthma, have the condition as a result of their work.

A very substantial percentage of current health problems in India are occupational in origin, but this is not recognised.

The only figures available are those dealing with compensation paid for prescribed industrial diseases. The procedures for establishing these diseases are not well known, and take a long time. Although bysinnosis (caused by an allergic reaction in the lungs to cotton dust) has been a prescribed disease for decades, it is only in the last few years, as a result of sustained pressure from union activists, that a small number of workers in Mumbai have finally started to receive the state benefits.

Once again, we are forced to fall back upon UK figures. In 1995/6, 7500 new cases of occupational disease were diagnosed. This will be, it is accepted by the HSE, a underestimate.

What I propose is to take the ratio between deaths at work and new cases of prescribed industrial diseases in the UK and apply this to India In 1995/6 There were 338 reported deaths caused by accidents in the UK and 7500 deaths attributed to occupational disease. That gives a ration of 338 workplace deaths: 7500 occupational diseases, expressed as 338:7500 or 1:22.

If we apply this ratio to India, we would get 100,000: 2,200,000, using the more conservative estimate of workplace deaths. That would be a new case of occupational disease about every 15 seconds.

The idea of two million new cases of occupational disease per annum in India may seem far fetched. There is no alternative estimate.

As for the number of deaths caused by occupational disease, that is almost impossible to estimate. In the UK, there are no statistics, but 20,000 is a figure many find reasonable. There is a desperate need to carry out research into the problem in India.

We will now look at the situation in more detail in some industries.

Factories

There are few studies of occupational health in factories. One interesting survey was conducted in West Bengal by the state Industrial Hygiene cell, under the Department of Labour. A total of 71 samples were taken from factories to see if the proper levels for chemicals, noise, heat, dust, lighting and solvents (for fire/explosion risk) were being followed or not.

Out of 71 samples, the survey found only six cases where samples were within the permissible limits. In heat, lighting and noise, not a single sample were as per the statutory limits.

The standards laid down in the Factories Act are very low, well below those recommended by the WHO.

This survey draws attention to the health time bomb ticking away in nearly every factory in India - workers are being poisoned, deafened, being subjected to high levels of toxic exposure and their eyesight damaged. Employers are externalising the costs of health. Ultimately the public health system or, more likely the workers and their families, will pay the price.

In Vadovara, Gujarat, workers went on strike against poor health and safety in June 1999. Forty three workers at a chemical plant were found to have nasal septum perforation - a classic and early sign of chromium poisoning. It was reported that all workers had not yet had a full medical examination, so there could be more cases. The only thing unusual about this case was that it came to light and received publicity.

Mining diseases

There is justifiable global concern at the revival of TB and the spread of the drug resistant strain of the disease. This is a matter of concern in India as well. There is a well established link between occupational lung diseases, caused by dust, and TB (Charles Thackrah, the founder of industrial medicine in England, remarked on this link in the 1830s). A mine worker with pneumoconiosis is much more vulnerable to TB.

In India, dust related lung diseases are routinely diagnosed as TB and the link with dust at work not made. India has up to 40% of miners with coal miners pneumoconiosis (CMP), according to one study, but a very low number of official cases - an average of 72 cases of pneumoconiosis per year 1980-1994.

This figure is simply not credible. In the UK, in the 1980s, the annual figure for new cases of CMP was more than 300 cases. As indicated, the sample surveys in India over the years have produced high estimates of the number of miners with CMP.

Dust controls in India have not been and are not now, as rigorous as they could be, according to the many miners I have met in the last ten years on workshops all over the country.

Coal mining is comparatively well regulated. Other minerals are mined with much less regard for workers health. Silicosis in stone quarrying is a well known hazard and must be widespread in India. There is hardly any data on informal mining in India. The government estimated, in reply to an ILO survey, between 15-50 fatalities per year. This seems on the low side.

Pesticides

India has a very high level of pesticide use and the residues found in many common foods and in water are much higher than WHO recommendations. While there has been, quite rightly, considerable concern about the implications for public health cased by pesticides in water and food, these pesticides are being applied by rural workers. Employers have argued that the Insecticides Act, 1968, and Insecticides Rules, 1971, do not apply to workers applying these products. Neither the government nor the courts have clarified this yet. But the general impression is that safety precautions are not followed, and workers are exposed to very high doses of pesticides which are now banned in the developed countries. 54% by weight of the pesticides used in agriculture in India in 1994/5 consisted of substances banned or highly restricted in the west. The Voluntary Health Association of India has estimated that 20,000 people die per year through pesticide poisoning.

