Everyone who works and cares about their own health and safety at work should join a union and find out if they have a representative for SSM. A strong union can ensure that a health and safety representative is appointed and listened to by leadership. Read about the meaning of April 28th and the role of unions for health protection at work. more
În fiecare an, mai mulți oameni mor la muncă decât în războaie. Majoritatea nu mor de boli misterioase sau în accidente “tragice”, ci pentru că angajatorii sau instituțiile statului nu consideră siguranța lucrătorilor o prioritate chiar așa de mare. Ziua de 28 aprilie este destinată comemorării acestor lucrători.
Ce reprezintă 28 aprilie?
28 aprilie – Ziua Internațională a Sănătății și Securității în Muncă, (cunoscută și sub numele Ziua Comemorării Victimelor Accidentelor de Muncă) s-a desfășurat întotdeauna sub deviza “ne pomenim morții, luptăm pentru cei vii”, iar sindicatele sunt îndemnate să se orienteze în ambele direcții, prin organizarea de evenimente de comemorare a celor care și-au pierdut viața la locul de muncă și în același timp pentru a se asigura că astfel de tragedii nu se repetă. Acest lucru se poate realiza cel mai bine prin întărirea organizațiilor sindicale și prin campanii pentru aplicarea mai strictă și cu sancțiuni reale pentru încălcarea normelor privind sănătatea și siguranța la locul de muncă. Ziua Internațională a Sănătății și Securității în Muncă este marcată în toată lumea și este recunoscută oficial de Guvernul României.
Tema anului 2021:
Sănătatea și siguranța la locul de muncă – un drept fundamental al lucrătorilor!
Anul acesta, pandemia Covid-19 a expus deficiențele majore privind sănătatea la locul de muncă din întreaga lume. Lucrătorilor li se refuză în mod obișnuit chiar și protecția de bază privind sănătatea și securitatea, inclusiv consultarea cu reprezentanții din comitetele de securitate și sănătate cu privire la politicile și practicile în contextul „Covid”, accesul gratuit la echipamente individuale de protecție și protecția împotriva victimizării pentru atragerea atenției asupra problemelor de sănătate și securitate. Aceleași probleme au existat înainte de pandemie și au dus la milioane de decese în fiecare an din cauza accidentelor de muncă și bolilor profesionale.
Pandemia demonstrează de ce sănătatea și siguranța trebuie să fie un drept pentru toți cei care lucrează. Printre cele peste 27.000 de decese cauzate de COVID-19 în România se află nenumărați lucrători, în profesii medicale și nu numai, care s-au infectat la locul de muncă. Deplângem pierderea lor și oferim condoleanțe și solidaritate celor dragi. Ne amintim și de cei care au murit în ultimul an din cauza cancerului cauzat de condițiile de muncă și a altor boli și accidente de muncă, de multe ori din cauza accesului restricționat la serviciile de sănătate în contextul pandemiei.
În timp ce vaccinarea oferă speranță, sănătatea și siguranța trebuie să rămână o prioritate absolută în lunile următoare și nu numai. Sănătatea și securitatea la locul de muncă nu sunt cadouri din partea autorităților sau a unui angajator bun: sănătatea și securitatea la locul de muncă este un drept al lucrătorilor. Un drept pentru care luptă sindicatele!
În Uniunea Europeană „fiecare lucrător are dreptul la condiții de muncă care îi respectă sănătatea, siguranța și demnitatea” (Carta drepturilor fundamentale a Uniunii Europene, art. 31). Legislația UE, prin Directiva-cadru privind securitatea și sănătatea în muncă, 1989:
Aceasta înseamnă că angajatorii sunt responsabili pentru riscuri evidente, cum ar fi expunerea la substanțe periculoase, ridicarea de greutăți sau mișcări repetitive, precum și alte riscuri mai puțin recunoscute, cum ar fi stresul profesional sau hărțuirea.
În ciuda drepturilor clare, sănătatea și siguranța sunt departe de a fi o realitate pentru toți lucrătorii. Mulți lucrători nu au reușit să se distanțeze social. Lucrul de acasă presupune alte riscuri, cum ar fi creșterea violenței domestice (cu o treime în unele țări ale UE în timpul carantinei), ore prelungite de muncă sau lipsa echipamentelor adecvate la domiciliu.
Sindicatele și reprezentanții ssm joacă un rol vital în asigurarea sănătății și securității. Orice persoană care lucrează căreia îi pasă de propria sănătate și siguranță la locul de muncă ar trebui să adere la un sindicat și să afle dacă are un reprezentant pentru ssm. Un sindicat puternic se poate asigura ca un reprezentant pentru sănătate și siguranță este numit și ascultat de conducere.
