SHAPING THE FUTURE HOW CHANGING DEMOGRAPHICS CAN POWER HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

BOX 2.7:
Some safer places to work
Some countries have taken steps to better protect their workers. This is consistent with their rights.
It also contributes to more efficient and productive workplaces.
SINGAPORE:
STATE-OF-THE-ART PROTECTIONS
Singapore is renowned for state-of-the-art practices
to protect workers’ health and safety. Three key
principles define its Work and Safety Framework.
The first is to mitigate and eliminate risks before
they are created, minimizing accidents. The second
principle is based on the idea of creating industrial
ownership by engaging people from top management
to factory-level workers, and generating
awareness and a sense of precaution. The third
principle is to strictly penalize workplaces that are
unsafe, not only those that have had accidents, but
also those that have unsafe practices and are prone
to accidents. Penalties and fees incentivize firms
to take more proactive steps, and make a business
case for investing in health and safety issues.
The Workers’ Safety and Health Act came into
effect in 2006 and is managed under the Ministry of
Manpower. To operationalize the act, the Works and
Safety Framework 2018 Strategy was developed.
One of its key targets is to reduce the workplace
fatality rate to less than 1.8 per 100,000 workers.
Considerable progress has already been made,
as the fatality rate dropped from 4.9 in 2004 to
2.2 in 2012.
Some key initiatives of the strategy are to build
capabilities to better manage workplaces. The BizSAFE
programme, for instance, works with small
and medium enterprises. It trains top managers on
risk management strategies and the management
of workers’ health and safety, while workers are
educated on how to avoid hazards.
The Ministry of Manpower ensures compliance
with health and safety standards by undertaking
inspections and managing legal enforcements.
Approximately 6,500 inspections are carried out
yearly. Violations are taken seriously; employers
are warned, fined, prosecuted or their operations
stopped where there are signs of imminent danger.
When accidents do take place, work injury compensation
is paid. In 2010, $76.5 million was awarded
in compensation for permanent disability or death.
Complementing all these efforts is an awareness
campaign promoting a safe and health work culture.
Award ceremonies recognize successful enterprises,
and share good practices and innovative
solutions. The Workers’ Safety and Health Council
collects, produces and shares a repository of
information and guidelines to support enterprises.
CAMBODIA:
LINKING TRADE AND LABOUR STANDARDS
The US-Cambodia Bilateral Textile Agreement
includes a labour provision that explicitly refers to
internationally recognized core labour standards.
To ensure compliance, the agreement states: “The
Government of the United States will make a
Determination [every year] whether working conditions
in the Cambodia textile and apparel sector
substantially comply with such labour law and
[international] standards.” Until 2006, the United
States granted export quota increases based
on compliance.
To be able to export to the United States, a garment
factory had to agree to ILO inspections under
its Better Factories Cambodia (BFC) programme.
Those complying with national and international
standards gained export increases of up to 14 percent,
a strong incentive to participate. After 2006,
the Royal Government of Cambodia, the country’s
garment industry and trade unions requested that
BFC continue to operate and safeguard worker’s
interests. BFC covers areas including child labour,
discrimination, forced labour, freedom of association,
collective bargaining, and national labour
laws and regulations on compensation, contract
and workplace relations, occupational safety and
health, working hours and more.
Extensive factory-level data collected by the BFC
has yielded several interesting findings. The programme
led to higher compliance with standards,
both in factories with reputation-sensitive buyers
and in those without, although the former achieved
higher compliance rates. Cambodian garment factories
with higher levels of compliance had higher
business survival rates.
While concerns over wage levels and working
conditions are still prevalent in Cambodia, the garment
sector has the lowest rate of workplace accidents.
Improved industrial relations have stemmed
from better occupational health and safety, and
overtime policies. A boost in wages for women
in the garment industry led to a jump in women’s
wages throughout Cambodia, both in absolute
terms and relative to men’s wages.
Based on the experience of the BFC programme,
the ILO has launched the Better Work programme
in a half dozen other countries, in each case on
the invitation of the government, employers and
workers’ organizations.
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Sources: Finnish Institute of Occupational Health 2011, Better Factories Cambodia n.d., Robertson, Brown, and Ang 2011,
Brown, Dehejia, and Robertson 2013, Neak and Robertson 2009.