An unacceptable human cost

Strategic plenary session: “The Future of Occupational Safety in Russia – Safety and Prevention Culture”

Dear Minister Topilin,
Dear Mikhail Schmakov and Alexander Shokhin,
Excellences,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Colleagues,

It is a real pleasure to be once again in Russia with you, our tripartite Constituents of the Russian Federation and countries of the region. Let me thank in particular Minister Maxim Topilin as well as the representatives of the city of Sochi and the Kraï of Krasnodar.

I am also grateful for the opportunity to discover another side of your immense country. After several visits to Moscow and Saint Petersburg, then Ufa and Astrakhan last year, I am happy to be in Sochi, in this very special Olympic resort at the meeting point of the Black Sea, the Kuban steppe and the Caucasus mountain range!

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is probably no coincidence that the All-Russia Week on Occupational Safety and Health is organised here, where the first wellness centre was created as early as 1902. It is also a nice way to encourage tourism!

I also cannot help but note that Anton Chekhov, in a way one of the pioneers in social medicine, was born not very far from here, in the Taganrog gulf. His short story “A doctor’s visit” highlights the impact that an oppressive factory environment with poor working conditions has on a young woman’s illness, conditions that were not unlike those described by Maxim Gorki or later by another doctor-publicist, Vikenti Veresayev, who described the life of miners. It was actually the time, after the 1861 Emancipation Manifesto, when the Russian empire started to elaborate a labour legislation, including a factory inspection from 1882 until the 1917.

This kind of humanisation of work was precisely the raison d’être of the ILO in 1919. It is, no more and no less, the “humanisation” you have called for in Russia’s national Future of Work report two years ago. It is also what the ILO Global Commission on the Future of Work refers to as a “human-centred” approach in its report “Work for a Brighter Future”. I take this opportunity to thank again Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets for her contribution to this human-centred agenda put forward by the Global Commission. I will come back to that later.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Such an approach is no less necessary today than in 1882 or 1919. According to this year’s ILO report on “Safety and Health at the heart of the Future of Work”, prepared for OSH Day, almost 3 million workers (2.78 million to be exact) die each year from occupational accidents and work-related diseases. In addition, another 374 million workers suffer each year from non-fatal occupational accidents. On top of this unacceptable human cost- and it is obviously the most important-, the days lost at work globally represent almost 4 per cent of the world’s GDP. The situation in Russia has steadily improved over the last decades with fatal workplace accidents dropping from 4,520 in 2006 to 1,832 in 2016 while in the same period employment injuries decreased from 14,000 to 6,000. This is still too many of course, especially considering that 70 per cent of accidents are due to human factors, mainly lack of knowledge or negligence. This is one more argument in favour of prevention, information and training.

But what this shows is that deaths, injuries and diseases from work are certainly not inevitable. We can and must reduce and eliminate them. Precisely for these reasons, safety and health have been at the heart of the ILO from the outset.

Today, nearly half of the ILO instruments in force relate directly or indirectly to OSH issues, and more than 40 standards specifically deal with occupational safety and health, and they are accompanied by over 40 Codes of Practice. These instruments evolved over time from initially a very narrow approach to specific workplaces risks to what are now standards of a broader scope and of a more promotional nature. We need only look at the Occupational Safety and Health Convention Number 155 adopted in 1981, and the Promotional Framework for Occupational Safety and Health, Convention Number 187 of 2006 to see the importance attached today to a national OSH prevention culture.

I take this opportunity to call on all countries to ratify the ILO OSH Conventions and take this opportunity to thank the Russian Federation for ratifying at the end of last year, Convention 167 which relates to the construction sector, which has some of the most pervasive occupational hazards in the region.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It’s not only working conditions that have changed over time, it’s the nature of health and safety hazards as well. And this will continue in the future. With all the transformative technological, demographic and environmental changes shaping a new world of work, it becomes more important than ever to anticipate new and emerging health and safety risks.