Asbestos

There are no controls over asbestos use in India. Professor Julian Peto, the UK epidemiologist, has estimated that 500,000 people will die of cancers caused by asbestos in Western Europe in the next 35 years. Asbestos campaigners point out that Professor Peto’s projections have been consistently lower than the actual outcomes and the true figure may be 750,000 - one million.

Given the complete lack of controls in India, and the very widespread use of asbestos, there could well be a comparable number of deaths, mostly in urban areas. Very few, if any if these will be ascribed on asbestos.

Workers health and the Environment

The extent of occupational disease is massive and un-recognised. India is experiencing both the old fashioned diseases found in industrial hygiene textbooks in the UK in the 1930s as well as new hazards such as pesticides.

Because occupational health is of such low status in India, and there has been an understandable focus on common commendable diseases, and HIV/AIDS, the scale of the problem has gone unrecognised.

The environment has, in sharp contrast, received enormous attention. There is a close relationship between the environmental agenda and safety and health which has gone virtually unrecognised.

In India, industry dealt with pollution by externalising it - dumping it into the soil, water and air. As Public Interest Litigation makes that option more difficult, it has turned to "end pipe" solutions, ie post production clean up, such as effluent treatment plants. It is widely recognised that this is, in the long run, more expensive and less effective. Environmental best practice is to promote clean production, ie use alternative processes or products, less toxic inputs and less polluting processes.

Almost precisely the same situation prevails in occupational safety and health. When, very rarely, an employer accepts that there is a hazard, workers are issued with personal protective equipment (PPE as safety specialists call it). We shall ignore the fact that it is usually completely ineffective in protecting the worker from the hazard. PPE works on exactly the same principle as end pipe pollution solutions.

Best health and safety practice is to follow a "hierarchy of control" :

(a) eliminate the risk

(b) control the risk at source

(c) minimise the risk by means including design of safe working systems

Best practice in environmental control and health and safety is the same - reduce the toxic inputs and pollution creating processes.

Agencies interested in reducing environmental pollution in India seem unaware of this conjuncture of best practice. The potential synergistic benefits of tackling pollution and safety and health at the same time are being lost.

We now turn to see which agencies might do something about the problem.

 

Who are the stakeholders?

The workers fault?

Before undertaking a brief survey of stakeholders, it may be necessary to review the common argument used that accidents are caused by workers being ‘careless’ or ‘ignorant’. This has certainly been put forward by employers in India to me when I have raised safety concerns following workplace visits.

In the UK, the HSE reckon that 90% of accidents are preventable; and 70% are caused by a failure of management.

If we take one of the most common hazards in factories, namely fires, we shall see who really is to blame. The Loss Prevention of India, which is sponsored by the general insurance companies, analysed 100 fires in textile factories. It found that just over 40% were caused by smoking materials - presumably these fires could be blamed on the workers, but the rest were not the responsibility of workers in any way.

But if we then look at the reasons why fires spread, which is a more important indicator, they found that 89% of causes were under the control of management. The remaining 11% of blame was attached to the slow response of the fire services.

One of the problems they found was the non availability of fire fighting equipment in the factories - 72% of the reason why fires spread. This is a basic, low cost precaution and a matter entirely in the hands of management.

This study indicates that in one of the most basic hazards, it is management neglect which is the most likely cause of most accidents at work. Most accidents that I have studied have also been caused by factors under management control.

Take the case of mines. Professor B K Kejriwal, of the Indian School of Mines, has analysed all the major accidents and disasters in Indian mines from 1901-1994. His study includes many extracts from the courts of enquiry set up after mining disasters.

