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Occupational Safety and Health Management: UK versus China

Occupational health and safety (OHS) is one of the distinctive determiners of the quality of health in any country. In cognition of the social contract theory, states have the mandate of ensuring that its workers are protected from sickness, injury, or disease in the course of working. This responsibility is more so emphasized by dint of the international statutes that have been put in place. The International Labour Organization (ILO) Constitution in this regard states that workers ought to be given the prerequisite protection they need in the course of employment. From this backdrop, various countries have developed jurisprudence on occupational health and safety. The laws developed and the legal system of a country plays a significant role in determining the regulations and controls applied so as to foster occupational safety and health. This paper draws a comparison between OHS laws in the UK and the People’s Republic of China and espouses the fact that there are higher and more detailed standards of control in the UK as a result of the variance in established jurisprudence.

Applicable Laws

Matters appertaining to OHS are mainly governed by civil law in China. The legal framework for OHS is firstly based on the constitution. The constitution acknowledges the application of international law and to that effect, the People’s Republic of China has signed and ratified the ILO statutes on OHS. Various statutes and regulations have also been passed in this regard. The umbrella law on OHS is the Occupational Safety and Health Act. This law is applicable to the whole republic. It provides a detailed exposition on accountability, the safety management system, risk management, as well as, applicable penalties in case of breach (Occupational Safety and Health Act, 1974). There are several other scattered pieces of legislation on the same. The regulations that have been passed, on the other hand, are applicable in the distinctive localities. These regulations complement the umbrella statute and are designed to recognize the unique circumstances in the various localities. Laws and regulations on OHS deal with matters appertaining to Prevention and Control of Occupational Diseases, Coal Mine Safety Inspection, Work Safety, Safe Administration of Hazardous Chemicals, Emergency Response Law, and Fireworks and Firecracker Safety Management, among others (ILO, 2014).

The UK similarly has an umbrella law on OHS. It is known as the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 (the HSWA). This is arguably both a criminal law and civil law statute since there is the imposition of both fines and prison terms in the event that an individual or entity breaches the duties underpinned in the HSWA. Herein, several other pieces of legislation and jurisdictional subsidiary regulations exist. The offenses being tried in various courts in the UK depend on the degree of the offense. Offenses like pretending to be an inspector, for instance, are tried in the Magistrate’s court (hse.gov.uk, 2018).

Hazards Identification and Management

In China, the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1974 provides that the person-in-charge of a business operation or production bears the responsibility of seeing to it that there is safety in the workplace. Article 38 provides that entities must have systems in place to identify and handle ‘hidden dangers’ (Occupational Safety and Health Act, 1974). Entities have the statutorily underpinned duty of identifying hidden dangers and consequently eliminating them so as to avoid accidents. Article 22 further provides that entities are required to draft regulations, rules, and operating procedures on work safety and emergency response (Occupational Safety and Health Act, 1974). The emergency response plan stipulated should be in-line with the emergency rescue systems in the various states (Occupational Safety and Health Act, 1974). Unlike the UK, the law in China impliedly leaves a window for certain types of risks in the workplace. However, employees are entitled to be aware of the risks that exist in a site or workplace and the corresponding management measures that have been instituted by the employer (Chen, Cao, & Chow, 2012).

The UK laws provide that a person or organization that creates risk bears the responsibility of ensuring the management and control of the risk so that it is reduced ‘so far as is reasonably practicable’ (Russ, 2010). Regulation and control are provided by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). The HSE has put out a regulation which makes it apparent that an entity that creates a risk bears the responsibility of ensuring that all the necessary action has been taken to significantly reduce the risk. The entity must then document the extent of action that has been taken to that effect. As a regulatory body, the HSE provides regular inspection of entities so as to ascertain the degree of risk identification and assessment (Russ, 2010). As indicated in the HSWA, the OSH duty extends to manufacturers, suppliers, designers, as well as, the employees.

Laws on Protection of Female Workers

Laws on labor protection of women mainly focus on the protection of pregnant and nursing mothers. Various regulations have been passed at the local and provincial level with respect to the protection of this class of workers. The regulations generally provide that female employees are entitled to 90 calendar days of maternity leave with additional days leave under certain special circumstances. Article 61 of the Labor Law further prohibits employers from giving such employees extraneous tasks classified in the category of Level III Labour intensity (Labor Law of the People’s Republic of China, 1994).

Based on the UK statutes and stare decisis, similar protections are provided to women. Further protections are, however, provided therein. They are entitled to maternity leave of 52 weeks; made of 26 weeks of ‘Ordinary Maternity Leave’ (OML) and 26 weeks of ‘Additional Maternity Leave’ (AML) (Andersen and Wallace, 2006). Additional remuneration is provided if a worker resumes work during the AML period.

Conclusion

Occupational health and safety (OHS) is one of the distinctive determiners of the quality of health in any country. The ILO Constitution provides that workers ought to be given the prerequisite protection they need in the course of employment. The laws developed and the legal system of a country plays a significant role in determining the regulations and controls applied with regard to OHS. Although China’s OHS has greatly improved over time, it is still apparent that there is a gap when compared to the UK.