Govt urged to focus on workplace safety

LAHORE:

“The weak inspection mechanism needs to be improved to ensure occupational health and safety standards,” Labour Department Director General Saleem Hussain said on Monday.

He was speaking at a training workshop attended by officials of the Labour Department, trade unions leaders and representatives of various non-government organisations. The event allowed the participants to suggest ways to help improve monitoring of working conditions.

Hussain said provisions about occupational health and safety made up a major portion of the government’s new labour policy. “The issue should be taken up by both workers and employers in formal as well as informal sector,” he said. Tahir Manzoor of the Centre for Improvement of Working Conditions and Environment director, said, “Ours is the only institution with foreign-qualified professionals and the required equipment.” Romina Kochius, the manager at GIZ – which specialises in international development, expressed concern over the lack of an independent occupational health and safety legislation in the province.

Kochius said the inclusion of the subject in the labour policy was a positive step.

HomeNet Pakistan executive director Ume Laila Azhar said that 72 per cent of women working in the informal settings faced health problems resulting from work.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 2^nd, 2015.