24.04.2008 // Information Department of Leningrad NPP

Labor Protection Month has started at Leningrad NPP

On Apr 28 the world community will mark the World Day for Safety and Health at Work for the 13th time. This day was introduced by the International Labor Organization in 1996, following the action of American and Canadian workers who gathered in 1989 to commemorate their colleagues killed or injured at work.

Just a few words about the International Labor Organization (ILO):

The International Labour Organization (ILO) is the tripartite UN agency that brings together governments, employers and workers of its member states in common action to promote decent work throughout the world.

The ILO was founded in 1919, in the wake of a destructive war, to pursue a vision based on the premise that universal, lasting peace can be established only if it is based upon decent treatment of working people. The ILO became the first specialized agency of the UN in 1946.

The ILO is devoted to advancing opportunities for women and men to obtain decent and productive work in conditions of freedom, equity, security and human dignity. Its main aims are to promote rights at work, encourage decent employment opportunities, enhance social protection and strengthen dialogue in handling work-related issues.

In promoting social justice and internationally recognized human and labor rights, the organization continues to pursue its founding mission that labor peace is essential to prosperity. Today, the ILO helps advance the creation of decent jobs and the kinds of economic and working conditions that give working people and business people a stake in lasting peace, prosperity and progress.

The ILO Constitution sets forth the principle that workers should be protected from sickness, disease and injury arising from their employment. Yet for millions of workers the reality is very different. Some two million people die every year from work-related accidents and diseases. An estimated 160 million people suffer from work-related diseases, and there are an estimated 270 million fatal and non-fatal work-related accidents per year. The suffering caused by such accidents and illnesses to workers and their families is incalculable. In economic terms, the ILO has estimated that 4% of the world’s annual GDP is lost as a consequence of occupational diseases and accidents. Employers face costly early retirements, loss of skilled staff, absenteeism, and high insurance premiums due to work-related accidents and diseases.

Yet the ILO believes – and the director of Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant shares its opinion — that many of these tragedies are preventable through the implementation of sound prevention, reporting and inspection practices. ILO standards on occupational safety and health provide essential tools for governments, employers, and workers to establish such practices and to provide for maximum safety at work.

In 2006 the ILO adopted a Promotional Framework for Occupational Safety and Health Convention. This Convention aims at promoting a preventative safety and health culture and progressively achieving a safe and healthy working environment. It requires ratifying States to develop, in consultation with the most representative organizations of employers and workers, a national policy, national system, and national program on occupational safety and health. The national policy shall be developed in accordance with the principles of Article 4 of the Occupational Safety and Health Convention, 1981 (No. 155), and the national systems and programs shall be developed taking into account the principles set out in relevant ILO instruments. A list of relevant instruments is contained in the Annex to the Promotional Framework for Occupational Safety and Health Recommendation, 2006 (No. 197). National systems shall provide the infrastructure for implementing national policy and programs on occupational safety and health, such as laws and regulations, authorities or bodies, compliance mechanisms including systems of inspection, and arrangements at the level of the undertaking. National programs shall include time-bound measures to promote occupational safety and health, enabling a measuring of progress.

The ILO points out that certain progress has been achieved in the field of labor protection in the last years. For example, in Thailand the accident rate per 1,000 workers dropped from 40 in 1997 to 29 in 2004.

Singapore’s safety standards have improved steadily over the past 20 years, but in 2002 its workplace fatality rate at 4.9 per 100,000 employees was still higher than the European Union’s average rate of 2.5. In 2004, 83 people lost their lives in work-related accidents here.

Therefore, the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) formulated a new occupational safety and work (OSH) framework to make possible significant improvements in the safety and health of Singapore’s workers — with the ambitious goal to propel Singapore to the world’s top ten safest places to work in the world. While the ultimate goal is for zero fatalities, MOM will first strive to reduce deaths at workplaces by a third in five years, and then by half within a decade or sooner.

Singapore’s decades-old Factories Act was replaced by the new Workplace Safety and Health Act in March 2006. Companies have to establish an OSH management system, identify and manage OSH risks at work and foster a strong OSH culture so that all employees can stay healthy and safe while at work. With the enactment of the new OSH Act, the Ministry of Manpower decided to increase its staff on OSH by 50 per cent (from 200 to 300) and established a new OSH inspectorate.

