The annual World Day for Workplace Safety and Health is commemorated on April 28th. The commemoration also falls on the same day as the global International Commemoration Day for Dead and Injured Workers. The World Day for Workplace Safety and Health promotes safe, healthy, and decent working conditions.
Occupational accidents or diseases claim the lives of 6,300 individuals every day, totaling more than 2.3 million deaths each year. Every year, 317 million workplace accidents occur, with many of these resulting in extended absences from work. The human cost of this daily challenge is enormous, and poor occupational safety and health policies are estimated to cost the global economy 4% of GDP each year.
The World Day for Occupational Safety and Health at Work raises awareness and promotes methods to help reduce occupational diseases and accidents around the world. It entails the creation and upkeep of a reliable Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) management system. And, since the pandemic, the OSH management system has taken on even greater significance. The International Labor Organization’s (ILO) campaign for the 2017 World Day for Occupational Safety and Health at Work emphasizes the crucial need for countries to strengthen their capacity to collect and utilize reliable occupational safety and health (OSH) data.
The History
The International Labor Organization first commemorated World Day for Workplace Safety and Health on 28th April 2003. It emphasizes the necessity of preventing workplace accidents and infections. The day is seen as a critical tool for forging a strong political position on workplace safety and health. On September 25, 2015, the United Nations adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which includes a global plan of action with specific goals to end poverty, protect the environment, and ensure prosperity for all. With its acceptance, countries’ ability to collect and use reliable OSH data has become critical to meeting their commitments to implement and report on some of the agenda’s 17 sustainable development goals and targets.
The Theme of World Day For Safety And Health at Work 2022
This year’s World Day for Workplace Safety and Health theme is ‘Act together to build a positive safety and health culture’, which will focus on the importance of social conversation and participation in fostering a good safety and health culture. This subject encourages employers to build a strong workplace health and safety culture in which everyone contributes to a safe and healthy workplace.
Today on the 28th of April 2022, various organizations, including the United Nations, the International Labor Organization (ILO), communities, government bodies, and individuals who advocate for better workplace health will join forces to promote an international campaign called World Day for Safety and Health at Work.
The Significance of World Day For Safety And Health at Work
Because most of us spend a significant amount of time at work, it is critical to maintain healthy standards there in order to avoid any type of workplace accident.
- The World Day for Safety and Health at Work is commemorated to raise public awareness of workplace accidents.
The International Labour Organization (ILO) has designated this day to focus on preventing workplace accidents and diseases around the world.
- It’s essentially a public awareness campaign that exposes growing problems in workplace safety and health. The main goal is to raise international awareness of the issue’s importance in order to promote a healthy work culture and reduce work-related deaths and injuries.
- The day also commemorates the International Commemoration Day for Dead and Injured Workers, which has been observed by the trade union movement around the world since 1996. In addition, the ILO publishes a handbook and disseminates information on this topic.
- In many regions of the world, worker safety remains a bourgeois concept. It’s because, in some places, the needs of this industrial, mass-producing world outweigh the worth of human life. As a result, the annual World Day for Occupational Safety and Health at Work emphasizes the importance of workplace safety and health.
It’s worth noting that the pressure to maintain high safety and health standards is equitably distributed across all sectors of society. This means that it is the role of policymakers to draught rules and regulations that ensure employment. It is the responsibility of employers to create a safe and healthy working environment. Employees bear the responsibility for working safely and putting their health first.
A national occupational safety and health culture is one in which the right to a safe and healthy workplace is respected at all levels, where governments, employers, and employees all actively participate in securing a safe and healthy workplace through a system of defined rights, responsibilities, and duties, and where the principle of prevention is given top priority. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Happy World Day for Safety and Health at Work!!