Sindicatele luptă și pentru o mai bună legislație privind sănătatea și siguranța la locul de muncă. La nivel european, sindicatele au obținut limite de expunere profesională pentru multe substanțe cauzatoare de cancer și luptă pentru a obține limite mai dure și pentru mai multe substanțe. Sindicatele militează pentru obligații legale mai puternice impuse angajatorilor pentru a combate stresul și durerile de spate (și alte așa-numite tulburări musculo-scheletice). Sindicatele presează, de asemenea, ca Organizația Internațională a Muncii (OIM) să pună în aplicare decizia adoptată de Conferința centenară a OIM din 2019, pentru a face din securitatea și sănătatea în muncă un drept fundamental la locul de muncă.
Pe 28 aprilie 2021, sindicatele trimit un mesaj potrivit căruia protecția sănătății și securității la locul de muncă trebuie recunoscută ca un drept pentru toți! Fie că este vorba de Covid sau de cancer profesional, de accidente la locul de muncă sau boli industriale, fiecare lucrător ar trebui să aibă dreptul la protecție. Nimeni nu ar trebui să moară pentru a-și câștiga existența.
Acțiuni
În această zi, lucrătorii reuniți în sindicate organizează evenimente, demonstrații, comemorări și o varientate întreagă de alte activități. Este de datoria noastră să nu lăsăm această zi să treacă neobservată și este la alegerea noastră cum dorim să o marcăm. Câteva idei de acțiuni puteti găsi mai jos:
Orice altă manifestare menită să atragă atenția asupra semnificației zilei de 28 Aprilie este bine venită. Resurse și actualizări privind evenimentele dedicate zilei de 28 aprilie sunt disponibbile pe site-ul web: www.28april.org
Workers Memorial Day, April 28th, has been commemorated since 1970, to honor the victims of workplace injury and illness and to keep fighting for the promise of safe jobs for all workers.
This year, Workers Memorial Week contains a range of programs and activities across the map. The Jewish Labor Committee Invites you to a: VIRTUAL WORKERS MEMORIAL DAY PROGRAM
Marking the 50th Anniversary of OSHA – The Occupational Safety & Health Act
“UNIONS MAKE A DIFFERENCE”
Thursday, April 29, 2021, 4:00 p.m. (EDT)
Speakers Include:
Marcy Goldstein-Gelb
Executive Director, National Council for Occupational Safety and Health
Armando Elenes
Secretary-Treasurer, United Farm Workers
James Shackelford
Southeast Council, Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union
Moderator:
Arieh Lebowitz
Executive Director, Jewish Labor Committee
To Register, click here: https://form.jotform.com/211055781180046
Worker’s Memorial Day, the anniversary of the day OSHA went into effect, serves to remember those workers who lost their lives on the job. This year, we especially honor those thousands of front-line workers who fell victim to COVID-19. Learn what we can do to strengthen OSHA, and provide workers a stronger voice to ensure their well-being.
140 West 31st Street, 2nd Floor / New York, NY 10001 / 212-477-0707 / f 212-477-1918
info@jewishlabor.org / www.jewishlaborcommittee.org / www.facebook.com/Jewish.Labor.Committee
Every year more people are killed at work than in wars. Most don’t die of mystery ailments, or in tragic “accidents”. They die because an employer decided their safety just wasn’t that important a priority. International Workers’ Memorial Day (IWMD) 28 April commemorates those workers.
This year’s event is made even more poignant due to the work-related loss of life due to the COVID Pandemic.
Chair: Rozanne Foyer: STUC General Secretary
Pauline Rourke: CWU
Gary Smith: GMB
Phyllis Craig: Action for Asbestos Scotland
Professor Andy Waterson, Scottish Hazards
We will be holding a 1 minute silence at 11am. Register
Where: National Covid Memorial Wall, North Wing, Lambeth Palace Rd, South Bank, London SE1 3FT
When: From 11:30 hours, Wednesday 28 April
The general secretary of the UK’s leading union, Unite, is joining Unite families who lost loved ones to Covid-19 to walk the memorial wall this International Workers’ Memorial Day.
Len McCluskey and the families will also join with TUC representatives to observe the minute’s silence for International Workers’ Memorial Day, which will be held at midday.
Unite is throwing its weight behind calls for a statutory public inquiry into the government’s handling of the pandemic, recently rejected by ministers, and is backing the campaign for the National Covid Memorial Wall in Lambeth, south London, to be made permanent.
The memorial wall is made up of 150,000 individual painted hearts, one for every UK person who lost their life to the disease in the past year. The wall is around half a kilometre long and takes around 10 minutes to walk.
Len McCluskey will join Hannah and Leshie, who both lost their fathers, both key workers, to the disease last year. Hannah’s father caught the virus while travelling to his work in a factory, while Leshie’s father was one of 27 London bus drivers who died of the disease between March and May last year.
