Health and Safety Legislation in the Peoples Republic of China - Article Example

Health and Safety Legislation Past and Present in the People’s Republic of China and its merits or otherwise of deregulation Title Date Health and Safety Legislation Past and Present in the People’s Republic of China and its merits or otherwise of deregulation The occupational health and safety conditions in China continue to be concern among several groups (e.g. health professionals, labor rights groups, multinational corporations) (Brown & O’rourke 2003). Although occupational health and safety have been addressed in China for a long time, the rapid industrialisation in the country has to cope up with the trends and changes in the economy (Brown & O’rourke 2003). China harbors numerous industry types that pose more and varied hazards in the work place (Brown & O’rourke 2003). It shares a large portion of the global production of toys with 70 percent, 70 percent of photocopiers, 40 percent of microwave ovens and sports shoes, and an increasing output for DVD devices, cellular phones, etc. (Brown & O’rourke 2003). China is the fifth largest trading country (with US, Japan, Germany and France on the lead) while Hong Kong transports 6,000 containers of goods and products to the USA daily (Brown & O’rourke 2003). Its economic growth was 7.3 percent in 2001 and 8 percent in 2002 (Brown & O’rourke 2003). Economically productive persons in 2001 reached 705.9 million, 33 percent of which are working in the urban areas while the rest are in rural areas (Brown & O’rourke 2003). Fifty percent or 354 million of the workers thrive in agriculture, forestry, and fishing; 23 percent or 162 million in mining and manufacturing; and 27 percent or 190 million can be found in services and government offices (Brown & O’rourke 2003). China has a workforce with over 700 million people (Su 2003). With its increasing economic gains pegged at 9,593.3 billion Yuan in 2001 (a 7.3 percent from 2000), it continually adapts new measures to adapt to the world changes in the economy (Su 2003). In 2006, the proposed law to give Chinese workers new rights (recognition of unions) spurred criticism and opposition from both workers and large corporations based in the UK and US (Costello , Smith, & Brecher 2006). The American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong advocates for pro-workers approach to workers by granting fair remuneration and treatment, as well as just health and safety policies but several corporations (e.g. Wal-Mart, Google, UPS, Microsoft, Nike, AT&T, Intel) opposed such move through the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai (AmCham) (presented a 42 page statement) (Costello et al. 2006). This is a move away from the Chamber in Hong Kong’s stance as a catalyst for social change (Costello et al. 2006). The proposed law will motivate workers to organise themselves and insist for the enforcement of this right (Costello et al. 2006). The release of the Draft Labor Contract Law was hardly criticised by western-based corporations under the leadership of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai (with more than 1,300 member-corporations, 150 of which belong to 500 Fortune companies), the U.S.-China Business Council (with 250 U.S. companies doing business in China), and the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China (heading more than 860 corporations) (Costello et al. 2006). Statements issued by the foreign companies include leaving China, reduction in employment opportunities and portrayal of negative image for market competitiveness and foreign investors (Costello et al. 2006). AmCham believed that the proposed law would make it hard to companies to lay off workers (Costello et al. 2006). The surge in Chinese economy has been attributed to exports ($121 billion in 1994 and $365 billion in mid-2003) in joint partnership with local subsidiaries of multinational companies (Roach 2005, cited in Costello et al. 2006). The low wage practise in China has likewise pegged low wage standard for other countries around the globe (Costello et al. 2006). This move by the American corporations by vehemently opposed by the US Congress which urged the Bush Administration to deliver letters to the Chinese government that it supports workers’ welfare and rights (Costello et al. 2006). Rural workers migrating to urban looking for work is approximated at 80 to 150 million (Su 2003; Christiani, Tan, & Wang 2002, cited in Brown & O’rourke 2003). Death resulting from accidents or disaster in the workplace has a rate of 11.1 percent for every 100,000 workers in 2001, which is more than 200 percent higher than in the USA (4.4 per 100,000) (Brown & O’rourke 2003). Industrial accidents rose by 27% between 2000 and 2001, while occupational diseases increased by 13% in the same period, according to government statistics. The government workplace health and safety agency reported that 140,000 workers died on the job in 2002, a rate of 380 deaths a day.11,13 The impacts of occupational health and safety conditions in China, however, are not simply local. As other countries compete with China to attract FDI and jobs, conditions in China are effectively “setting the floor” for conditions in factories in the rest of the global economy. Workplace practices in China—wages, hours, treatment of unions, investments in health and safety, etc.