Resistance to occupational safety

By Melody Kemp

JAKARTA (JP): Watching the construction of luxury apartments that are soon to be an extension of one of the most prestigious hotels in the city is quite fascinating.

The construction workers wear neither hard hats nor protective foot wear. The multistory site is not swathed in protective mesh designed to catch errant flying tools. No barriers are erected on the edge of each floor to prevent falls, nor are workers wearing harnesses for high-rise tasks. The site itself is a mess, spilling over onto the road. Why is this still allowed to happen? This is after all, Jakarta, which prides itself on development and modernity.

Similar appalling conditions were also to be seen recently at the construction site next door to a hotel owned by Minister of Manpower Abdul Latief.

Such horrible working conditions are far different from construction sites in Vietnam, where construction sites are tightly controlled -- safety-conscious scenes are comparable with anything found in countries of the "North". Huge notice boards in Vietnamese and English clearly spell out regulations to be followed on site and remind contractors of the workers' rights to participate, contribute to safety and stop work if safety is compromised.

The issue of occupational health and safety arose two weeks ago with the news in The Jakarta Post that 100 construction workers had died so far this year. While this total is shocking, even more shocking is the total number of deaths and crippling injuries that are the darker side of industrial development in Indonesia. The poor record-keeping and the employment systems that keep many (women) workers on daily contracts, mean that one can only hazard a guess at the actual dimension of deaths and injuries per year. They would clearly outpace AIDS-related deaths. And yet, while AIDS attracts millions of dollars of funding, occupational (and vehicular) accidents barely raise a murmur.

Occupational health and safety (OHS) represents the interface between economic growth and social justice -- the ethics by which capitalism is mediated. The adoption of and compliance with labor codes on health and safety can be regarded as an indicator of the degree to which a country is committed to the development of its people, not merely economic growth for the few. Concepts of sustainability in development need to give policy direction to workers' rights to participate in workers' health and well-being -- in addition to the enhancing their rights. They, after all, fuel the economic trajectory taken by governments in their plans for economic and social change.

Occupational health and safety have been regarded too long as add-on's, rather than integral to the process of development, and have come to represent the divide between "us and them".

Meanwhile, a scene of school children dangerously swerving and linking arms as they ride bicycles also indicates that the culture of safety cannot be assumed to exist in Indonesia.

The culture of safety is one in which each individual is conscious of and integrally involved in the safety and well-being of himself or herself and that of others. It implies taking responsibility for one's actions, and having a sense of consequence for both the individual and the wider community.

In a developed country, the culture of safety is learned at school in social studies, in bicycle and road safety classes, and through a simmering process of acculturation, in which one recognizes and adheres to laws and regulations created for the common good and which serve rich and poor alike.

In light of this, is there any room for what the great intellectual Soedjatmoko referred to in 1977 as "moral vision" which seeks "to redress the balance between economic efficiency and justice, between competitiveness on one hand and a spirit of sharing on the other", for surely preserving the health and safety of workers, children and the community at large is the greatest act of sharing and accordance of justice?

To appreciate the importance of OHS, one has to explore the concept of risk. Many unenlightened foreigners typify Asian concepts of risk as fatalistic -- one's life depending on the mere roll of heavenly dice. However risk is based on logic and to a lesser degree on maths. Bernstein, in his wonderful study of risk, recounts that Arab invaders of India learned from the Hindu's concepts of mathematics which they later transformed into astronomy, navigation and commerce. Within that pattern of logic based on mathematics, the concept of risk emerged in the Arabic empires, countering the belief in randomness. This flame of intellect was to be submerged with the Crusades and the horrendously destructive burning of Islamic books of learning in Spain and Baghdad. The Dark Ages descended, and fatalism did re- emerge in the traumatized history.

But the logic and numbers took root elsewhere and have their modern incarnation in risk management and assessment which, along with safety engineering, occupational hygiene, medicine and OHS education, ensures that all manner of firms maintain profitable and productive profiles.

So what is going on in an Indonesia that espouses the rhetoric of competitiveness and globalization and yet wastes the talents of trained and skilled workers through lack of attention to the spirit and the culture of OHS? Foreigners are wont to say: "Ah, but in Indonesia life is cheap." What is true is that people have limited rights and access to OHS education.

So how do Indonesian workers and managers achieve health values? The major source is information and education. However, at present no systematic way exists by which all Indonesian workers can access OHS information and education. For various reasons, the officially sanctioned trade union has a low membership rate, and the labor-focused non-governmental organizations (NGO), when not fighting for recognition and battling accusations, do not have national coverage. They do not have the capacity to inflict or influence change.

In addition, there seems little interest in devolving power to the "stakeholders", in this case workers, which would allow them, through the internationally recognized mechanism of self- regulation mediated by worker/management safety committees, to actively participate in their own OHS programs. This again stands in startling contrast to Vietnam where trade unions and government agencies are collaborating to train safety delegates, particularly women, to record and report breaches of the tough Labor Code. This approach was already implemented in some of the small islands of the Pacific in the 1980s, so it cannot be simply dismissed as "Western meddling".

Women in Indonesia seem to be leading the battle for workers rights and human dignity. Their enthusiasm and intelligence, despite rudimentary education was breathtaking and made me realize the power and possibilities of national worker education in OHS. Complex issues of chemical safety and ergonomics were easily understood, as it was the currency of their lives.

But the dark side was the number of cases of cancer of the bladder in young women textile workers, testimony to the use of carcinogenic dyestuffs; and the reports of so many of the young women whose bodies had stopped menstruating after they commenced work.

Women, whose labor fuels the export-led industries that have contributed to Indonesia's rapid growth, were already tired -- tired of the loud noises of the machinery which follows them home, tired of the sexual harassment, tired of the forced overtime, tired of the intense physical effort they had to put into work, tired because their bosses said they would become lazy if they were given comfortable chairs, so they labor for ten hours per day on a stool.

But the tiredness faded and the lights went on. They lived again. However as well-motivated and informed as they were, the women came up against enormous and illogical resistance.

The battle for workers rights and human dignity is far from over.

The writer is trainer in occupational health and safety.