Malaysia is one of Asia's biggest employers of foreign labour. But recently, cases of deaths, abuse and forced labour have come to light. What is going on? Who is protecting these migrant workers?
"Seeking continuous improvement in occupational safety and
health must be an ongoing task for the government, employees, all the relevant
parties," the deputy prime minister said.
<P>He said the Malaysian government
was fully committed to creating a safety culture to reduce health hazards and
accidents in the workplace in all sectors, including the service sector.</P><P>"Although
accidents can and do happen, there are various measures that could be adopted
to limit their occurrence," he said when opening the Conference of Occupational
Health and Safety for the Service Sectors here.</P><P>The two-day conference organised
by Asean/OSHnet/Uni-Apro and the National Institute of Occupational Safety and
Health (Niosh) is participated by union leaders and safety officers in various
sectors from the Asean countries.</P><P>"Accidents can be reduced if we make
prudent and cautious work practices part of our culture. Meticulousness about
safety must be a core value for all our workers.</P><P>"We must always remember
that even if we have the most perfect systems in place, the best and most modern
equipment and the most sophisticated tools, it will all be meaningless in combating
disasters in the workplace if human behaviour is not altered and changed for the
better," Najib said.</P><P>He said everyone at the workplace must be driven
to the reality that negligence should not be tolerated and safety must never be
compromised.</P><P>The deputy prime minister said he was satisfied with the drop
in the number of industrial accidents in Malaysia, but warned against complacency.</P><P>He
said the number of industrial accidents in the country had decreased by almost
60 per cent from 121,593 in 1993 to 43,885 in 2005.</P><P>"That is a highly
commendable achievement and is even more so if we take into account the substantial
increase in the workforce over the same period.</P><P>"However, there is
no room for complacency as the total compensation cost that was paid by Socso
(Social Security Organisation) last year accounted for almost RM890 million,"
he added.</P><P>He said there was a difference in the number of fatalities and
occupational accidents between developed and developing countries.</P><P>The rapidly
industrialising countries reported high fatal accident frequency rates of 12 to
17 cases for 100,000 workers in Indonesia, Thailand, Korea and Malaysia against
three for every 100,000 workers in Japan, Canada and Australia, he said.</P><P>"I
hope that in the next five years, the frequency and severity of occupational diseases
and fatal accidents in the Asean region can be reduced by up to 20 per cent as
outlined by the Department of Occupational Safety and Health (Dosh)," he
added. — BERNAMA</P>
<P><I>Source: http://www.bernama.com.my/bernama/v3/news.php?id=253310</I>
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