Ruling on work safety urgent
Ruling on work safety urgent
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The government should immediately issue a regulation requiring
occupational safety and health (OSH) programs in small
enterprises and home industries to avoid unnecessary accidents at
work and a reduction in employee productivity, according to an
expert with the International Labor Organization.
"Extending legal protection to all workers, in both the formal
and informal sectors, will increase the safety culture at
workplaces," said Ingrid Christensen, the senior OSH specialist
for the ILO's subregional office for South Asia.
She said that Sri Lanka had enacted legislation that required
all companies, regardless of how many workers they employed, to
implement OSH programs.
"Thailand is also preparing similar legislation to cover
domestic workers," she said.
More than two million people die of work-related causes and
160 million fall ill globally due to workplace hazards each year,
according to data from ILO. A significant number of deaths come
from workers in small enterprises, where conditions are often
very poor and employees have no form of labor protection.
Although Law No. 13/2003 on labor stipulates that all
employers must have an OSH system in place, the necessary
government regulation to implement the law has not been issued.
The Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration said last year
that they were preparing a draft regulation that would provide
guidelines for OSH standards in small and medium enterprises
(SMEs) that employ less than 50 people. More than 90 percent of
the 170,000 companies registered with the ministry are SMEs,
which employ the majority of Indonesia's workforce of about 95
million.
As of last year, less than 400 of the approximately 15,000
large companies in Indonesia had complied with the OSH
requirements, according to the ministry's data. The ministry has
blamed the lack of labor inspectors for the low compliance rate.
Data from the state-owned insurance firm PT Jamsostek, showed
that last year, seven people died of work-related causes each
day, while 38 workers suffered accidents daily.
The ILO estimates that this number is higher due to
underreporting and because Jamsostek only covers 7.5 million
active workers. It estimated that work-related accidents claimed
46 lives daily last year.(002)