He criticises much accident analysis as superficial and not examining the ‘root causes’. In conclusion he writes

In most cases it would be found that the root causes relate to weaknesses in the management system. They may be due to the lack of a sound safety policy, lack of inspection procedures, poor definition of responsibilities, lack of supervisory or employee training, etc

It is also instructive to quote from the findings of the court of enquiry into the Kessurgarh Colliery disaster 1975 in which eleven miners were killed:

..The management had shown no signs of being anxious to promote safety on its own but was keen to keep up appearance merely of being law abiding...The attitude of management was primarily one of defence against the criticism of possible violations of the safety regulations. Underlying this attitude are the assumptions that all the wisdom in regard to safety matters is contained in the regulations and therefore nothing further needs to be done and the duty of pointing out violations of these regulations lie entirely with the DGMS...It must be clearly understood that the primary responsibility for safety is that of the mine management. In the event of an accident, the plea that there has been no serious violation of the directives of the inspectorate or that a particular practice has been adopted with the approval of DGMS should not be regarded as sufficient defence. It should be for the management to prove that all possible precautions, whether or not they were required by the DGMS, were taken and that the practices followed were justifiable on their own merit.

Unfortunately, the Mines Act contains no general duty on employers to "provide a workplace that is safe and without risks to heath". This general duty, taken from the UK Health and safety at Work Act, 1974, has been inserted into the Factories Act by the amendments of 1987, but nobody, including the Ministry of Labour, employers, unions, or inspectorates, seems to be aware of its significance. Legislation in India is still seen as prescriptive, rather than goal setting.

Inundations have caused some of the most serious disasters in Indian mines, including Chasnulla, where 375 miners drowned. Professor Kejriwal concludes a review of inundation disasters with this remark:

Almost all cases of inundations have occurred due to gross negligence and utter disregard for the safety regulations on the part of management

The careless worker theory is popular and persistent, but rarely stands up to examination.

 

Who is concerned about safety in India?

One indicator of the low concern for safety and health in India is the attention given to it in the proceedings of the Indian Labour Conference. This tripartite body has been meeting - at irregular intervals - since the 1940s. In its thirty four sessions, there has been one very short discussion about safety and health at work, in the context of social security, which resulted in a suggestion that the Factories Act be amended.

In this paper I am not attempting a proper stakeholder analysis. There are four groups which might be concerned with safety and health

1. employers

1. government

1. trade unions

1. the medical profession

Employers

The owners and managers of an enterprise make most of the decisions and should be aware of the hazards arising out of the processes which take place. In the words of the first UK Medical Inspector for Factories and Workshops:

Unless and until the employer has done everything - and everything means a great deal - the workman can do next to nothing to protect himself, although he is naturally willing to do his share.

Unfortunately, most employers attitude to safety is to do the minimum they can get away with. The position is similar in some respects to the environmental field. Employers have been able to externalise safety and health costs as they have done with environmental costs - although that is starting to become more difficult in some cases. The result has been less efficiency. An unsafe workplace usually has low productivity.

A small number of employers do recognise that the legal and moral imperatives for safety at work have financial benefits. They are very much in a minority. The ILO programme on Higher productivity and a better place to work which tries to link safety and productivity, has had some success.

 

Governments

Both the central and state governments have a role to play. The union government should lay down a framework of legislation and stage governments make more detailed rules. Enforcement of the Factories Act, construction laws and safety in minor ports are all the responsibility of state governments. Central government is wholly responsible for safety in mining.

The central government also has an obligation (under the ILO constitution) to lay before Parliament texts of instruments agreed at International Labour Conferences. It has failed to do this since 1990. Labour is a low prestige area for ministers and civil servants. There is also an idea prevalent that in an era of liberalisation, further regulation in the labour field is undesirable.

There were offers of assistance to India after the Bhopal accident of December 1984. There was a major new piece of legislation: the Environment Protection Act, 1986, which is not directly concerned with workplace safety.

There were also a number of ILO projects dealing with safety and health at work. One of these produced a draft of a new comprehensive central act for safety. Unfortunately the Rajiv Gandhi government did not act on this. The Factories Act was amended in 1987 by adding some sections from the UK Health and Safety at Work Act (1974) particularly the general duties (section 2 of the UK Act, section 7A of the Indian Act).

These provisions have been very useful in UK, but in the absence of a role for unions, and a strong inspectorate, they have produced no benefits in India. Indeed according to the Ministry of Environment and Forests, since Bhopal, there have been more than 100 industrial leaks, causing more than 7,000 deaths.

The Mines Act and Factories Act follow outdated British Acts. None of the major ILO Conventions dealing with OSH have been ratified. Cases take years to come to court and fines are low.

There has been much criticism of state factory inspectorates. They is alleged to be widespread bribery.

