Challenges For SMIs In Occupational Safety And Health
By Dr Johari Basri ( Executive Director )
National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, Malaysia
Effect of Globalisation
Globalisation is usually associated with the increase in the total world economic activity as a consequence of the liberalization of trade and the elimination of the barriers to the transfer of capital, goods and services across national borders.
It is seen as growing economic transactions, an increase in foreign direct investment and an increase in world trade.
The global operations result in several types of fragmentation at the national level. The national level enterprises seek survival by increasing their flexibility.
The most important strategy is fragmenting the company into smaller, independent, and decentralized units than often work in networks, outsourcing activities to smaller units or smaller enterprises and developing flexible work organization.
Additional methods used to attain flexibility are, to example, recruiting personnel on a fixed-term or temporary basis, arranging flexible work hours, and using the services of “tele-workers”.
As a consequence of these adaptations at the national level, the numbers of small enterprises, micro-enterprise as well as the self-employed have dramatically increased.
Regulatory Constraints
In most countries, all workers including the self-employed, in every size of industry are covered by some form of national labour standards. These standards in many cases are written with the large enterprise situations in mind.
However, the small medium industries (SMIs) is not a scaled-down version of large industries. Most of the SMIs lack the capacity to meet these labour standards including those for occupational safety and health as expected from the larger enterprises.
So there is a need to examine the current legislation to find out whether legislation to find out whether it is applicable for the SMIs.
The conditions of SMIs can create exceptional circumstances as they lack the capacity to meet occupational safety and health (OSH) standards expected from large enterprises.
It probably requires a regulatory framework adapted to the specific character of SMIs that reconciles the fragility of many SMIs with the need to secure reasonable OSH protection to the workers.
What is needed is a mechanism to adjust the national and international labour laws to meet the characteristics of the SMIs.
Many countries have established high-level advisory committees to evaluate existing policies and regulations and if necessary, recommend improvements. The UK, for example, has placed a great deal of attention to reduce administrative burdens and have simplified the administrative procedures for the SMI.
Result from a European survey conducted recently on safety, health and environment in small process plant found that the compliance with regulations is by far the most important reason the companies embark on such activities.
But the survey also pointed out the need for harmonization of rules and simple legislation.
The Impact of Information Technology
The explosive growth in the use of information technology (IT) has changed the landscape of working environment.
It has penetrated the working life in all sectors of the economy starting from homes, schools, the public sectors, services sectors as well as the industries.
New IT occupations are the most rapidly growing group of employees in general. New technologies change the job contents, the organisations of work and demand for competent workers. It creates new demands on workers and work organisations. These new technologies have changed working methods and practices of jobs.
In most cases, job contents are becoming increasingly mental and social in nature instead of relying on physical effort.
The human and IT interface creates new problems such as visual ergonomics, cognitive processes of man-machine interaction as well as workstation ergonomics.
Besides the interface problems, work organisations, competency, information overload and time pressure may also affect the productivity and quality of information-intensive work.
The possibility to manage and control process operations from remote locations make the control of work by the workers much more complex and abstract than before.
Also the problem of distance work and telework would be primarily mental and social rather than technical.
However, the use of IT has helped make telework make easier, safer and somewhat more effective. It also provides excellent possibilities for seeking information and communications globally that could facilitate the prevention, protection and promotion of safety and health at work places.
The changes in the job content and the organisations of work also alter the competence profiles of workers. The competence demands of an information society differ substantially from those of a manufacturing society.
In addition to professional competence, general and psychosocial competences are needed. Older workers are strongly affected by such insufficient or outdated competence demanded by the extensive use of IT.
This competence gap is a significant stress factor and may exclude them from contributing in the information society.
As such, there is a need for continuous, complementary and life long training in the field IT field.
Illiteracy, low level of competence and low skill in IT will lead to the exclusion and marginalisation, unemployment, hazardous job and low pay for those failed to embrace it.
Aged and Handicapped Workforce
The improvement in the health situation has substantially increased the life expectancy in almost all countries. This will ultimately lead to the increase in the number of senior workers.
