An Effective Occupational Safety Campaign

(VEN) - In the past 14 years since it was launched, the campaign titled "For a green, clean and beautiful environment, occupational safety and health" has been developed with many good results. Nearly 29,000 initiatives have been proposed to improve the working condition, protect worker health, increase the productivity and create economic benefits worth hundreds of billions of dong for localities.   The aforementioned campaign was launched by the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor in 1996, aiming to encourage workers to take part in activities to ensure occupational safety and improve the working environment. The objectives of this campaign are to make workplaces green, clean and beautiful by planting green trees and flowers, prevent pollution and work accidents, encourage workers to work hard to increase productivity and improve the quality of products. In the past years, the campaign has attracted participation of a large number of workers in many emulation movements, for example the movements titled "Building a clean, beautiful and safe workshop", "Building a clean, beautiful and safe office" in Ho Chi Minh City; "Building a model power station", "Safe electrical wires", "Safe operation", "Green, safe lights" of the Electricity of Vietnam; and "Regular, cultural and safe" of the Vietnam Railways. Many companies of the chemical, oil-gas, textile-garment and seafood industries of localities such as Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, Binh Thuan, Binh Dinh and Ben Tre have set an objective to apply international standards such as ISO 9000, ISO 14000 and OHSAS 18000 when joining activities to ensure occupational safety and improve the working environment. Some companies have applied foreign methods such as the 5S method of Japan to ensure effective management of production, the STOP method of Dupont to prevent risks and accidents. Workers have participated actively in emulation movements, contributing to improving the working condition in many industrial zones, companies, offices, schools and hospitals. The application of international standard quality management systems has helped domestic companies make clean products and take firm steps ahead on the way of integration into the world economy. The number of people who are responsible for overseeing activities to ensure occupational safety has increased. Compared with 1997, the number of such people throughout the country has increased by 1.42 times to 156,000 at present. These people play a very important role in ensuring the effectiveness of labor protection activities. To develop in a sustainable manner, many companies have invested tens of trillions of dong in projects aiming to upgrade production facilities, modernize technology and install automatic, semi-automatic equipment to improve the working condition. Companies have launched many campaigns to encourage workers to bring into play their creativity, to do research and apply new technologies in production to increase productivity. Thus far, 28,707 initiatives have been proposed and applied, contributing to protecting worker health, increasing the productivity and bringing big economic benefits to many localities and economic sectors. Many companies in the electricity and coal sectors have taken effective solutions to improve the working conditions for employees. These efforts have been highly appreciated by the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor. The Vietnam General Confederation of Labor has presented 454 high-profile banners and 2,549 diplomas of merit to 2,021 organizations and 982 individuals nationwide for the achievements they have made when participating in activities to ensure occupational safety and improve the environment in workplaces./.