Speaking ahead of his visit, Len McCluskey said: “You cannot help but be moved by this campaign. In the past year, 150,000 people lost their lives, leaving 150,000 families and countless loved ones with huge holes in their lives. For all those who have sacrificed and suffered through this terrible time, we owe it to them to walk this wall.
“The scale of loss in the UK is so high relative to other countries that the reasons for this have to be looked at by a public inquiry. The people we lost must be remembered and honoured, and the whole country, including the government, has to learn the lessons of this crisis.
“Dozens of Unite members died from this dreadful sickness and they will be in my thoughts today. It will be a huge privilege to walk the wall with Unite family members. I am so grateful to them for the work that they are doing on behalf of all those who lost their lives, and the bereaved who remain, to deliver not just a place of national remembrance of this time, but justice.
“Unite offers the bereaved families our full support in securing a permanent home for this incredible wall, and in the continued battle for the full and frank public inquiry the country needs.”
ENDS
Notes to editors:
Len McCluskey will walk the wall with members of the families of two Unite members who lost their lives to Covid-19:
Leshie Chandrapala, London
Leshie lost her father, Ranjith, to Covid-19 in April 2020.
Ranjith was one of the 27 bus drivers who died of Covid-19 in London between March and May 2020.
According to the Institute of Health Equity, bus drivers were more than twice as likely to die than other Londoners. Leshie wants a public inquiry into the decisions that led to her father’s death.
Hannah Brady, Manchester
Hannah’s father was a key worker in a factory when he contracted coronavirus.
He died at the age of 55 following 42 nights spent in intensive care.
Hannah fears that her dad was exposed to Covid-19 on public transport to and from work.
Hannah has received abuse online for talking about the loss of her father.
For media enquires ONLY contact Unite communications officer Ryan Fletcher on 07849 090215.
Email: ryan.fletcher@unitetheunion.org
Twitter: @unitetheunion Facebook: unitetheunion1 Instagram: unitetheunion Web: unitetheunion.org
Unite is Britain and Ireland’s largest union with members working across all sectors of the economy. The general secretary is Len McCluskey.
Get involved
Workers are suffering a mental health ‘epidemic’, a UK and Ireland-wide survey of Unite workplace representatives has revealed.
Unite, the UK and Ireland’s largest union, said there is a ‘clear link’ between the increase in stress brought on by the pandemic and called on employers to help prevent the crisis being carried forward as the country opens up.
The health and safety-focused survey of 1,400 Unite reps, from across all sectors of the economy, found that 83 per cent are dealing with an increase in members reporting mental health-related problems.
Mental health issues also came top of workers’ concerns during a similar survey last year. However, there has been a huge 18-point increase from the 65 per cent reported in 2020.
The survey also found that regulators and health authorities carrying out workplace visits are not routinely speaking to union reps. These organisations include the Health and Safety Executive, local authorities, Public Health England/Wales and others.
Only a third of respondents whose workplaces had been visited reported that inspectors had spoken to reps during the visit, despite it being vital to gaining an accurate picture of health and safety on site.
Unite called the finding ‘alarming’ as it had previously raised the ‘potentially dangerous’ issue with regulators, who all insisted that speaking to reps during visits is a matter of course.
The union said regulators need to begin publishing records on whether workplace reps have been spoken to, something they are not currently required to do.
Unite assistant general secretary Gail Cartmail said: “This survey shows there is an epidemic of mental health issues being suffered by workers across all sectors of the economy.
“April is Stress Awareness Month and employers need to be aware that there is a clear link between the explosion in mental ill-health and the stressors of the pandemic.
“As the country and the economy come out of the coronavirus freeze, the after effects of the pandemic are still going to be felt, including their impact on people’s mental health.
“During the week of International Workers’ Memorial Day, we should remember that many workers not only paid a physical price during the fight against Covid-19, but a psychological one too.
“Employers need to be aware of this and in partnership with trade unions implement mental health friendly policies to help prevent the psychological toll of the pandemic being carried forward longer than it needs to be.
“The survey also revealed a worrying trend of regulators not speaking to union reps during workplace safety inspections. This means regulators are not getting a full and accurate picture of the environments they are visiting, which is potentially dangerous.
“Unite has raised this issue before with all the relevant regulators and health authorities, but it is clear it is not being addressed. Direction requiring them to publish records of speaking to reps during visits is now needed.”
ENDS
The survey’s full findings are available here.
Tuesday, 27 April 2021, 3:27 pm
Press Release: Council of Trade Unions
On April 28th, Workers’ Memorial Day, working people all around the world remember those killed at work.
CTU President Richard Wagstaff wants to see more done to ensure that everyone is able to return home safe and well at the end of their working day. “The facts clearly speak for themselves, too many working Kiwis are being killed at work. We must do more to hold employers to account. Workplace deaths are always avoidable and preventable. Employers who fail to keep working people safe should face serious consequences.”
