Business Daily (Nairobi)
Mwaura Kimani
4 November 2009
Labour experts are warning of increased cases of workplace disasters globally as employers cut spending on occupational safety and health in the wake of the global financial crisis.
The slowdown has also left the labour market reeling from layoffs and employment caps.
As one of the cost-cutting measures, employers are considering slashing their occupational safety and health budgets to boost the impact of other strategies such as outsourcing, subcontracting, and increasing part-time work, says researchers at the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
This is likely to lead to more work-place accidents, diseases, fatalities and ill-health from unemployment, severely affecting social security expenditures and productivity.
Mr Hosea Onyoyo, a human resource consultant reckons Kenyan firms are sitting on a time-bomb by cutting the occupational safety and health spend, which constitutes between 10-15 per cent of their budget.
"The item is increasingly becoming a victim of cost cutting measures and this is worrying, " said Mr Onyoyo, a former director of Occupational Safety and Health at the Ministry of Labour."The consequences could be seriously felt in the labour market in future, ," said Mr Onyoyo.
The concern over the possible impact of the cutbacks on the labour market has prompted a meeting for labour experts globally, which begins this morning in Düsseldorf, Germany.
The conference is expected to address a raft of issues, including good practices on prevention and occupational safety and health management, labour inspection, sustainable corporate action, the implementation of standards, the role of the social partners and social security.
According to ILO estimates established before the start of the global financial crisis which has pushed most global economies into near collapse, every 15 seconds a worker dies from a work-related accident or disease globally.
And annually, at least 2.3 million workers die in similar circumstances including close to 360,000 fatal accidents and an estimated 1.95 million fatal work-related diseases.
Hazardous substances cause an estimated 651,000 deaths, mostly in the developing world.
" It is now more important than ever to strengthen tripartite efforts behind promoting safety and health at work and ensuring the proper implementation of occupational safety and health standards, "said Mr Assane Diop, the Executive Director, Social Protection Sector, at the ILO in a statement.
Analysts said persistence of cost-cutting management in executive suites is the clearest signal that the wave of layoffs, freeze in hiring plans and the cutbacks on factory floors that gripped corporate Kenya since late last year is not about to end.
As employers act to reduce their exposure by cutting costs, job opportunities are expected to become scarce even as unemployment rises with increased layoffs and lower corporate profits, which may ultimately result in reduced corporate taxes for the cash-strapped government and depressed returns to shareholders.
"There is normally a temptation for employers to cut spending on health and safety when they want to tame costs, " said Mrs Jacqueline Mugo, the executive director at the Federation of Kenya Employers (FKE) while warning that this could be a costly affair for a firm in the long-run.
"So far, this item has survived the slash in most local firms, "said Ms Mugo.
The concerns come in the wake of recent work place disasters in Kenya that have caused hundreds of deaths over the past two years.
The latest was the collapse of a building under construction in Kiambu a fortnight ago which left at least 16 people dead.
In February, a fire at the Nakumatt Downtown fire caused 30 deaths, activating debate on the subject of safety and compensation of workers.
In September 2007, 10 workers of Devki Steel Mills in Athi River township were killed in an early morning explosion.
Kenya's labour market is undergoing a radical shift following the enactment of five new work-related laws which have sent many employers back to the drawing board for new work policies some of which are causing turbulence.
Human resource departments in most companies have for the last few months been revising their employment policies to factor in the new provisions in what is forcing adjustment of staff budgets in only one direction--up-- calling for a slash in some of the items.
Kenyan employers are, for example, facing a new cost item in their books next year as the government moves to set up the proposed Occupational Safety and Health Fund which will see employers pay a Sh3,000 levy annually meant to reduce injuries and death at the work place.
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