For example, the 2013 Rana Plaza tragedy in Bangladesh when over 1100 workers lost their lives, served as a wake-up call to the OSH implications of working in global supply chains. Today, we see other emerging risks. The ILO report on “Safety and Health at the heart of the Future of Work”, warns of the OSH implications of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, bio- and nanotechnologies which need to be further investigated. In the same way, the impact on workers’ health of new and diverse forms of employment such as in the digital and platform economy require further research. The report draws particular attention to mental health issues, in particular psychosocial risks, and the emergence of non-communicable diseases.

In this connection, well-being is a meaningful concept that encompasses all aspects of working life. It not only encompasses safety and health conditions of the working environment, but also how workers feel about their working experience, the social interactions involved as well as issue of work organization. We should not forget the 1944 Philadelphia Declaration mandates our Organisation to helping people to pursue “both their material well-being and spiritual development”. And, in Russia’s national report to the ILO’s Centenary Future of Work Initiative, this is well reflected in the concept of “humanization of work” and of the graduation of the person at work from “homo economicus” to “homo creativus”.

All these challenges have to be addressed with effective prevention strategies. Reinforcing the role of governments and social partners is essential in this regard. Safety and health at work is also key to sustainable development and investment in OSH can contribute to the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, especially SDG-3 on ensuring healthy lives and well-being for all, in complement to SDG-8 on decent work for all and inclusive and sustainable economic growth.

That is why the ILO Global Commission on the Future of Work called for all stakeholders to “take responsibility” for building a just and equitable future of work. One aspect of this is the Commission’s recommendation for the establishment of a Universal Labour Guarantee which would allow all workers, regardless of their employment status and contractual relationship, to enjoy a basic package of decent work protections, including safety and health at work. Indeed, the Commission goes one step further: that a safe and healthy work environment should now be recognized as a fundamental principle and right at work as spelled out in the ILO 1998 Declaration.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Fifty years ago, upon receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for the ILO, then Director-General David Morse said that “we are only at the beginning of our task”. On the eve of our Centenary Conference in June, I might say the same holds true today, in light of the challenges ahead of us and of the ILO as institution.

But before that, we have another anniversary to celebrate. In three days, we will mark the 65th anniversary of the return of the Soviet Union, now the Russian Federation, to the ILO – after an interruption of 15 years. Actually, the history of our relationship has been slightly turbulent – which makes it particularly interesting and probably more resilient…

Fortunately, we have entered a new era marked by the unprecedented high level of our current partnership with all tripartite Constituents. During my mandate, I have been pleased to work intensively with the Government, employers and trade unions of the Russian Federation, initially in the 2012 International Decent Work Conference in Moscow, and more recently with the signature of a 4th programme of Russia-ILO cooperation for 2017-2020. This period has also seen Russia Presidency of the G-20 and the BRICS which the ILO has been pleased to support, and few member States have engaged so strongly as Russia in the ILO’s future of work initiative.

The Government of Russia has also become an important donor for ILO activities and in this regard, I would also like to mention our public-private partnership with Lukoil on the Youth Employment project from which we have learned so much, including in terms of OSH practices in this company. I know that many enterprises represented here are among the “champions” in OSH policies.

This echoes the socially-oriented policies put forward by the Russian President for the current period as recalled during his recent address to the Federal Assembly in which he emphasized the country’s capacity “to build a model of socio-economic development that will ensure the best conditions for the self-fulfilment of the people and, hence, provide answers befitting to the challenges of a rapidly changing world. Naturally, we will only be able to achieve our goals by pooling our efforts, together in a united society”.

Pooling efforts also applies to all tripartite Constituents, to all of us, if we want to reinvigorate the social contract that took shape in 1919 and make social justice a reality for all. In short, we need to build a viable project for the Future of Work. In June, the ILO Centenary Conference will aim to adopt an authoritative document- most probably a Declaration-, which we hope, will honour and stand up to comparison with past ILO Declarations, notably the 1944 Philadelphia Declaration.

I rely on you all to take part in this great task and I look forward to welcoming you all, along with Prime Minister Medvedev, to Geneva this June for the ILO’s Centenary Conference.

Thank you for your attention.