“From May 2020 – January 2021 37 people were killed at work. 37 people went to work and never returned home. The most dangerous industries are agriculture (8), construction (4) and forestry (4). Employers in these industries need to really examine what they are doing wrong, why their business models are so problematic that people are being killed just by doing their jobs.”
“As well as the 37 people who were killed at work, more than 33,000 New Zealanders have been so seriously injured at work in the last year that they have needed more than a week off work. 33,000 is more people than the entire population of Timaru, we clearly have urgent work to do to ensure people are safe at work.”
“Another huge health and safety issue is occupational deaths. Between 750-900 New Zealanders died in the last year as a direct result of work. Many of these deaths are from long term exposure at work to things like asbestos, silica, and other chemicals/substances which has resulted in death.”
“The problems are clear. The solutions include employers needing to do more to enable working people to speak out. Working people need to demand safe and healthy workplaces and to feel empowered and freely able to speak up when they see things at work which are unsafe.”
“The CTU is a member of the ITUC (International Trade Union Confederation) and we support their campaign calling on the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to adopt occupational health and safety as a fundamental right at work,” Wagstaff said.
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO2104/S00202/workers-memorial-day.htm
The 2021 World Day for Safety and Health at Work calls on leveraging the main elements of national OSH systems, highlighting how each element is of equal significance and relevancy when facing these challenges.
Recognizing that a robust national OSH system safeguards lives and livelihoods, it is imperative to have OSH systems well-resourced and robust enough in order to better pre-empt the impacts, tackle the challenges head on, provide resiliency to the world of work, and indirectly positively affecting public health.
The ILO Director General, Guy Ryder and a panel of global leaders and senior representatives from governments, employers and workers’ organizations will provide perspectives and showcase how investing in OSH, both programmatically and financially, contributes to a stronger infrastructure at the national level which is prepared to respond to crises such as COVID-19 and similar events.
Speakers at the Event:
Guy Ryder, ILO Director-General
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director General
Owen Tudor, ITUC Deputy General Secretary
Roberto Suarez Santos, Secretary-General, IOE
Marty Walsh, Secretary of Labor, United States
Gisèle Ranampy, Minister of Labour, Employment, Social Services and Social Law, Madagascar
Vedat Bilgin, Minister of Labour and Social Security, Turkey
Jeannette Galanis, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy, Mine Safety and Health Administration, Department of Labor, United States
Silas Sng, Commissioner for Workplace Safety and Health, Ministry of Manpower, Singapore
Maria Fernanda Campos, Inspector-General, Authority for Working Conditions, Portugal
Selçuk Yasar, Head of International Collaboration Unit, DGOSH, Turkey
Kris De Meester, Senior Advisor, Belgium Federation of Employers
Maureen Onyia, Head of Occupational Health and Safety, Nigeria Labour Congress, Nigeria
Jerson Razafimanantsoa, Director General of Labour and Social, Madagascar
Joaquim Nunes, Branch Chief, LABADMIN/OSH
Manal Azzi, Senior OSH Specialist and Coordinator of the World Day report and campaign
Closing statement:
Vera Paquete-Perdigão, Director, GOVERNANCE, ILO
Moderator:
Femi Oke, Journalist and Moderate the Panel Co-Founder
On 28 April each year, the trade union movement around the globe unites in solidarity to mark International Workers’ Memorial Day (#IWMD21)
This year the theme for the day is A Fundamental Right to Safe and Healthy Work. The call to Remember the Dead and Fight for the Living has never been so relevant and urgent. Over the past year thousands of workers, including in education, have died from Covid-19 and we will never know the true number because many weren’t tested, hospitalised or recorded and reported as work related infections and deaths.
NEU is holding a national zoom rally International Workers’ Memorial Day – Health and Safety: a fundamental right in education – 5.30pm – 6.30pm, Wednesday 28 April,
Speakers include Kevin Courtney – Joint General Secretary, NEU; Deepti Gurdasani – Senior Lecturer in Clinical Epidemiology, Queen Mary University; and Janet Newsham – Hazards Campaign.
28 April. World Day for Safety & Health at Work & Workers Memorial Day. Health & safety is YOUR RIGHT to protection from
COVID-19
Stress
Harassment & bullying
Ergonomics causing pain Trade unions work for your health & safety
28 April. World Day for Safety & Health at Work & Workers Memorial Day.
Health & safety is YOUR RIGHT to protection from
?COVID-19
?Stress
?Harassment & bullying
?Ergonomics causing painTrade unions work for your health & safetyhttps://t.co/ocXK8A102e@etuc_ces #IWMD21 pic.twitter.com/BI2CpUVZc4
— EUROCADRES (@EUROCADRES) April 23, 2021