OHS REPS @ WORK

Australia Asia Worker Links (AAWL), an organisation established in 1979 by activists who wanted to promote international workers solidarity, has been organising solidarity visits between worker activists in the Asia Pacific region since 1979. This is a report on the AAWL Regional Health & Safety Project, prepared by Manrico Moro, AAWL's Information Convenor.

We work with genuine unions and genuine labour movement NGOs (Non-government organisations). We say genuine because there are many yellow unions, set up by companies or governments to prevent workers from organising.

Even among genuine unions, there is a tendency to consider health & safety as something workers will fight for only after obtaining better wages and better contracts. We think health & safety is a priority issue: Workers need to stay alive and healthy to the end of the day, or any wage increase is meaningless.

We believe health & safety should focus on prevention: Compensation for injury and disease, and punishment against companies are necessary, but it is better to organise against dangerous workplace conditions.

Health & safety is an entry point for union organising. It is hard for companies and governments to stop all discussion on health & safety. The struggle for healthy conditions requires discussing the collective needs and rights for workers. This is a first step in union organising in many workplaces.

Since 2001 we organised major health & safety visits with activists from Thailand, Indonesia and East Timor, where unions are still struggling for recognition. The most recent health & safety visit was in November 2006 with labour movement leaders from India and the Philippines.

On these visits we concentrated on strategies that have achieved results. We focused on union health & safety reps. In Australia they have been effective and unions have achieved changes to the law to increase their reach. An important discussion is on body mapping: It allows for a discussion of workplace hazards in any language, does not require literacy and doesn’t need medical or technical experts. Body mapping has now been developed much further by activists: It has even been used by villagers looking at the effects of pollution.

We have organised many solidarity visits and we are continuing discussions with activists from Japan, Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, East Timor, Malaysia, Vietnam, Philippines, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, China and Hong Kong, Papua New Guinea and Fiji.

When we develop a solidarity visit we always include workplace visits and meetings with workers who are campaigning on particular health & safety issues. When we can, we match the industry and even the company of the people doing the solidarity visit. We try to have a practical discussion of extending major international campaigns like asbestos bans or the fight against silicosis, and how these can be applied in different situation.

We participate in labour networks in the Asia Pacific region and we support communication between genuine labour NGOs and genuine unions in the region.

We want to work towards a major conference of health & safety activists in the region, to compare notes and to share strategies. We want to discuss the promotion of campaigns that will improve conditions for all workers in the Asia Pacific region.

The AAWL office is located in Trades Hall, Melbourne

Contact details:

AAWL Regional health & safety project coordinators:

Simple information on body mapping on the AAWL website.