—exert tremendous pressures on higher-cost producers in both developed and developing economies to match these practices, or to reduce costs related to compliance with health and safety regulations and labor practices in their own countries (Brown & O’rourke 2003). The articles in this special issue can only scratch the surface of current conditions and regulatory practices in China, and identify key areas where further research and policy analysis are needed. Our goal is to generate interest in issues that will increasingly affect occupational health professionals around the world, raise questions about current conditions and policies in China, and solicit ideas and proposals for protecting the health and safety of workers in China, and in other loci of the global economy (Brown & O’rourke 2003). We begin with a discussion of laws and implementation in China. Deputy Director General of the Ministry of Health in the department of legislation and inspection, Dr. Zhi Su lays out the background to and contents of the newly implemented occupational health and safety (OHS) laws. Hong Kong–based researchers Tim Pringle and Stephen Frost assess the components and prospects for actual enforcement of these laws. Stephen Frost supplements these discussions of government laws with an analysis of the “real rules” that govern workers’ lives—extensive and aggressively enforced factory rules (Brown & O’rourke 2003). We then turn to detailed descriptions of actual conditions on the factory floor in China. Industrial hygienist Garrett Brown blends personal experience, existing research, and investigative reports by the mass media and nongovernmental organizations in a sweeping analysis of current conditions in workplaces throughout China. Veteran China-based journalist E. Griggers-Smith reports on the high personal cost to workers of unsafe conditions. Economist Boy Luethje of Germany profiles the booming electronics industry in China. Reebok human rights director Jill Tucker describes changes in the demographics of women migrant workers in foreign-invested enterprises in China producing for the U.S. shoemaker, and one program to respond to these women’s needs (Brown & O’rourke 2003). Very little rigorous academic research on OHS issues in China has been reported in English to date in China. Xiaorong Wang and David Christiani provide an overview of one key area—occupational lung disease—and related research needed in China. Janice Camp and colleagues at the University of Washington report on a new research project with textile workers in Shanghai and its organization. China offers unique opportunities for occupational health research, due to the legacy of long-term employment, stable management, and continuous exposures in the centrally planned economy, but this advantage is slipping away in the rapidly changing economic order. Meei-Shia Chen analyzes how, in the past, Chinese workers have been able to act directly to protect their health and safety through two key workplace institutions—the trade union and the staff and workers’ representative congress—and how these institutions and workers’ participation have changed since the mid-1990s (Brown & O’rourke 2003). Capacity building and training are also critical to responding to current workplace challenges. Betty Szudy, Dara O’Rourke, and Garrett Brown describe a first-of-itskind capacity-building project bringing together international sports shoe brands, local contractors, Hong Kong–based labor rights organizations, and production line workers in the three huge shoe plants in the Pearl River Delta. The project included a four-day training program at a 30,000-worker factory that resulted in the establishment of health and safety committees with meaningful participation by workers in three plants. Finally, we conclude with an analysis of policy options and incentives for improved workplace practices and regulation in China. Dara O’Rourke and Garrett Brown analyze current challenges and impediments to improving conditions in factories in China, and propose a set of policy strategies to create real incentives for multinational firms to improve conditions in their supplier factories, and for local government agencies to strengthen their enforcement of existing regulations (Brown & O’rourke 2003). In 2001, the Ministry of Health received reports of 13,218 cases of occupational diseases, a 13% increase over 2000. Of these, 2,352 died as a result of the occupational damage. Due to incompleteness of the reports, this is only the tip of a huge iceberg of health hazards in the workplaces in China. The actual situation may be far worse. For example, according to a nationwide sample survey of occupational health of workers in 19,527 enterprises in 28 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities in 2002, percentages of enterprises that provided workers with personal protective equipment (PPE) were: state-owned, 78%; city collective-owned, 71.6%; and private, only 49.6%. Employers that provided workers exposed to occupational hazards with periodic health examinations amounted to 57.2% for state-owned enterprises and only 1.9% for private enterprises and 2.7% for foreign-invested enterprises. Workplace ventilation equipment rates were: 82.1% for state-owned enterprises; 66.7% for city collective-owned enterprises; 55.1% for private enterprises; and 69.5% for foreign-invested enterprises. Data from State Administration of Production Safety (SAPS) show that during the period January–November 2002, a national total of 980,689 death/injury–involving accidents of