In the strike for safety in Vadovara, mentioned above, the state Labour ministry declared that the strike was illegal.

Trade Unions

Safety and health at work is an area where unions have a comparative advantage. According to studies, workers in a workplace without a recognised trade union have double the chance of an accident. (British Journal of Industrial Relations June 1995). The World Bank has recognised this - they see safety and health as a major area for union work.

This is before a union takes any steps to improve safety. The simple fact of union membership means workers are more confident to refuse dangerous work. When unions actually start to get involved in safety, then much greater improvements are possible. Unions are the main defence workers have against injury, death or disease.

Indian unions have neglected safety and health in the past. When a Charter of Demand has been drawn up, safety and health has usually been excluded. One reason for this is that leaders usually come from outside the industry.

The campaigns of outside leaders are generally inspired by a single point agenda. They demand money...Few outsiders have a feel for the kind of work their members do and the problems they face at the workplace. This is not merely because the leaders have never been workers. With so many unions under their belt, and their own contact with unions limited to crisis situations, it is just impossible for the leaders to perceive any but the most obvious problems.

The leaders are engaged in a competitive bid for power and fame. It is money which is easily quantified and gets the highest visibility...The pursuit of non monetary demands is more cumbersome, invites greater management opposition and is less visible in the wider environment.

This is starting to change. The All India Trades Union Congress (AITUC) has issued good guidelines to all their affiliates on how to include safety in their Charter of Demands. The Indian National Mineworkers Federation now has a comprehensive policy and has designed - though not yet fully implemented - a safety structure stretching from the mine level up to the national level.

Unions are the major force in civil society aiming to bring about improvements in safety and health at work. They are a huge network of approximately 20 million members.

Medical Profession

Occupational safety and health receives very little time in most doctors’ training in the UK. In India, they may receive one or two lectures. It is a low prestige specialism. There is one small journal which has an irregular circulation. There are government Institutes in Lucknow and Ahmedabad which produce some research.

Safety and health - a development issue?

According to the World Health Organisation, 3% of the global burden of disease is caused by preventable injuries and exposure to toxic substances, noise and hazardous work patterns

The cost of deaths, injuries and disease caused by work is perhaps 4% of GNP in developed countries, according to the ILO. According to the European Agency for Safety and Health, the loss to GNP is in the range of 2.6% to 3.8%.

It seems reasonable then, to estimate the cost of death, injuries and disease at work in India at US $ 12 billion annually. It must be again stressed that most of this is avoidable through following basic precautions.

Occupational accidents and ill health must be a major cause of poverty. A very small number of workers in the organised sector receive compensation for accidents. If a worker is killed, the family may receive some compensation and where the union demands it, a family member may get a job.

The vast majority of workers or their families will receive no compensation. It is no accident that in industrialised countries, the first social security benefit introduced, before pensions or child benefits, was Workmens Compensation.

There is a business case and a development case to reduce such a huge, preventable burden on poor people and the country. Occupational safety and health (OSH) should be an issue in development.

However, the donor community accords it a very low priority.

Occupational safety and health is arguably at least as serious a public health issue as AIDS, but attracts little donor support. As aid agencies do not employ trade union, labour or safety specialists, they do not have staff who can advise in this area. There is perhaps a vague assumption amongst aid workers that OSH is a problem of mines and big factories, and of course most poor people in developing countries do not work in such places. They work on the land, or in small workshops.

Unfortunately, this view is wrong. Agricultural work is more than twice as dangerous as factory work, according to the ILO. This estimate may be too low. The EU average fatality rate in agriculture is 14 per100,000, only slightly less than construction, For manufacturing it is 4.6 per 100,000.

And accident rates are higher in small scale workshops than in large factories - the UK fatal injury rate is 1.7 per 100,000 in small manufacturing workplaces compared to 0.8 per 100,000 in larger workplaces. The amputation rates are of a similar order. This finding seems consistent across developed countries.

There is a deeper, ideological reason why the aid community ignore safety and health. It is a workplace issue, and aid organisations generally avoid the whole area of work relations and the labour process. Most agencies are now committed, at least on paper, to the idea of empowering poor people and a rights based approach. Empowerment and the realisation of the rights at work of poor people is only possible through trade unions. This is extremely uncomfortable territory for aid organisations.

