Focus on preventing occupational safety and hygiene rather than overcoming consequences

Nearly 80 union officials from the southern provinces and cities attended the Workshop to collect comments on the draft report summarizing the implementation of the Labor Safety and Hygiene Law organized by the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor on June 16 in Ho Chi Minh City.

Nearly 68,660 cases of work-related accidents killed 7,256 people

According to the draft summary report, after the Law on Occupational Safety and Hygiene was issued, occupational safety and hygiene (OSH) has achieved many positive results. The awareness and responsibility of Party committees, Party organizations, authorities, agencies, organizations, enterprises, employees and society are raised.

Policies and laws on occupational safety and health continue to be improved, expanding the scope of application to areas without labor relations. The work of preventing, assessing risks, controlling dangerous and harmful factors, taking care of employees' health, improving working conditions and risk support mechanisms for businesses and employees has received more attention.

However, occupational safety and health work has not met requirements. In some places, enterprises, production and business establishments, and employees have not attached importance to occupational safety and health; In many places, employees and employers' awareness of law compliance is not strict. The number of occupational accidents has not decreased, occupational diseases have not received due attention, especially in areas without labor relations.

In the period of 2016 - 2024, there were nearly 68,660 cases of TNLD across the country, causing 72,448 victims, including 7,146 cases of fatal TNLD causing 7,256 deaths, and 137 serious TNLD cases were proposed by TNLD investigation teams to be prosecuted.

However, this statistic does not fully and comprehensively reflect the situation of labor relations nationwide because only about 10% of enterprises implement the labor relations reporting regulation, mainly enterprises operating large-scale industrial production.

Also during this period, over 18.3 million employees were given periodic health check-ups, over 3.1 million employees were given CNTT examinations and nearly 31,000 employees were diagnosed with CNTT.

Need to develop a new Law on Occupational Safety and Hygiene

According to Mr. Nguyen Anh Tho - Director of the Institute of Occupational Safety and Hygiene Science, Vietnam General Confederation of Labor - many legal regulations on occupational safety and health are slow to update compared to the development of practice. The work on vsATLD still focuses on overcoming consequences without focusing on prevention, the organization of health rehabilitation training only focuses on meals without focusing on other solutions such as exercise.

At the workshop, many opinions suggested that it is necessary to increase the use of surplus from the Labor Union - MSF to invest in research, monitoring, vaccination, and prevention of labor Union - MSF, focusing on prevention rather than overcoming the consequences because this fund has a large surplus.

At the same time, separate occupational safety and hygiene training into a separate amount, assigning the union to preside over and develop insurance, occupational accident and disease audit services, etc.

It is necessary to develop a new Law on Occupational Safety and Hygiene in line with the Law on Social Insurance, and increase the application of science and technology in the work of inspection, control and prevention of occupational accidents and diseases.

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