In order to increase public concern for workplace disaster prevention and workers' rights, the Ministry of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has, in recognition of the fact that April 28 is World Day for Safety and Health at Work, co-organized the Workplace Health and Safety Forum on April 27 with the Labor Affairs Bureau of Kaohsiung City Government. Together, they jointly unveiled the beginning of 2017's Workplace Health and Safety Week.
Chief administrators of OSHA Tsou Tzu-lian said that in recent year, workers all over have been dealing with the stress of long hours and higher workloads. In order to solidify consensus on the prevention of workplace accidents and disasters and to ensure worker safety, OSHA has hosted annual a series of National Workplace Health and Safety Week events on or around April 28. The administration encourages participation from all sectors so all parties can work together to build a safer and healthier work environment. There were a variety of events this year. Taiwan won the right to host the 2017 Asian Conference on Occupational and Environmental Health (ACOH), which will be organized by the Taiwan Environmental and Occupational Medicine Association and co-organized by OSHA and other entities. Seventeen foreign scholars and experts from countries such as Japan, South Korea, and Singapore spoke. This forum drew on international practices to help enhance effective services promoting worker health in Taiwan.
OSHA further emphasizes that an aging population and low fertility rates mean that ensuring a healthy workforce for the future will be the key to maintaining Taiwan's industrial competitiveness. In the past three years, OSHA has launched a system of workplace health services, and is planning to revise relevant provisions for worker health in the near future. The administration calls on all sectors to work together with the government to provide workers with healthy, safe, and friendly work environments in order to guarantee the physical and mental wellbeing of workers and to ensure sustainable competitiveness for the country.