Promote Safety Culture at Work in Vietnam

Good performance of occupation­ al safety and health (OSH) has been increasingly important in the context of the developing economy where various kinds of complicated machines, equip­ ment, materials and technologies are put in use, requiring more technical and professional skills as well as working disci­pline. The development of mod­ern and civilized industrial soci­ety calls for more comprehensive behavioral attitude and aware­ ness of OSH performance. In oth­er words, it is necessary to de­velop safety culture at work at all levels, particularly at enter­ prises and workplace.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) refers safety culture at work as "a culture in which the worker's right to work in a safe and healthy working environment is respected by all levels and which brings govern­ ments, employers and workers together to secure a safe and healthy working environment through a system of defined rights, responsibilities and duties in which the principle ofpreven­ tion is accorded the highest pri­ ority."

In Vietnam, at the dawn of nation's independence, in an ef­fort to empower the workers to enjoy a safe and healthy working environment, President Ho Chi Minh issued Ordinance No 29/SL dated 12 March 1947 stip­ulating in details measures for ensuring safe and healthy work­ing conditions for the workers. The viewpoint of this right of our Party and State has been also re­ flected in political reports and di­ rectives of the Party Secretari­ at, and resolutions and docu­ments of the Communist Party'. Looking back at the country's development process ofthe OSH performance, we can see that safety culture at work has been taken into shape at national lev­ el as reflected by the Govern­ment issuing a quite appropriate system of legal documents on OSH, establishing a legal corri­ dor for the implementation of labour protection. This system includes regulations and policies on labour protection for the workers such as in-kind allow­ ances, PPE provision, working time, rest time, compensation for occupational accidents and dis­ eases, occupational hygiene stan­ dards, standards on labour clas­ sification by working conditions, and registration and verification of machines, equipment, mate­ rials and substances with strict OSH requirements ... These doc­ uments display the principle of prioritizing prevention of occupational accidents and diseases in industry, agriculture, trade and services with the aim of better safeguarding the health of work­ ers and securing their right to work in a safe and healthy work­ ing environment.

In parallel with the gradual­ly accomplished system of legal OSH documents, the apparatus of labour protection has been also consolidated in the appropri­ ate direction of State inspection integration, lessening troubles for enterprises and improving the efficiency of OSH inspection. The establishment of OSH Training Centre has marked the new stride of propagation and training activities with a view to raising awareness of OSH by employers and employees. More­ over, that the National Council has been set up is of great im­ portance to consultancy for the Government to make decisions on labour protection. Activities of scientific research, informa­ tion and propaganda are contin­ uously renewed, helping raise awareness of OSH by the em­ ployers, employees and commu­ nity. The National Network of OSH Information not only oper­ ates for transmission and dis­ semination of domestic informa­ tion but also for integration into the region. The national week for OSH and fire-explosion preven­ tion has become a festive day of labour protection for a mass of workers, industries, levels and production and business estab­ lishments. Strengthened inter­ national cooperation in the field of OSH has helped Vietnam to learn and share experience and improve its OSH performance. Vietnam is also the first Asian countries to adopt Convention 155 on OSH and to come to adopting Convention 184 on OSH in agriculture.

Along with developing safe­ ty culture at work at the nation­ allevel, employers have promot­ ed safety culture at workplaces through better compliance with regulations on OSH, more in­ vestment, application of new sci­ entific and technological advanc­ es, active application of WISE method (Working Improvement in Small and Medium Enterpris­es and the ILO's OSH manage­ ment system (ILO-OSH 2001). The National Council of Labour Protection and the grassroots network of OSH collaborators have been set up with over 153,000 members. A large num­ ber of enterprises and establish­ ments have formed OSH infor­ mation network to boost propa­ganda and training in OSH for the workers. Many emulative campaigns have been launched at enterprises such as "safety is for production, production must be safe ", "green, clean, beauti­ ful" ... These campaigns have been involved in by a mass of workers. Particularly, more con­ tents on securing the worker's right to work in a safe and healthy environment are includ­ ed in cooperative bargaining agreements. Therefore, working conditions and environment in enterprises have been gradually improved; occupational accidents caused from poor working envi­ronment and conditions reduced to 5.9% in 2004 from 16.1% in 2001. In the agriculture field, programs such as "Epidemic pre­ vention", "Working improvement in neighbourhood development (WIND)" not only help increase productivity and quality of agro­ products but also lessen the bur­ den on labourers and minimize occupational accidents and haz­ards for farmers. So as to build up and develop safety culture at work, workers have actively par­ ticipated in self-improvement of working conditions and detected risks and hazards of unsafe situ­ ation at their workplace so that employers well implement OSH plans and programs at grassroots level.

Therefore, it can be said that although the concept of safety culture at work is newly ap­proached, the development of safety culture at all levels has been paid due attention by the Government, levels and branch­ es. However, beside achieve­ ment obtained, there still exist shortcomings challenging the development of safety culture in general and safety culture at work in particular such as the system of legal documents on OSH that has not met the re­ quirements ofthe national socio­ economic development; lack and inconsistency of standards and norms on OSH; incompletion of insurance system for occupation­al accidents and diseases; ineffi­ciency of inspections of OSH and supervision of working environ­ ment; poor performance of sta­ tistics and reports on occupation­ al accidents and diseases at es­ tablishments; and popular viola­ tions of standards and regula­tions on OSH at enterprises, es­pecially in non-State owned ones. Thus, in order to sustainably develop safety culture at work in the coming time, particularly safety culture at workplaces, the following tasks should be focused on:

1- Further promote activities of information and propaganda so as to raise awareness of respon­ sibilities of all levels and branch­es, duties of employers and role of workers in ensuring OSH; de­velop training centers specializ­ing in OSH and implement trainings in OSH in the educational system and vocational training schools.

2- Enterprises and produc­tion and business establishments should more actively invest in providing equipment for labour protection and improving work­ ing conditions; regularly inspect­ ing and monitoring the obser­vance of State regulations on OSH; and promote emulative campaigns for ensuring OSH and environmental protection.

3- Further invest for re­ searching and accomplishing pro­cesse's, norms and standards on occupational safety and health; strengthen inspections and supervision on the implementation oflabour protection; strictly pun­ish with violations of OSH laws; timely praise and renumerate organisations and individuals that have gained achievement on labour protection and application of scientific achievements in OSH.

4- Accelerate consultation on guidelines, mechanisms and pol­icies; develop and implement the national program on labour pro­tection; consolidate the appara­tus of labour protection from the central to local and sectoral lev­ els; develop the system of insur­ ance and compensation for occu­pational accidents and diseases.

5- Promote international co­operation in the field of OSH with international organisations, countries in the region and the world for sharing experience of doing research, formulating standards and norms, applying scientific and technological ad­ vances, providing information, training and refresher training for officers in this important field.

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