India should embrace ILO’s historic declaration on workplace safety | K R Shyam Sundar, Aug 28 2022
Read more at: https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/panorama/india-should-embrace-ilo-s-historic-declaration-on-workplace-safety-1140201.html
Incidents such as the gas leakage in chemical and other factories in Andhra Pradesh’s Vizag in May 2020 and Anakapalli district on August 2, 2022, ferroalloy plant in Vizag in September 2021, and the fire accident in unregistered manufacturing electronics units in Mundka, New Delhi, have often occurred.
Given the regular occurrence of industrial accidents, workplace safety in India, despite the so-called “strict and rigid” labour regulations, has become a matter of grave concern. It is in this context we need to understand the adoption of “a safe and healthy working environment” as part of the fundamental and core labour rights by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in June 2022.
The ILO in 1998 adopted the historic declaration: Fundamental Principles of Rights and Work (FPRW). The FPRW recognised four principles of labour standards: freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining; the elimination of all forms of forced or compulsory labour; the effective abolition of child labour; and the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation. For each of them, two ILO conventions were identified as core conventions.
It was expected that the member countries by virtue of their membership of ILO and their commitment to its Constitution, it is their obligation, irrespective of their ratification record of the said ILO conventions, to “respect, to promote and to realise, in good faith” the above-mentioned four sets of principles.
Following the FPRW, ILO and the core conventions enjoyed global legitimacy. India has ratified only six of the eight core conventions. It has not ratified C.87
and C.98 (freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining) for political reasons.
Even a casual perusal and analysis of the FPRW, one can see that the right to work-life safety, minimum wages, social security and others are among the core principles. Differences in economic growth between countries were a possible reason to refrain from adding them. However, the cruel reality of ever-rising workplace accidents globally cannot be disregarded for long.
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Read more at: https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/panorama/india-should-embrace-ilo-s-historic-declaration-on-workplace-safety-1140201.html
