Features

2007

1. 

   Article

   Promoting sustainable enterprises: safe work is also good business

   21 June 2007

   “Sustainable enterprises cannot afford to have injuries and diseases at work, which would not only interrupt operations but may have strong economic and reputational consequences”. Eleven enterprises from the Leningrad region in Russia’s North-West had a chance to check this statement from an ILO report to the International Labour Conference against daily practice. Olga Bogdanova reports from North-West Russia.

2006

1. 

   Article

   95th session of the International Labour Conference, 2006
   Occupational safety and health in Kazakhstan: A model for Central Asia

   13 June 2006

   After the collapse of the Soviet Union, working conditions in Kazakhstan deteriorated much the same way as in other former Soviet republics. In the 1990s, more than 3,000 occupational accidents were registered officially each year, causing the death of more than 300 workers.

2. 

   Article

   95th session of the International Labour Conference, 2006
   Singapore: Charting a new roadmap for safer workplaces

   29 May 2006

   The Conference Committee on Safety and Health will consider a promotional framework for occupational safety and health (OSH), including a Convention supplemented by a Recommendation. The proposed instruments would support placing occupational safety and health high at national agendas, and promote safer and healthier working environments worldwide.

3. Article

   Chernobyl 20 years after: From disaster, breeding a new safety culture

   26 April 2006

   When the Reactor No. 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine exploded on the night of 26 April 1986, workers bore the full brunt of the blast, many losing their health, homes, jobs and even their lives. Since then, significant progress has been made in the development of safety and health at work, but the last chapter of the world's worst civilian nuclear disaster has yet to be written, says ILO SafeWork specialist Shengli Niu in an interview with ILO Online.

4. 

   Article

   Questions for a global economy: protecting workers against factory fires

   30 March 2006

   Fires in the workplace are among the most feared industrial events, and have left their mark on history. From the 1911 factory fire in New York City that killed 146 textile workers, to more recent industrial accidents or incidents around the world that have left hundreds of dead and injured, such events often lead to the adoption of labour laws to protect factory workers. A spate of recent industrial fires have again underlined the need for vigilance, planning and preparation for dealing with the unexpected - especially in the form of a viable evacuation plan. ILO occupational safety and health expert David Gold spoke with ILO Online about fire protection and emergency management.

5. Article

   Environmentally sustainable development: the WILL is there

   30 January 2006

   NAIROBI (ILO Online) - The Workers Initiative for a Lasting Legacy (WILL 2006), organized by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in cooperation with the ILO, SustainLabour and the UN Global Compact, held here the first ever trade union assembly on labour and the environment last week. ILO Online spoke with Lene Olsen from the ILO Bureau for Workers' Activities who participated in the assembly.

6. Article

   Is there a decent way to break ships?

   26 January 2006

   GENEVA (ILO Online) - The dispatch of the asbestos-laden aircraft carrier 'Clemenceau' from France to the world's largest ship graveyard on India's west coast for scrapping has focused new attention on the human and environmental dangers inherent in ship breaking. While breaking ships and selling of the scrap and hardware from retired vessels provides work and income for tens of thousands of persons in Bangladesh, China, India and Pakistan, the work is dangerous and can cause deaths due to work accidents as well as serious acute and chronic health problems, especially due to exposure to hazardous substances such as asbestos. ILO Online spoke with ILO shipbreaking expert Paul Bailey.

7. 

   Article

   Asbestos: the iron grip of latency

   10 January 2006

   The ILO estimates that 100,000 people die each year from work-related asbestos exposure. Asbestos-caused cancers will kill at least 15,000 people in Japan in the next five years, and up to 100,000 people in France over the next 20 to 25 years. In the United States, hundreds of thousands of injury claims have been filed since the 1970s for deaths, cancers and other health problems related to asbestos exposure, bankrupting dozens of U.S. companies. ILO online spoke with Jukka Takala, Director of the ILO InFocus Programme SafeWork.