Strictly punish units that violate labor safety regulations.

Comrade Le Minh Thong - Member of the Provincial Party Committee - Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee, chaired the conference.

Comrade Ho Thi Chau Loan - Deputy Director of the Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs, representatives of departments, branches and sectors who are members of the Council and districts, cities and towns also attended.

Effective implementation of propaganda work

Delegates attending the meeting of the Provincial Occupational Safety and Health Council. Photo: Thanh Nga

In 2017, the Provincial Occupational Safety and Health Council focused on disseminating and training on occupational safety and health issues in conjunction with the management of workers' health care, especially the investigation of occupational accidents and the settlement of accident benefits for workers.

Also in this year, the Council organized more than 230 propaganda sessions on fire prevention and fighting for civil defense forces and grassroots fire prevention and fighting forces in the province with more than 60,600 participants; opened 117 fire prevention and fighting training courses for grassroots and specialized fire prevention and fighting forces, with 7,196 participants.

At the same time, disseminate knowledge about labor safety for workers related to industrial explosives in 1 mine worker training course; related to chemicals in 4 classes for 211 students.

Officials from the Provincial Center for Preventive Medicine inspect the working environment at Nghe An Sugarcane Company Limited. Photo courtesy

In addition, the Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs chaired and coordinated 13 inspections on the implementation of occupational safety and health laws at 113 enterprises, made records and imposed administrative fines of VND 542 million/34 units..

9 deaths, 29 work accidents

According to statistics and reports from units and enterprises, in 2017, Nghe An province had 29 work accidents, causing 29 victims, of which 9 people died/9 cases, 20 people were seriously injured/20 cases.

Mining in Quy Hop has many potential risks of losing occupational safety and health. Photo: Document

At the meeting, council members said that improving propaganda work is very important, especially coordinating propaganda work to raise awareness of ensuring occupational safety and health for employers and employees. "Especially freelance workers, as this group of workers is almost not aware of ensuring their own safety to demand their rights and fulfill their obligations to their employers" - Mr. Nguyen Chi Cong - Vice Chairman of the Provincial Labor Federation said.

In addition, the work of ensuring fire prevention and fighting and occupational safety and health for mine workers still has many issues worth paying attention to. "We go to inspect mines, but the work of ensuring occupational safety and health is posted and reported in one way, but implemented in another way" - Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Anh - Representative of the Department of Industry and Trade said. Regarding this issue, Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Quy Hop district - Vo Sy Son informed: "When approving documents for licensing, most of the documents are guaranteed but implemented incorrectly. Therefore, it is necessary to strictly implement the inspection stage after licensing. Avoid the situation where administrative sanctions are imposed and then the same thing happens again."

Many opinions at the meeting said that it is necessary to innovate the Council's activities to increase the effectiveness of inspection of occupational safety and health at facilities, units and enterprises.

For example, in the inspection of fire prevention and fighting work, according to the report, there were 600 units violating the law but each unit was only fined more than 1.2 million VND. Or there were 29 work accidents, which is a relatively low number compared to reality. In particular, the report did not analyze the causes of the accidents.

Comrade Le Minh Thong concluded at the conference. Photo: Thanh Nga

Concluding the conference, comrade Le Minh Thong emphasized: The innovation of the Council's operating method is very important because in reality, the risks of occupational safety and health loss are very high. Members need to consider the operating method to analyze the causes, objects, and components of enterprises with high risks, so that measures can be taken to minimize the risk of occupational safety loss.

The Vice Chairman requested that Council members need to take measures to control work accidents, avoid concealment and agreements between employers and employees.

He affirmed: Currently, many businesses violate the interests of workers, we need to have measures to prevent and handle them strictly.