Decision making on occupational health and safety (OSH) requires social dialogue between employers and workers to create faster and more effective prevention, adaptation, and implementation actions at the workplace level. Besides, a social dialogue can also increase company productivity in line with improving the quality of OSH policies and strategies.

In the webinar ‘Enhancing Social Dialogue Towards a Culture of Health and Safety' organized by the International Labour Organization (ILO) with Katadata on Thursday (28/4), the Director General of Labour Inspection and OSH of the Ministry of Manpower, Haiyani Rumondang said, this World Day for Safety and Health at Work is one of the momentum to promote multi-sectoral participation, social dialogue and mutual awareness in building a strong OSH system.

"I hope this theme can be widely promoted and implemented by all relevant parties," she said.

According to Haiyani, social dialogue in the application of OSH is a positive culture that must become a habit in the work environment management system. In addition, social dialogue in OSH culture requires mutual awareness, both among government institutions, companies, and employees, so that social dialogue will become a sustainable safety culture in the future.

"The way to develop it is through participation and social dialogue," she added.

ILO OSH specialist Yuka Ujita said that social dialogue on OSH needs to be continuously encouraged – considering that global data from the International Commission on Occupational Health (ICOH) shows that every year there are 2.9 million deaths caused by work-related accidents.

According to Yuka, as many as 80 percent of the deaths were caused by work-related illnesses, and 20 percent due to work injuries. In addition, there are 402 million people who experience non-fatal injuries in the world. This work accident, she said, could be prevented through socialization of OSH and the implementation of social dialogue in the work environment.

Various forms of social dialogue can be built in several ways, one of which is through tripartite dialogue. Then, tripartite 'plus', where labour, management, employers and employees, are involved in decision-making.

“I want to emphasize that this huge death toll, as well as these injuries, are all preventable. All parties can contribute in terms of preventing these deaths or injuries, as well as the diseases they cause," she said.

On the other hand, the Katadata Insight Center (KIC) released a survey 'Public Perceptions of Occupational Safety and Health'. The survey involving 916 respondents showed that as many as 64.4 percent of the community had received regular socialization on OSH. Meanwhile, around 85.9 percent of respondents said that they often raise aspirations and have dialogues about the safety and health in their work environment.

Commitment of management and involvement of workers are key

In regard to this, the Safety Health and Environment (SHE) Corporate Manager of PT Trakindo Utama, Muhammad Siri said that Trakindo also prioritizes social dialogue in implementing OSH culture. In implementing social dialogue in the work environment, Trakindo also pays attention to mental health issues among workers. 

According to Siri, implementing social dialogue in the dynamics of OSH culture requires commitment from the management level. In addition, the readiness of the human resources as well as the budget will greatly affect the success rate of implementing OSH. He attested the company's top management is committed to put OSH at the core of business process. For example, making a policy on work from home arrangement and providing COVID-19 tests for workers.

Ratih Ibrahim, clinical psychologist and CEO of Personal Growth, said the workers’ talent must be an important asset for the company from the start. Thus, in the future, strengthening the quality of workers will be in line with increasing company productivity.

"In preparing for 'the what's next', the thing that needs to be pursued is that the workers are truly productive and top-quality so that it can create productivity in the business organizations," she said.

Ratih continued, the application of OSH culture must begin through social dialogue. In addition to creating empathy throughout the company, social dialogue will encourage a chronological way of thinking when the company anticipates accidents at work.

"To create a healthy social dialogue in order to build a positive work culture, a process is needed that starts from perception, mindset, to behaviour," emphasized Ratih.

Ratih said that establishing a positive work environment can be started by investing time in psychoeducational work. These various psychoeducational works in the future will have an impact on the growth of a positive work culture in the company environment.

"This empathy can be grown from psychoeducational activities, which include webinars, discussions and training," she said.

Meanwhile, the Director of Manpower at the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas), Mahatmi Saronto said the role of Bappenas in strengthening OSH at the corporate level includes intensifying planning and control. Then this will be followed up further with implementation at the national and regional levels. "This really needs to be collaborated together," she said.

The OSH culture introduction activity also needs to target various parties. "We will map out various systems for implementing the introduction of OSH culture," said Mahatmi.

Mahatmi added that Bappenas supports the Ministry of Manpower as the leading labour sector to encourage the implementation of the OSH management system at the corporate level. However, the implementation of the OSH management system will also be stronger if there is synergy from various institutions and their respective functions.

"We will support in the form of regulations related to OSH. Since we have a wide scope of coordination," she said.

The live streaming of the interactive discussion can be viewed on ILO TV Indonesia.