World Day For Safety And Health At Work
The World Day for Safety and Health at Work is April 28. It is an annual international campaign to promote safe, healthy, and decent work conditions. It is estimated that workdays lost to Occupational Safety and Health-related causes represent almost 4 percent of global GDP, in some countries as much as 6 percent.
By far the greatest proportion of current work-related deaths, 86 percent, come from disease. An estimated 6,500 people a day die from occupational diseases, compared to 1,000 a day from fatal occupational accidents.
Organizers stress that an occupational safety and health culture is one in which every worker has the right to a safe and healthy working environment. A healthy and safe culture is respected at all levels, where governments, employers, and workers actively participate in securing a safe and healthy working environment.
Growing challenges include psychosocial risks, work-related stress, and non-communicable diseases, notably circulatory and respiratory diseases, and cancers.
History
World Day for Safety and Health at Work was organized by the International Labor Organization in 2003. It coincides with the April 28 International Commemoration Day for Dead and Injured Workers.
Background
In 2003, the International Labour Organization (ILO), began to observe World Day in order to stress the prevention of accidents and diseases at work, capitalizing on the ILO’s traditional strengths of tripartism and social dialogue.
This celebration is an integral part of the Global Strategy on Occupational Safety and Health of the ILO, as documented in the Conclusions of the International Labour Conference in June 2003. One of the main pillars of the Global Strategy is advocacy, the World Day for Safety and Health at Work is a significant tool to raise awareness of how to make work safe and healthy and of the need to raise the political profile of occupational safety and health.
28 April is also the International Commemoration Day for Dead and Injured Workers organized worldwide by the trade union movement since 1996.
