On July 8, the 2013 National Workplace Safety Week was held at the International Conference Center of National Taiwan University Hospital. The "Work Safety Management Seminar" that took place the same morning was the first that the Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) had jointly staged with the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), AU Optronics Corp (AUO) and Taiwan Responsible Care Association (TRCA). In the afternoon, the CLA held a "Conference on Occupational Safety and Health," whereby the president of International Ergonomic Association (IEA), Dr. Eric Min-Yang Wang, and Vice President of the Competence Center – EHS and Security for Asia Pacific BASF, Mr. Anthony Clymo, were invited to present keynote speeches. The event attracted the enthusiastic participation of domestic occupational safety personnel.
Continue to drive for revisions to relative laws and regulations and guarantee the safety, rights and benefits of workers
In his speech at the conference, CLA's Permanent Deputy Minister Kuo Fang-Yu especially thanked the three companies and organizations for their participation in the organization of "Work Safety Management Seminar" and expressed his hopes for more enterprises and organizations participation the following year, for the support of labor health and safety. He also said that in recent years, efforts across a variety of quarters have led to progress and development, whether it be safety and hygiene measures, the improvement of management systems or raising safety awareness.
For example, in 2012, the Occupational Injury Incidence Rate under Labor Insurance dropped below 4 per thousand people at 3.999. This is the best performance over the past 10 years and is gradually matching the level of advanced countries. Notably, the "Labor Safety and Health Act" was officially amended and announced by Presidential decree on July 3 to become the "Occupational Safety and Health Act." This will improve the safety and health of all workers and give them more concrete safeguards. In the future, the CLA will continue to drive for reforms in the "Act for Protecting Worker of Occupational Accident," to strengthen the overall care system for occupational accident victims to protect the rights and benefits of workers and their families.
In addition, the conference also presented awards to winners of the "OSH Five-star Award," "Best OSH Award of Public Construction Projects," and "Best OSH Award of Public Construction Individual." The CLA commended the winners’ efforts and contribution to labor health and safety, while at the same time hoped that they can help domestic small and middle-sized enterprises to improve their working environment to reduce the occurrence of occupational accidents.
Exchanging practical management experiences to raise the level of occupational safety and health
Though domestic occupational safety and health has improved significantly in recent years, there is still room for improvement with respect to design source-end measures to prevent accidents, both in terms of concepts and practices. Workers today are also faced with the risks of new types of occupational injuries (diseases). In order to help business owners and occupational safety personnel learn new knowledge, this year's conference specifically invited the president of IEA, Dr. Eric Min-Yang Wang, to share how ergonomic knowledge can be applied to design tools, machines, systems, jobs and environments to make workplaces safer, healthier and more comfortable.
BASF, which was also invited to Taiwan to share their experience on how to establish a successful safety culture, is an internationally renowned chemical company that won the National Industrial Safety & Health Award last year. The company still stands tall after being tested over 140 years since it was founded. The CLA called on the domestic petrochemical industry to establish company alliances and adopt international measures such as self-management through the establishment of industry-wide standards, through sharing practical management experiences to raise the level of occupational safety and health, and through realizing the win-win objective of sustainable management.