Improving Working Life Quality in ASEAN
Experts and heads of occupational safety and health (OSH) centres from each ASEAN Member Country took a regional approach to solving problems in their field when they met at a workshop in Quezon City, Philippines in October 1996. As the first step in this direction, workshop delegates called for the establishment of the ASEAN Occupational Safety and Health Network or ASEAN OSHNET, to facilitate the exchange of information and to enhance regional collaboration.
National development plans in ASEAN countries show that there has been increasing interest in protecting workers and improve the quality of their working life in the individual countries in the last few years. ASEAN OSHNET will add a regional dimension to these efforts.
The Workshop on a Feasibility Study to Establish an ASEAN Training and Information Centre/Network for the Improvement of Working Conditions and Environment and the preceding feasibility study were components of the 1984 project proposal on an ASEAN training and information centre for the improvement of working conditions and environment.
ASEAN OSHNET's primary focus will be the protection of ASEAN workers from occupational accidents and diseases and the improvement of the conditions and environment in which work is done. Network priorities include the dissemination of information on the prevention and control of occupational hazards, the development and exchange of OSH standards, guidelines, training and promotional materials and the facilitation of the secondment and exchange of experts in the region.
Also generated in Quezon City was a four-pronged Four-Year Plan of Action (1997-2000) for the network, listing information, training, research and the deve-lopment of standards as its main thrusts.
Among the six projects proposed were the production of a CD-ROM database on OSH information and the formulation of ASEAN guidelines on the classification, labeling and packaging of hazardous chemicals. The workshop agreed that one way of overcoming the shortage of safety officers in the ASEAN region was the promotion of competency-based training and the forging of common curricula, as this would increase the mobility of trained personnel.
Research in areas where there is a dearth of information on work situations peculiar to Southeast Asia were also discussed. The consequences of exposure to rice dust in rice mills and rice dust syndrome, as well the heat tolerance level of workers in the tropics were two examples of the information gap raised during the course of discussions. Labour migration, occupational cancers and the standardization of OSH regulations across the region, where possible, were also put on the OSHNET agenda.
On the importance of the quality of working life, country representative for Malaysia and Deputy Director-General of the Dept. of Occupational Safety and Health, Haji Abu Bakar bin Che' Man, said,"People spend one third of their lives working, one third of their lives sleeping and the other third somewhere in between. So we improve the quality of their lives in general substantially when we improve the quality of working life."