Since 2014, the idea of a safer workplace for all Belizean employees materialized in the form of a draft piece of legislation known as the OSH, or Occupational Safety and Health Bill.
This bill was specifically designed by the Barrow Government to set minimum standards for best-practices in the work environment. In its original form, however, the nation's employers disagree with its implementation. They asserted that it placed too heavy a burden on them to create that safe working environment.
So, recognizing the pushback against the bill, it was never passed it into law, even though it was tabled in the House. Since then, the Belize Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the National Trade Union Congress of Belize have formed a committee to closely examine the bill, and try to arrive at a final position on it.
But, advice can be the worst vice, and the result is that even after all that time, the OSH bill hasn't been passed into law. So now, the Social Security Board is urging both sides to finish up their discussions on how it should improve. They say that they have paid out millions of dollars in employment injury benefits to cover workers got hurt on the job and that if there were best practices for safety, many of these injuries could have been avoided.
So, to put things into perspective about the importance they see in the OSH bill, the SSB organized an event called the Employment Injury Forum.
CEO Colin Young told us why all sides need to work together to press the government into passing the legislation as soon as possible.
Here's that interview:
Dr. Colin Young - CEO, SSB
"Today, we're having a Social Security Employment Injury forum, and the purpose of the forum is the engage employers and employees on the need to really advance the OSH legislation. As a part of that SSB is willing to provide assistance where it can, particularly data, as it relates to the number of injuries that occur throughout the year. We made the point, that over the last couple of years, including this year, for example, the number of deaths that results from workplace injury has increased significantly. Those employment injuries have real costs to the Social Security Board. In fact, in 2018, we spent 5.7 million dollars in employment-related injuries. Over the last 10 years, we've spent over 53 million dollars in injury benefits to workers. So our concern is not the fact that we are paying this money, because that is why we exist. The issue is how much of that is preventable, and to the extent that that is 10%, 20%, 30% preventable or higher, that represents costs that the Board will not have to spend, which means that the sustainability of the fund, of Social Security, would benefit from that."
The CEO also shared a few examples of where many work-related injuries would have been avoided, had there been minimum safety standards for those workplaces:
Dr. Colin Young - CEO, SSB
"I think most of the deaths recently that occurred in the construction industry, where people would fall off scaffolding because they didn't have harnesses and those kinds of things readily come to mind. They're cases were employees lose arms or fingers, and so on, because there wasn't any guard on the machines that they were using. The same thing with employees whether they're painting a house, and they fall off. There is sometimes injury [due] to chopping incidents because they didn't have hard boots and those kinds of things readily come to mind. In fact, the 3 sectors with the largest number of employment injuries are first agriculture, manufacturing, and construction. Those would account combined - I think - for well over 60% of the injuries that we see."
"To workers, the costs are much more than just the injury. There's the psychological cost, the mental cost, the impact on families."
"We understand and know that the current legislation that was proposed is very onerous on the employers. And so, they're advancing the conversation to say that they're willing to participate along with the Labour, but they have to find something that works for both sides. And so, we're saying that to the extent that we can participate and help that conversation, we stand ready."
The last time that we spoke with the BCCI President about the state of the OSH bill was back in September, and he assured us that both the Chamber and the labor unions have been working diligently to finalize the draft legislation.
Email
Print