TOKYO (ILO Online) – Last June, three women were killed and eight other people injured in an explosion at an annex of a women-only spa facility near a busy street in Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward.

According to police, the three victims and two of the injured were employees of the spa facility. It is suspected that natural gas, which gushes upward in piping up hot water from 1,500 meters underground, permeated the annex building and caught fire somehow. Normally, the natural gas is supposed to be exhausted by a ventilation fan.

Although the OSH situation in Japan has been continuously improving since the enactment of the Japanese OSH Act in 1972, serious occupational accidents like the spa incident still happen today. According to official statistics of the Ministry of Labour, the number of fatalities from occupational accidents was reduced from 5,552 in 1971 to 1,472 in 2006, but the number of serious accidents with three or more workers injured has increased by 20 per cent between 2005 and 2006.

In recent years, the Japanese government also had to deal with a number of emerging occupational safety and health problems. Between 2005 and 2006, the number of compensated cases for Karoshi (death from overwork) and overwork-related diseases increased by 7.6 per cent, with 40 per cent of the 355 victims in 2006 among those aged 50 to 59.Also, 205 work related cases of mental disorders were compensated in 2006 – 61.4 per cent more than the year before.

Reinforcing prevention

“There is a need to further reinforce prevention programmes. Among others, we have to make sure that top management recognizes the importance of OSH and that it takes leadership for OSH activities, including risk assessment”, says Mr. Takahashi, Director of the Safety division in the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.

With the ratification of ILO Convention No. 187, Japan will improve OSH continually in collaboration with the social partners. Since 1958, when Japan established its first national OSH plan the country has been improving its OSH strategy systematically. The latest Five-Year-OSH Plan corresponds to the national OSH programme foreseen in ILO Convention No. 187 adopted by the International Labour Conference in June 2006.

“The 10th OSH Plan, which is ending in March 2008, has been instrumental to the continuous improvement of OSH at the national level. Under the 10th Plan, various measures have been introduced, including revisions of OSH legislation in the field of machine safety, risk reduction in the use of chemicals, measures against overwork and mental health problems, the prohibition of manufacturing and using asbestos products, and a reinforced protection of workers against asbestos in building demolition”, explains Seiji Machida, senior ILO occupational safety and health specialist.

Preparations for the 11th national plan are already underway. It will fully reflect the principles of Convention No. 187, including a careful review of the national OSH situation and the outcomes of the previous plan.

With the ratification, Japan is expected to take leadership in promoting OSH worldwide, particularly through sharing experience of improving its national OSH programme over the last 50 years. It is also expected that the ratification of ILO Convention No. 187 by Japan will encourage its neighbours, including the Republic of Korea, China and other Asian countries, to do the same. The ASEAN plus 3 Labour Ministers recently confirmed the importance of OSH and supported the adoption of ILO Convention No. 187 at the International Labour Conference in 2006.

The ILO estimates that some 6,000 workers die each day worldwide as a result of work-related accidents or illness. Convention No. 187 promotes the development of a “preventative safety and health culture” through the elevation of occupational safety and health high on national agendas by launching national occupational safety and health programmes, as well as the promotion of safer and healthier working environments through preventive measures. World-wide ratification of Convention No. 187 would be a practical step for creating safe and healthy workplaces for all workers.