Discussion
Globalization and Occupational Health
Major traditional occupational health needs still prevail among the global workforce. In addition, due to the rapid changes in economic structures, technologies and demography, new occupational health needs have appeared. Globalization has deep-going effects on the working life and the conditions of work everywhere in the world.
Growing internationalization, global competition, changes in the regulatory strategies, major changes in enterprise structures and associated technology changes must now be taken into consideration in policies affecting working life.
A fear is that more flexible labor policies may lead to a weakening of commitment to occupational health and safety programs. The stress of global competition may lead employers to view the prevention of occupational injuries and protection of workers’ health not as an integral part of quality management, but as a barrier to trade.
Freer trade as part of globalization has already led to a number of adverse occupational health impacts:
- pesticides that are banned in certain countries are still sold in others, causing hazards for agricultural workers and consumers
- machines that are obsolete in some countries, and often in a poor or hazardous condition, are transferred to low income countries
- the development of free trade zones, where occupational health and environmental legislation may be poor and where hazardous or strenuous production processes are concentrated.
Dr Rene Loewenson, Director, Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) in Occupational Health and Safety, Harare Zimbabwe, has recently published a paper entitled: Globalization and occupational health: a perspective from southern Africa in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 2001, 79: 863-868.
Abstract Increased world trade has generally benefited industrialized or strong economies and marginalized those that are weak. This paper examines the impact of globalization on employment trends and occupational health, drawing on examples from southern Africa. While the share of world trade to the world’s poorest countries has decreased, workers in these countries increasingly find themselves in insecure, poor-quality jobs, sometimes involving technologies which are obsolete or banned in industrialized countries. The occupational illness which results is generally less visible and not adequately recognized as a problem in low-income countries. Those outside the workplace can also be affected through, for example, work-related environmental pollution and poor living conditions. In order to reduce the adverse effects of global trade reforms on occupational health, stronger social protection measures must be built into production and trade activities, including improved recognition, prevention, and management of work-related ill-health. Furthermore, the success of production and trade systems should be judged on how well they satisfy both economic growth and population health.
This entire article, and other articles on globalization and health, may be viewed online in Issue No. 9 of the Bulletin.
A further discussion of globalization is available in the African Newsletter on Occupational Health and Safety, Volume 11, Number 3, December 2001.
WHO has contributed an article to this issue of the African Newsletter, Mobilizing to Protect Worker’s Health: The WHO Global Strategy on Occupational Health and Safety. Goldstein G, Helmer R, and Fingerhut M.
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