Working environment through the work life – Celebrating 60 years of Nordic work environment, 8. október 2014

Ávarp Eyglóar Harðardóttur, félags- og húsnæðismálaráðherra.

Dear Conference's guests.

It is a pleasure for me to have the opportunity to address the conference on working environment through the work life – Celebrating 60 years of Nordic work environment. Nordic collaboration has been recognized for a long time. This collaboration is based on mutual trust and the important understanding that we are a part of a common world. A world which is growing bigger, becoming more global as time goes by which also creates more threats and challenges for us every day.

In the past 60 years, the Nordic Countries have worked closely together to ensure a better working environment and better occupational health and safety for employees. This task is never ending and needs constant attention, and reminders about what we have done in the past and what we shall do in the future. Today when we are celebrating a common Nordic labour market for 60 years we need to keep in mind that our society is also changing internally with a growing proportion of older individuals that are just as important for the labour market as everyone else.

In the Universal Declaration on Human Rights from 1948 it is stated that everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself/herself and of his/hers family. It is important that employers take care of their employees' health and safety at the workplace. Prevention of occupational risks must be considered an important factor of the employees' occupational safety and health. In some cases the cost of various preventive measures works as certain obstacle in the field even though the measures will most likely result in reduction of sickness absenteeism of the employees and increase their satisfaction at work. Consequently, the productivity is supposed to increase. It is a long-term profit for the employer which unfortunately is often difficult to recognize and therefore not ranked as top-priority task on the daily basis.  

During the anniversary conference in Harpa, in May earlier this year we learned that many Nordic businesses have moved or outsourced their activities to other parts of the globe where occupational health and safety standards are in some cases lower than they are in our communities. At the same time we have, especially after the turn of millennium, been facing more potential problems with social dumping. When we consider these issues it is important to bear in mind that poor work environment on a global level is a problem of a very significant magnitude. We have to remind our businesses to introduce the best-practices in the field of occupational health and safety in order to improve the situation in those parts of the world.

Did you know that every 15 seconds a worker dies from a work-related accident or disease in the whole world? Every 15 seconds 160 workers have a work-related accident. But what does this mean? It means that by the end of this day nearly 1 million workers will suffer a workplace accident. It means that by the end of this day, around 5,500 workers will die due to an accident or disease from their work. But occupational accidents and work-related diseases mainly go unnoticed. The public generally does not hear about those who die in the workplace because they die one at a time, often in small towns, noticed only by their family, friends and co-workers. I guess that many of us think; yes, but this is not in our countries. The fact is that in Iceland we know that in 2012 a total of 5,287 people sought help from some authority or health care services, based on the Icelandic accident registry. This is about 3% of the workforce in one year. We also know that 3,746 were men and 33% were younger than 30 years of age. We also know from a Nordic Rapport of fatal accident that from 2003 to 2008, 1,243 people died in the Nordic countries in occupational accidents, 93% were men.

At the same time as we acknowledge this, we need to notice that the ones leaving the labour market because of musculos-skeletal disorder or mental disorder are in majority women. How many of those are job related is maybe not fully established but undoubtedly a great number. We have failed to secure a safe work environment for these people and/or we have not managed to create the work - environment needed. 

The main objective of Nordic co-operation in the area of work environment is and should always be to promote health and welfare at work and thus also productivity in society. The goal is a high quality working environment in the Nordic countries, developed with consideration for international agreements and EU legislation. Co-operation focuses on creating a safe work environment which promotes good health, strengthens the sustainable use of the individual employee's resources, as well as prevents sick leave and premature retirement from the labour market. This helps the ongoing development of the Nordic Region as an attractive labour market capable of improving opportunities to include people currently excluded from or on the periphery of the world of work and attracting manpower from abroad.

Here in Iceland we are at the point that we need to stop for a moment and ask ourselves where we are going and what our occupational health and safety policy should include. It is clear that the goal is a better, safer, healthier and health promoting work environment. To do this we need to call on many different actors. It is important that during the working process the Government has a good cooperation and consultation with the social partners, the trade unions and the organizations of employers as well as other stake holders and NGO's of disabled and the ones supporting and promoting positive mental health.

Furthermore, conferences like this one play an important role to encourage people to be active in the field. People exchange views and information about their experience regarding the field of occupational health and safety for workers which include for example the work environment we are faced with through the lifespan, the changes, gender, age and economy, as well as return to work after being ill and factors associated with labour mobility. I am quite certain after having read through the agenda of the conference here today that you will have fruitful discussions and basis for further developments in the field of occupational health and safety for workers. 

Thank you.