LABOUR: 5,000 Deaths Daily from Work-Related Causes – ILO Report

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, May 24 2002 (IPS) - The International Labour Organisation (ILO) warns that there is too little awareness in the world about the tragic fact that two million people die each year as a consequence of occupational accidents or illnesses.

The average of 5,000 deaths a day is a human tragedy, says Assane Diop, executive director of the ILO Social Protection division.

According to the Geneva-based organisation’s figures, workers worldwide suffer some 270 million accidents each year, 360,000 of which are fatal. An estimated 12,000 of those deaths involve children working in hazardous conditions.

Occupational illnesses affect 160 million workers a year. Cancer is the cause of 32 percent of deaths related to working conditions, claiming 640,000 lives.

The next leading causes of death are circulatory diseases (23 percent), accidents (19 percent) and transmissible diseases (17 percent).

Toxic substances in the workplace are responsible for 340,000 deaths, 100,000 of which are caused by asbestos, says an ILO report to be presented next week at the World Congress on Occupational Safety and Health at Work, in Vienna (May 26- 31).

The worst occupational safety situation is in agriculture, which employs more than half of the global labour force. At least 50 percent of the fatalities, injuries and illnesses related to work occur in the countryside, but that fact does not achieve wide distribution.

Other labour sectors that are particularly dangerous are construction, transportation, mining, fishing and logging.

But there is a lack of awareness about “these horrible figures”, says Diop, attributing it to the fact that most incidents are dispersed throughout different countries and around the world.

“The dramatic incidents get reported in the press but the every- day reality of those who die, become ill or are injured as a result of work-related causes is something that is largely unseen,” Diop said.

Raising awareness of the problem is essential, according to the ILO. The organisation’s director-general, Juan Somavia, said, “The world has a moral obligation to act.”

“The human cost of inaction comes at an economic price. The loss in gross domestic product (GDP) resulting from this reality is 20 times greater than all official development assistance to developing countries,” Somavia said.

But the ILO does not have available an estimate of the economic burden of occupational accidents and illnesses due to the fact that there is no agreed universal method for gathering the necessary data.

However, the director of the ILO Safe Work division, Jukka Takala, estimates that such accidents and illnesses cost four percent of the combined global GDP.

“But this calculation takes only a fraction of work-related cancer into account – as they are usually neither properly recorded nor compensated – and communicable diseases have been not recorded at all,” Takala pointed out.

His observations are based on assumptions that the human body likely reacts in the same way to similar conditions around the world, and that most labour processes are universal.

“Agriculture, extractive industries, manufacturing industries, road and building construction, traffic as well as public and private services use the same methods around the world,” he said.

However, said the ILO official, “some notable differences can also be identified, in particular, in estimating exposure levels” to dangerous conditions or substances.

“Many production processes are considerably more labour intensive in developing countries than in industrialised countries. This tends to increase the number or exposed workers.”

“Knowledge and awareness of hazards, and consequently prevention levels, are significantly lower in low-income countries. And less sophisticated machinery and equipment using lower energy levels are used in developing countries,” stated the Safe Work director.

In the past, developing countries used fewer minerals and chemicals (such as asbestos and industrial chemicals) than did industrialised countries, but “the pattern is changing,” said Takala.

He pointed out that some products, like pesticides, are used more by poor countries and they are less likely to have proper control measures in place.

In the high-income countries, he said, there is a declining trend in fatal accidents, which is largely due to gradual structural change and “real improvements in making the workplace healthier and safer, including improved first aid and emergency care.”

In the industrialised world, there are fewer and fewer people working in hazardous conditions, like those found in farming, logging and mining, and more hold jobs in the service sector, which is relatively safe.

The study prepared by Takala concludes that countries that are still in the industrialisation process are seeing a rapid increase in fatal and other types of accidents.

Men hold the vast majority of dangerous jobs and they make up 80 percent of work-related deaths. In high-income countries, the portion rises to 86 percent.

However, in low-income countries, where communicable diseases are more common, the gender division in the death toll is more balanced.

Studies conducted in several countries show that in farming which uses traditional practices the proportion of accidents and illnesses is more evenly divided between men and women.

In particular, the jobs that cause most injuries and prolonged work absences, such as musculo-skeletal disorders, are more common among women, and in general those jobs are the lowest paid.

“ILO studies show that where there is real social dialogue and community consciousness, risks to safety and health and exposure to hazards are reduced,” said director-general Somavia.

He urged the international community “not to forget the impact that these accidents and diseases have on the families of the worker who has become injured, disabled or may have died as a result of work.”