NationStates Jolt Archive

Category : Human Rights
Strength : Significant

Description:Believing that employees have the right to safe working conditions while at their workplace;

Understanding that a unified standard by which to measure workplace safety may lead to a reduction of workplace accidents, reduce health care costs, and help save lives;

The World Assembly, hereby:

1) Defines, as pertaining to this resolution:
A) An employee as any individual who performs a task or tasks for compensation that is not self employed, employed in law enforcement, or in the military.
B) A workplace as any location where an employee completes a task or tasks for compensation.

2) Guarantees the right of all employees to a safe working environment.

3) Requires that all chemicals be properly labeled, and that safety information be easily accessible in all workplaces pertaining to the chemical that include but are not limited to:
A) Physical data
B) Toxicity
C) Health effects
D) First aid instructions
E) Reactivity
F) Storage
G) Disposal
H) Protective equipment
I) Spill handling procedures
J) Flammability
K) Radioactivity

4) Requires that all workplaces establish minimum standards for Personal Protective Equipment(PPE) to ensure the safety of employees with full understanding of the hazards and environments employees may face.

5) Requires that all employees be provided with or provide their own PPE and that they be required to use them.

6) Requires that the workplace be reasonably free of safety hazards, that all equipment and tools can be safely operated, and that the workplace be maintained in such a state as long as employees are present.

7) Requires that all employees be trained to safely handle any hazardous materials they are required to work with or near.

8) Requires that proper training for tool, machine, and motorized vehicle operation be provided when employees are required to use them in the course of their work.

9) Requires a reasonable amount of emergency exits be provided that allow all employees to leave the workplace quickly.

10) Requires that emergency exits be kept accessible and clearly marked.

11) Requires that employees not enter or remain at a workplace when their ability to work safely is impaired to the point of endangering themselves or those around them.

12) Requires that all employees refrain from purposefully neglecting safety precautions in workplaces.

13) Requires that each nation ensure that within it there exist at least one adequately funded governmental body that inspects work sites and ensures compliance with this act throughout its territory.

14) Accepts that nothing in this resolution bars more stringent workplace safety standards.

Co-Authored by Yelda

I ran this by Yelda who wrote the original back in the old days, and this is what I've come up with. Lets see how long it takes to be torn apart. Any and all comments are of course welcome.

For a start, you have a problem of grammar: '[w]e the World Assembly, hereby: ... [d]efines'. If you're going to use 'we', then the activating verbs should be in the plural form ('define', 'guarantee', 'require').

I question the inclusion of 'financial'. There can be non-financial compensation: course credit for a student intern, for example. It could just as readily be 'compensation'.

Your list of properties omits 'radioactivity' and 'flammability', and details of pressurisation.

The wording of 5) is ambiguous. I assume you mean that employers should provide PPE except where employees are permitted to use their own. You should also probably require that people not wearing correct PPE be prevented from working in a hazardous environment.

In 8): no workplace can be free of safety hazards. I work a cushy office job, but I could trip over my phone line and crack my skull on the paperweight. Believe me, I've thought about it. There were snakes in the fields I used to pick fruit in while working summer jobs in school. And in a mineshaft, or a factory, or a nuclear power plant? We can't simply ban safety hazards: but workers should be instructed on what safety hazards there are, given instructions on mitigating them and dealing with them, and each workplace should have at least one trained safety officer. There are other precautions, I'm sure. So, while we take workplace safety very seriously, let's not get unrealistic.

Finally, one of the most terrible industrial accidents in our history was the Quadrangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. Therefore, we would be very keen to see this proposal include some details about fire safety: that appropriate exits be provided and kept accessible and clearly marked, that there be training and instruction provided, that there be an appropriate number of trained fire wardens, that fireproofing precautions be undertaken, and so forth.

-- Samantha Benson

Your list of properties omits 'radioactivity' and 'flammability', and details of pressurisation.

Radioactivity and Flammability are covered under physical data and reactivity. Pressurization is covered under handling and storage. It also says "include but not limited too".

Removed financial, Removed "we" from the opening statement, added "reasonably" before "free".

As for 5, I mean either the employee or employers provide the PPE, employers are allowed to make their employees buy their own. I would think that requiring them to wear the PPE should preclude them working in a hazardous situation without it, but I'll wait for your response on that.

I'll work on a fire safety clause later tonight. It's a good idea, thanks QoD.

Good resolution. We will support it.

Some remarks:
Why are people who are on law enforcements excluded from this proposal for a safe workplace? And the military when not at war it would be normal to have safe workplace too.

On article 13:
If people TOTALLY refrain from activities in workplaces that endanger themselves or those around them, I cannot see work will be possible. As I am not a native speaker in English, I do not know how to tackle this.

Hope it will work out,
Cocoamok
WA delegate of Intelligentsia Islands

On article 13:
If people TOTALLY refrain from activities in workplaces that endanger themselves or those around them, I cannot see work will be possible. As I am not a native speaker in English, I do not know how to tackle this.

I think it means that employees shouldn't do things like purposely neglect safety precautions, screw around with hazardous materials, etc. Maybe the wording should be altered to clarify this.

Overall, though, I think this is a very strong proposal.

Agreed, I think we've got a good one here.

Stylistically, you could bung in "Requires:" after section 2, and not have that word repeated so much. That'd also save quite a few characters should that be a concern, but otherwise it's no biggie.

Radioactivity and Flammability are covered under physical data and reactivity. Pressurization is covered under handling and storage. It also says "include but not limited too".
NO! Reactivity =/= radioactivity. Radioactive decay does not involve the reaction of the chemical with any other chemicals. One can have radioactive isotopes of inert elements and compounds. The terms are absolutely not related, and it is imperative that both flammability and radioactivity be specified, not subsumed under 'not limited too sic', because they are two of the most necessarily hazardous properties of chemicals.

More later (OOC: I just got molested by a crab - really - and need to go freak out) but this definitely needs adding.

-- Samantha Benson

NO! Reactivity =/= radioactivity. Radioactive decay does not involve the reaction of the chemical

Probably should have said "respectively" to mean that radioactivity is under "physical data" while flammability is under "reactivity". However, I have added the two offending items.

purposely neglect safety precautions

I adopted this wording in section 13.

Shouldn't it be "inflammability" as opposed to "flammability"? The root word being "inflame" as opposed to... well... "flam". [/pedant]

Due to the common mistake made by assuming the "in" means "not", most labeling uses "flammable" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flammable#Linguistics:_Flammable_vs._inflammable) to avoid the possibility of a fatal error.

Bah.

You're right, but bah none-the-less.

"law enforcement" --> emergency responders

This broadens the class from police officers to fire fighters, paramedics, and believe it or not, but specific social workers, engineers / technicians, tons of people in the shipping industry.

For example, if you have a train derailment, your hazmat team might be fire fighters.

BTW, I too like the proposal.

13) Requires that each nation ensure that within it there exist at least one adequately funded governmental body that inspects work sites and ensures compliance with this act throughout its territory.

I think this could be shortened ...

13) Requires nations to inspect work sites and ensure compliance with these safety standards.

Adequate is already relative, and private consultants could be used to perform this service.