all categories occurred throughout China, resulting in the loss of 124,581 lives. Of this total, road transport accidents accounted for about 70%, which caused 80% of the losses of lives. Accidents such as a methane gas explosion in a coal mine in Jixi in northeast China on June 20, 2002, also resulted in tremendous losses. During this upsurge of economic development, China’s occupational health and safety structure is facing serious challenges: Lack of work safety awareness, backward infrastructure, and loopholes in management and strict supervision have resulted in a continuing cycle of accidents and a serious prevalence of occupational diseases, which have caused great losses in terms of both lives and assets. And other important factors should not be neglected: 1) the rapid transfer of the labor force from agricultural to non-agricultural work in rural areas; 2) the continued migration of hazardous industries from urban to rural areas, and also from developed areas to less developed areas; 3) the shortages of occupational health professionals and technologic resources; 4) the inconsistency in the enforcement of health and safety laws which calls for intensified monitoring, inspection, and rectification measures to improve the situation (Su 2003). Since the 1990s, the Chinese Government has explicitly mandated the: establishment of a socialist market economy under the rule of law. The Labor Law of the People’s Republic of China was promulgated July 5, 1994, and was effective as of January 1, 1995. The Law is the basic body for adjudication of labor relations, and has established labor contract and group contract systems, a tripartite coordination mechanism, a labor standard system, a system for handling disputes, and a labor supervisory system, basically shaping a new approach to labor relations in consonance with the socialist market economy (Su 2003). Since the 1994 Labor Law, several other important laws and regulations have come into force. Laws Adopted by the Standing Committee of theNational People’s Congress. The Law of the People’s Republic of China on Occupational Disease Prevention and Control (hereinafter referred to as “Occupational Disease Control Law”), was promulgated on October 27, 2001, and put into effect May 1, 2002. The Law of People’s Republic of China on Safe Production (hereinafter referred to as “Safe Production Law”) was promulgated June 29, 2002, and became effective November 1, 2002. This Law has 97 provisions covering work units’ safety measures, the rights and interests of workers, supervision and management of production safety, rescue work in times of accidents, accident investigation, and legal liabilities. The Regulations on Safe Management of Dangerous Chemicals have as their purpose the strengthening of control over safety measures related to exposures to dangerous chemicals, to guarantee the safety of lives and properties, and to protect the environment. They regulate the production, operation, storage, transportation, and use of dangerous chemicals and disposal of the dangerous chemical waste within the People’s Republic of China (Su 2003). The Regulations on Labor Protection for Using Toxic Substances in Workplace supplement the Occupational Disease Control Law, further enhancing control of occupational poisonings. Enterprises whose operations involve exposures to highly toxic substances must be licensed by governmental health authorities. A list of the toxic substances existing in workplaces shall be defined, modified, and published by the Ministry of Health, joined with other Departments under the State Council concerned (Su 2003). The Regulations on Protection against Radioisotopes and Radiation-emitting Apparatus strengthen the supervision and management of protection from radiation hazards with regard to radioisotopes and radiation-emitting apparatus, to ensure the health and safety of workers and the general public, to protect the environment, and to promote the application and development of radiation technologies. These regulations apply to all institutions and individuals that engage in the production, use, or sale of radioisotopes or radiation-emitting apparatus (Su 2003). In addition, there are stipulations in the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China for relevant criminal violations (Su 2003). The Law of the People’s Republic of China on the Prevention and Control of Occupational Diseases was adopted by the 9th PRC National People’s Congress on October 27, 2001, and became effective as of May 1, 2002. The law defines the occupational health rights of workers, the obligations and duties of employers to protect the health of their employees, the responsibilities of the governments at various levels, and trade unions’ representation in workers’ health protection (Su 2003). References Brown GD & O’rourke D 2003 October/December. The Race to China and Implications for Global Labor Standards. Special Issue. Occupational Health and Safety in China. INT J Occup Environ Health, vol. 9, no 4, pp. 299-301. Available from: . [Accessed 12 October 2009]. Costello T, Smith B, & Brecher J 2006 December 21. Labor Rights in China. FPIF Commentary. Foreign Policy in Focus. a think tank without walls. Available from: . [Accessed 12 October 2009]. Su Z 2003 October/December. Occupational Health and Safety Legislation and Implementation in China. INT J Occup Environ Health, vol. 9, no 4, pp. 302-308. Available from: . [Accessed 12 October 2009]. Read More