For nine years now, every year on April 28, World Labor Safety Day has been celebrated. At one time, the International Labor Protection Organization decided in this way to draw attention to this problem. After all, the number of deaths and injuries to employees in the workplace is growing every year.
Unfortunately, Russia is no exception in this regard. In our country, labor protection has a long history. It all began with the Russian Empire, back in 1882. It was then that a factory inspection was created, the main task of which, in addition to monitoring, was to monitor employers - their compliance with all labor protection rules. Children and adolescents, of which there were many in factories in those years, received special attention. 21 years after this, in 1903, rules were laid out on the provision of compensation to those workers who suffered in the workplace. In the event of the death of the employee, compensation was paid to his immediate family.
The history of the holiday itself, which is called Labor Safety Day, began in the USA and Canada. In 1989, the trade unions of these countries staged a "Day of Remembrance of the Fallen Workers." After only ten years, more than a hundred states of the world adopted this experience and began to draw the attention of statesmen to such a glaring problem as labor protection in every possible legal way. And finally, the holiday began to be celebrated under its modern name - Labor Protection Day. Thus, more and more countries began to realize the magnitude of this problem. The data provided by the International Labor Organization are simply shocking: about six thousand people in the world die every day at work! And this figure is increasing by 10% every year. All these deaths are mostly associated with savings on safety equipment, thereby the employer reduces the market value of the product, which seems extremely beneficial to him. The hackneyed phrase about the inevitability of occupational diseases should be eradicated from the vocabulary of employers once and for all.
The ILO itself, the founder of such a holiday as International Labor Protection Day, was created by a structural unit of the League of Nations in the distant 1919. The activists of this organization were the Social Democrats of America and Europe. Its charter was developed by the Peace Conference Labor Commission. This charter was included in the Treaty of Versailles.
Today, more than a hundred countries hold rallies, marches, and actions in support of workers, and not only on Labor Protection Day. Most enterprises and organizations in Russia actively support such events.
The ILO provides such disappointing data: more than 2 million people die every year due to accidents and diseases caused by professional activities. Plus, 270 suffer from workplace injuries. More than 160 million people get medical records due to occupational diseases. About 600 thousand industrial accidents are registered only in the CIS countries. These by no means gloomy figures should make all employers think about the organization of working conditions, that safety at work should be above all. You just can’t save on security, this is unacceptable. And it is precisely at this moment that the attention of employers is emphasized by specialists of international services.
The ILO says that 4% of world GDP is lost precisely as a result of careless attitude of employers to the working conditions created in the workplace. It is also worth considering that deaths due to accidents and occupational diseases should not be “costs of the profession”. And Labor Protection Day is another reason to think about the safety of employees in the workplace.