This newspaper has published innumerable reports on safety, or rather the lack of it, at local worksites, more particularly in the construction sector. There have been several accidents, some of which have resulted in the deaths of the workers involved.
As recent as yesterday, a photograph and caption drew attention to workers toiling at dangerous heights on a building under construction at Robb and Camp streets with no safety gear that could protect them in the event of an accident. And while this site was highlighted, it is by no means the only place where such practices occur. In fact, similar practices can be observed at building sites all over this country. Nor is clambering to the top of tall buildings without the necessary safety gear the only perilous task construction workers are expected to perform. Even a perfunctory glance at any construction site will reveal workers exposed to various hazards – all in a day’s work. It would appear, however, that those tasked with ensuring adherence to occupational safety and health regulations in Guyana are either blind and deaf or comatose.
It is a shame that today, with click-of-the-finger access to global markets and with international standards also readily available online, the average construction site labourer must still find ‘old clothes’ with which to go to work and one would be hard pressed to find a construction company that regularly procures harnesses, goggles, gloves, helmets and boots and other typical safety gear for its employees. The workers rarely complain, often for fear of losing their jobs and that fear places yet another burden on the average employee.
Today, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) joins with the rest of the world in observing World Day for Safety and Health at Work under the theme, ‘It’s Time to Lift the Burden’ with the focus being on the toll taken on the health and well-being of workers worldwide by stress in their working environment.
An ILO publication released to mark the day, titled ‘Workplace Stress: A Collective Challenge,’ indicates that more than 40 million people are affected by work-related stress within the EU and that the estimated cost of work-related depression is €617 billion a year.
According to the ILO, stress is the “harmful physical and emotional response caused by an imbalance between the perceived demands and the perceived resources and abilities of individuals to cope with those demands.” The ILO says work-related stress is “determined by work organisation, work design and labour relations and [it] occurs when the demands of the job do not match or exceed the capabilities, resources, or needs of the worker or when the knowledge or abilities of an individual to cope are not matched with expectations of the organizational culture of an enterprise.”
Job-loss fear is one of the psychosocial hazards linked to work-related stress. The labourer climbing to the sixth storey of a building to work with no safety gear does so knowing that if he refused to do it, there would be several others willing to take it on and he might be out of a job. He must therefore, unfairly, one might add, balance his fear of being fired against his fear that he could fall and be injured and make a decision.
Others hazards that contribute to work-related stress include bullying/name calling, discrimination on the basis of gender and sexual harassment; this list is by no means exhausted.
One of the targets of Goal 8 of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals set to be achieved by 2030, is “Protect labour rights and promote safe and secure working environments for all workers, including migrant workers, in particular women migrants, and those in precarious employment.” The ILO noted that safe workplaces extend beyond the protection of workers’ physical safety to their mental and psychological well-being and it pointed to a link between work-related stress, depression and suicide.
Urging that the protection of workers’ mental health focus on preventive strategies, the ILO said, however, that globally there has been an increase in awareness and countries have been making moves towards understanding the issue. There is dire need for similar developments in Guyana, especially given its suicide-capital status and it should be done in tandem with the enforcing of proper construction site standards.
