The President, Occupational Safety and Health Africa Foundation, Mr Ehi Iden, says lack of workplace safety laws and policies was the cause of the poor treatment of workers’ health by most employers of labours.

 

According to Wikipedia, occupational safety and health is a multidisciplinary field concerned with the safety health, and welfare of people at work.

 

Iden lamented that most employers of labour in Nigeria displayed nonchalant attitude towards the health, safety and wellbeing of their employees because there were no strong enough laws and enforcement that compelled them to promote workplace health and safety.

 

He said, “Every right-thinking employer should know that providing health and safety support is only an integral part of the duty of care he owes employees.  So we should not even wait for the government to wave its rod in our direction before we do what is morally and humanly right.”

 

Iden said there was the need for occupational safety and health legislation as this was where the responsibilities and rights of both employees and employers would be clearly defined.

 

“Nigeria as of today cannot boast of what we can call ideal enabling occupational safety and health legislation capable of protecting her working population. Because of this lacuna, employers of labour exploit the government’s insensitivity in the area of inadequate health and safety provisions in our labour regulations and what the employees receive is total lack of duty of care and employees’ workplace accidents and illnesses,” Iden said.

 

The health safety advocate said the way out was for the National Assembly to pass the National Safety Health Bill before it.

 

“We can then have a law to hold people accountable when issues as this go wrong in the workplace. If legislation does not happen first, employers will continue to treat workers without any element of value towards their safety, health, and wellbeing,” Iden added.