To raise safety awareness and cultivate a safety culture in all stakeholders at workplaces, MOM launched an inaugural National OSH Week on 28 April 2005, in conjunction with the World Day for Safety and Health at Work as declared by the ILO. The week features seminars and roadshows, with active support and participation from different industries.

That’s what developed capitalist countries are doing to improve their occupational safety and health situation.

And what the director of Leningrad NPP Valery Lebedev can say about this?

“They in Singapore were absolutely right when adopting the Factories Act obliging their companies to establish OSH management system. But if you come to our plant you will see that we have long outrun Thailand and Singapore in this field – due to the Socialist ancestry of our industry. Our labor protection systems were established and developed simultaneously with new types of industrial and agricultural production. And our «Alma Mater,“ the Ministry of Medium Machine Building, had very tough labor protection rules. Our nuclear power industry and its labor protection system have always been controlled by the state and, therefore, have been improved on a constant basis. So, we have old and strong traditions of labor protection.

The ILO is just starting to promote such concepts as “OSH management system,” “social protection for all,” “social partnership.” They in Singapore imposed OSH rules in March 2006, while we have had such rules from the very beginning.

The “social partnership” term is new for our country. It emerged in the West as a result of the opposition of employees and employers (owners): after long and violent “battles,” the parties realized that they could solve their problems through peaceful talks rather than ferocious combats 

In our case, that is, at state companies, the concept of “social partnership” is not very appropriate as we constitute a single team and have common interests and goals. I don’t think that our managers – starting from foreman up to heads of departments – have different interests and goals concerning labor protection. In fact, this is our common priority. We have a common goal: to ensure the safe and efficient work of our plant, to produce as much electricity as planned and to stably supply it to our consumers – and, certainly, to care for all of our workers, that is, to observe the principle of “social protection for all.”

We have a collective agreement and its social protection and OSH principles cover all people working at our plant. So, in our case “social partnership” is just an instrument for solving common problems and achieving common goals rather than a peace treaty of two combating parties – as is the case in capitalist states.

Everybody knows that our present collective agreement — just like the previous ones — contains a labor protection paragrpah that clearly specifies the duties and responsibilities of both parties. The responsibilities of the employer are formulated in 32 points and all of them clearly say what we should do to ensure effective labor protection at the plant. The 4 points concerning the employees oblige them to comply with the labor protection rules. To comply with 4 points is much easier than with 32 ones but we, as the employer, do it conscientiously – you can ask our employees and they will tell that we do. We have received no remarks from them so far. During the last Mar 28 conference, the parties confirmed that in 2007 all the provisions of the collective agreement, including the “labor Protection” paragraph, were fulfilled. This does not mean that we can relax and repose on our laurels. Yes, we haven’t had accidents for many years but we still have instances of neglect of the labor protection rules. So, we have much to do yet.

Now, I would like to tell you about the results of our work since the beginning of this year. Our Labor Protection Commission has inspected labor conditions at the reactor, turbine and electric departments. The detected deficiencies are being eliminated. A commission of Rosenergoatom Concern inspected our plant on Mar 3–7. It was the fourth level of control. We have considered their remarks and have worked out a plan of corrective action. I would like to point out that we are individualizing the process of labor protection control: presently, we are distributing individual responsibility cards – if an employee violates any labor protection rule we will take the card from him and impose relevant measures.  

We have long started to mark the World Day for Safety and Health At Work by specific deeds, particularly, by enhancing our compliance with the OSH rules. On Apr 21 we started a month of safety and health at work. It will last till May 26. In the framework of this campaign we are planning to conduct a contest among our departments: they will be divided into four groups, which will show what they have done in the field of labor protection. The winners of the contest will be remunerated – we have allocated a total of 600,000 RUR for this purpose against 400,000 RUR last year. So, here too we are ahead of Singapore: they conduct a National OSH week, while we conduct a whole OSH month.»  

Ludmila Romanova