Kaj Frick

The regulation of systematic work environment in Sweden: higher ambitions in a weaker Swedish work environment system

It examines the implications of the shift from specification to process based regulation, in which attention has been increasingly directed to the means of managing OHS more systematically at a tim ...

Introduction: Inspecting Health and Safety Management and the Consequences of Restructuring in the Modern World of Work

According to ILO figures,1 despite advances in occupational medicine and safety technology, the global burden of work-related mortality, injury and disease remains huge – and far in excess of that arising from more publicized causes of harm, such as armed conflicts. The ILO estimates, for example, that some 2.2 million workers die every year as a result of work-related ill-health and injury. Of these, 350,000 deaths are attributable to accidents at work, while the rest are caused by occupational ill-health. It further estimates that there are an additional 264 million non-fatal accidents each year and 160 million people with work-related illnesses. It calculates the economic cost of this loss as worth 4 per cent of global GDP or

Regulating Workplace Risks: A Comparative Study of Inspection Regimes in Times of Change

1.25 trillion US dollars (Hämäläinen et al. 2005). It also acknowledges that the vast majority of these deaths are avoidable and preventable. Most of this work-related death, illness and injury occurs in developing and newly industrializing countries, but the figures also provide no cause for complacency among the more advanced economies. For example, in the UK, despite its more than 200 hundred years of regulation on health and safety at work, and with one of the better records internationally, there are still over 200 deaths each year from ill-health or injuries related to work. In addition, more than 20,000 people leave employment as a result of workrelated injury or illness, and more than two million suffer from ill-health, which in their view was caused or made worse by their work, leading to the loss of more than 30 million working days each year and costing the equivalent of 1–3 per cent of GDP. This pattern is repeated in other advanced economies, with many performing much worse. Moreover, these