Russia seeks improvement in occupational safety and health
At the first All-Russian OSH Week last week, nearly 3,000 occupational safety and health practitioners, experts, scientists and private sector representatives from Russia and abroad discussed new trends and prospects for promoting safety and health at work, ensuring safe working conditions and protecting workers’ health.
“We need to take urgent steps to reinforce our action and redouble our efforts to create safe and healthy workplaces for all workers,” said Sandra Polaska, Deputy Director-General for Policy for the International Labour Organization (ILO).
“Despite continuous efforts by the International Labour Organization and by many of our constituent governments, workers organizations and employers, the challenge of creating safe and healthy workplaces for all remains enormous.”
The ILO estimates that occupational accidents and work-related diseases cause over 6,300 deaths every day or 2.3 million fatalities a year. Of this huge loss, about 350,000 deaths are caused by occupational accidents and close to 2 million by work-related diseases.
Non-fatal accidents affect an even larger number – over 313 million workers are injured every year – while non-fatal work-related diseases are estimated to affect 160 million each year.