INTERNATIONAL TRADE UNION CONFEDERATION (ITUC) – ILO/ITC – Trade union training on Occupational Safety, health and HIV/AIDS – 6 July 2011 – Turin, Italy Role of trade unions in the promotion of Occupational Health and Safety

INTERNATIONAL TRADE UNION CONFEDERATION (ITUC) – ILO/ITC – Trade union training on Occupational Safety, health and HIV/AIDS – 6 July 2011 – Turin, Italy Summary -Trade unions: key for safe workplaces - Specific union actions - An example from a developing region

INTERNATIONAL TRADE UNION CONFEDERATION (ITUC) – ILO/ITC – Trade union training on Occupational Safety, health and HIV/AIDS – 6 July 2011 – Turin, Italy - Trade unions are a centrepiece in building safer workplaces. - Production systems are organized in such a way that workers are expected to absorb pressures for higher productivity by accepting less protection and more job insecurity, often risking their health and lives for a wage. - Acting collectively to combat this through trade unions is a first step towards a safer workplace. Impossible to achieve OSH without trade unions

INTERNATIONAL TRADE UNION CONFEDERATION (ITUC) – ILO/ITC – Trade union training on Occupational Safety, health and HIV/AIDS – 6 July 2011 – Turin, Italy - Scientific evidence and workers’ perception show that when workers are represented by trade unions on occupational health and safety issues, their working environment is significantly better than where they are left alone with their concerns. ie An independent study in the Standford University found that unionisation in mining operations predicts percent drop in traumatic injuries and per cent drop in fatalities Impossible to achieve OSH without trade unions

INTERNATIONAL TRADE UNION CONFEDERATION (ITUC) – ILO/ITC – Trade union training on Occupational Safety, health and HIV/AIDS – 6 July 2011 – Turin, Italy 1. Identification of risks 2. Information and training 3. Organisation of actions, evaluation & follow up 4. Building a culture of prevention Areas of union action on OSH

INTERNATIONAL TRADE UNION CONFEDERATION (ITUC) – ILO/ITC – Trade union training on Occupational Safety, health and HIV/AIDS – 6 July 2011 – Turin, Italy “Making visible the invisible” Unions bring light on what workers perceive as representing a risk or being a source of suffering in their daily lives at the workplace. We are close to workers, we know the workplace, and so we are a key force for protecting them, their health and their future. Unions often realise the risks long before management: examples? Asbestos, repetitive strain injuries (RSI), effects of passive smoking. When unions first raised the issue of stress, employers and the media argued it was nonsense; it is now recognised that workplace stress affects around half a million people Identification of risks

INTERNATIONAL TRADE UNION CONFEDERATION (ITUC) – ILO/ITC – Trade union training on Occupational Safety, health and HIV/AIDS – 6 July 2011 – Turin, Italy “Turning individual problems into collective solutions” Unions help workers sharing their concerns with their colleagues and collectively discuss the health problems caused by their working conditions. Unions combat any tendency to tell workers that occupational injuries or diseases are just individual problems. Unions provide collective solutions to what needs to be considered a collective problem (an injury for one is an injury for all!). This requires workers and their representatives acceding information and knowledge on occupational risks and their possible solutions. Unions train workplace OHS representatives and work for passing and enforcing ambitious legislation on OHS Information & training

INTERNATIONAL TRADE UNION CONFEDERATION (ITUC) – ILO/ITC – Trade union training on Occupational Safety, health and HIV/AIDS – 6 July 2011 – Turin, Italy Unions organise actions, evaluate them and ensure follow up. From workplace training to national or sectoral legislation, from strikes to collective bargaining, we can change the workplace: workers and trade unionists save lives everyday through their workplace action. More information on what you can do at your workplace: the national level: Many unions have campaigned hard in their countries for new legislation on occupational health (such as in Argentina, where a new law for construction workers has just been passed, or Spain, where the role of the risk prevention delegate in the workplace is now mandatory). In other countries, unions have fought for obtaining the ratification of ILO Convention 155 by their national governments (in the last two years alone Fiji, South Korea, Tajikistan, Syria and Bahrain have ratified it) or for an Asbestos Ban, like in the the international level, unions have organised global campaigns (the Building and Woodworkers' International has strengthened its efforts to achieve a global ban on asbestos, the Public Service International has developed guidelines on workplace violence and for protecting healthcare workers from HIV/AIDS, and many Global Union Federations have signed International Framework Agreements including clauses on OHS). Actions, evaluation & follow up

INTERNATIONAL TRADE UNION CONFEDERATION (ITUC) – ILO/ITC – Trade union training on Occupational Safety, health and HIV/AIDS – 6 July 2011 – Turin, Italy A safe workplace is central to building a culture of prevention in our societies. Seoul Declaration: A preventative culture needs us all: governments, employers and workers need to actively participate in securing a safe and healthy working environment through a system of defined rights, responsibilities and duties, and where the principle of prevention is accorded the highest priority. Union representatives need to be empowered with the rights already established in ILO Convention 155, as well as with new legislation in order to accompany the evolution of risks at the workplace. Building a culture of prevention

INTERNATIONAL TRADE UNION CONFEDERATION (ITUC) – ILO/ITC – Trade union training on Occupational Safety, health and HIV/AIDS – 6 July 2011 – Turin, Italy At each stage of the OHS Management System, there is a role for trade unions: Building a culture of prevention

INTERNATIONAL TRADE UNION CONFEDERATION (ITUC) – ILO/ITC – Trade union training on Occupational Safety, health and HIV/AIDS – 6 July 2011 – Turin, Italy The Iberoamerican strategy on occupational Health and Safety Challenges in the region: -labour market conditions (including limits to trade union organizing, insufficient development of collective bargaining, wealth inequality and weak control and oversight despite interesting legal frameworks, high rates of precarious work and size of the informal sector, among others) -social protection (low rates of social protection coverage, low ratification and implementation of international standards, privatization of health, pensions and occupational risks systems, absence of progressive fiscal systems, deficits in maternity and child protection), -health and safety (including extremely worrying rates of mortality, morbidity and accidents, absence or weakness of OHS public policies, weak public control and oversight, weak coverage of workers over occupational accidents and diseases) Trade unions identified key pillars for an Iberoamerican strategy on Occupational Health and Safety: -Creation of employment opportunities which respect labour rights and provide social protection, formalizing labour relationships. -Promotion of OHS as a State public policy -Strenghtening of tripartitism and social dialogue (and collective bargaining) on OHS, including promoting a leadership role for trade unions in it. -Strenghtening a prevention culture -Regional cooperation on OHS. Strong campaigning & advocacy led to the adoption of the strategy by Heads of State. Challenge? Implementation, but interesting method for advancing OHS from a regional perspective An example at the regional level

INTERNATIONAL TRADE UNION CONFEDERATION (ITUC) – ILO/ITC – Trade union training on Occupational Safety, health and HIV/AIDS – 6 July 2011 – Turin, Italy Thank You!