For example in the US, by the year 2005, workers over the age of 55 will comprise 15 per cent and workers over the age of 45, about 40 per cent of the workforce.
Unlike the developed countries, the Malaysian workforce is relatively young. However, in a few decades to come the number of aged workers will increase and unless there is a long-term plan to address the needs of this group of people, it will indeed become a serious issue.
Ageing affects health and work ability in a number of different ways. For example it is inevitably associated with likehood of chronic diseases. Also the ageing individuals’ ability to adapt to changes are limited, for example the ability to work for long hours.
Some adjustment of work, technology and working conditions are probably needed to compensate for the define in biological system such as sensory and memory impairment.
At the opposite end, special challenges may also be faced in the employment of young people, female workers and handicapped persons.
In view of the anticipated young workers in may industrialized countries, there is a need to train and mobilize as many young people to work and to introduce safe working practices as early as possible.
Unemployment must be kept to minimum. Occupational and health programmes usually cover only employed workers, so unemployed people tend to be excluded from it.
The unemployed also may not get the support provided by the occupational health services. Once excluded from work, they may also lose their work still.
This, among others, is seen in the rising risk of accidents in the construction industry where reemployment has increased in recent years.
The growing number of handicapped person worldwide is another concern that needs to be seriously addressed.
This group of people also need to work to sustain themselves. So, considerable adjustments of the workplace such as ensuring free access to facilities and ergonomic adjustment of work tools and work task may be needed.
Those handicapped due to occupational accidents or disease must be given a second opportunity to work, for example through specially tailored “back to work” programmes.
New knowledge and technology provides ample opportunities for this. Recent experience has shown positive impact in providing work adjustments to accommodate this group of people.
However, such adjustment may be costly and time-consuming and would not be of high priority for highly competitive industries such as the SMIs.
Traditional and Emerging Occupational Hazards and Diseases.
Despite some progress made in tackling the traditional OSH problems, the accident and fatality rate due to occupation is still high especially in developing countries.
It is estimated that the risk of accident in developing countries is 10-20 time higher than the industrialized countries.
Similarly, the rate of occupational related disease is rising as more comprehensive medical surveillance is made available. Injuries and diseases arising from he use of machinery and exposure to organic solvents are still rampant especially in the SMIs.
Such problems still need to be tackled using traditional control strategies such as risk assessment, technical preventive measures, inspection and auditing as well as training and providing effective work procedures.
Current trend for deregulation or self-regulation may not yet be the best answer to the problems for certain sectors of the industry, such as the SMIs.
The emergence of new types of hazards and disease associated with the introduction of new technologies, work organizations, materials, work practices, growing mobility and demographic changes is another area of concern.
This includes an increase in bodily injuries, psychological stress, musculoskeletal disorders, hypersensitivity and allergies, infectious diseases and age-related disorders, occupational cancer and reproductive disorders among working people.
There is a need to make comprehensive evaluations on the impact of these emerging hazards and disease to the SMIs so that appropriate preventive and curative measures may be prepared.
The difficulty is that the conditions for the anticipation, identification, assessment, prevention and control are still changing. However, if no comprehensive plan is prepared, they could pose serious problems in the coming years.
As far as the SMI is concerned, no amount of success stories from other countries can convince them the benefits until they see it with their own eyes, locally.
Conclusion
The SMIs, especially in developing countries, is currently still struggling to meet the minimum requirements for safety and health at the workplace.
The multifaceted problems faced by these SMIs can only be met by concerted efforts by all the parties concerned through a comprehensive plan at the national level.
Input and assistance from international agencies and developed countries are essential.
The real challenge is how to provide maximum protection to workers in SMIs, taking into consideration the fragility of such action to improve OSH conditions.
In the global economy, OSH issues are among the key determinants of competitiveness through productivity enhancement and efficiency.
They need to be managed comprehensively by workers and employers together, and by dealing with social and economic factors. Failure to do so will have great repercussions to the nation’s economic future.
Source: News Strairts Times
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