One organisation does recognise the importance of safety and health - the ILO. However, it is not a donor, but is essentially an implementing agency. It has not had a major project dealing with OSH in India since 1994, and has only been able to fund a few workshops.

Safety and health - a Human Right

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights says:

Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work....(Article 23)

The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (India ratified this in 1979) expands this a little:

The States parties to the present Covenant recognise the right of everyone to the enjoyment of just and favourable conditions of work which ensure in particular:....

....(b) Safe and healthy working conditions (Article 7)

Heath and safety is also mentioned in the Indian constitution as a Directive principle of State Policy:

42. Provision of just and humane conditions of work and maternity relief.- The State shall make provisions foe securing just and humane conditions of work and for maternity relief.

Safety and health at work is therefore clearly a human right. A rights based approach to development must take account of this.

Recommendations

Nothing much will happen to improve safety and health unless workers can act, at the level of the enterprise and at the level of changing national and state policy. After all, one of the most fashionable concepts in development is empowerment. People spend at least one third of their waking lives at work and the only practical way to get empowerment overt this important part of their life is by acting together in concert - joining a trade union. The existing trade union has many imperfections, but it is the only one available. So the most important recommendations are for them.

Unions should:

1. Include safety as a bargaining issue in the Charter of Demands. This does not mean demanding compensation for dust, noise or heat. It means demanding that physical hazards are removed or reduced through risk assessment. Safety is as important as wages, DA or bonus.

1. Educate themselves and their members about safety. While there is not much literature available, some is available and unions should follow the example of those few organisations which have made an effort to develop materials.

1. Establish safety structures within the union; find active members who will take the time and trouble to go around the workplace, talking to workers about health problems and hazards. There are never going o be enough government inspectors, which is why unions in many countries now have ‘safety representatives’. For example, in the UK, the Safety Representatives and Safety Committee Regulations, 1977, came into effect on 1.10.78. Unions are able to appoint and train members who volunteer to inspect the workplace, and make representations to management. The HSE has paid tribute to the importance of ‘safety reps’, which are supported by union safety departments. "We (the HSE) would far rather see safety representatives. They add value" - Jenny Bacon, Director General, HSE, January 1998

1. Unions must lobby, very hard, for comprehensive safety legislation and for its enforcement.

1. Until then, unions must use the legal system in the same way as the environmental movement has. State Pollution Control Boards were useless institutions, until the courts began getting involved. It should be worth following a similar approach with state level Factory Inspectorates.

Governments should:

A new legal framework is required. As a minimum;

1. The production, import or use of asbestos in any form must be banned.

1. The ‘dirty dozen’ pesticides - the most harmful and persistent must be banned. It is no good permitting any exclusions, because the scope of these will in practice mean the ban does not work. For example DDT is only supposed to be used for malaria control. But it ‘leaks’ and is used elsewhere. This ban requires no new legislation. Action could be taken under the Insecticides Act.

1. A number of ILO conventions could be swiftly ratified. These provide ready made standards which could apply in specific industries: 176 (mining); 152 (docks safety); 174 (major Industrial Accidents - like Bhopal); 170 (Chemicals); 167 (Construction). Convention 155, the framework convention, could come later.

Article 253 of the Constitution gives the parliament the power to make ‘any law for the whole or any part of the territory of India for implementing any treaty, agreement or convention... or any decision made at any international conference, association or any other body’ So there should be no trouble in legislating to apply the standards laid down in these conventions.

It is extraordinary that India, a member of the ILO since 1919, and a permanent member of the Governing Body, ratified more conventions under British rule (22 ratifications in a 18 year period) than it has since independence (16 ratifications in a 52 year period).

Conclusion

The paper has many gaps - it has not covered many industries, and not touched on the role of the states. It has attempted to show that there is a huge problem, largely unrecognised by any of the agencies which should be involved. More research is needed. Any suggestions or responses would be welcome.

Authorship

This paper was written by Stirling Smith. He was project coordinator for the Commonwealth Trade Union Council, Bombay 1986-88; Chief Technical Advisor on occupational safety health and environment for workers organisations, ILO, New Delhi, 1992-94; and is now Consultant in Workers Education, Labour and Society International, London. He is also Honorary Research Fellow, Centre for International Labour Studies, University of Manchester. He has worked with workers in India in the mining, plantations, railways, port and docks and textile industries.

Stirling Smith,

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