The Editor, Sir:

I am writing in response to the Letter of the Day in The Gleaner of June 11. While I appreciate Mrs Mills' comments, there are several issues at hand that she needs to be aware of and that need to be highlighted with regard to occupational health and safety (OHS) in Jamaica chief of which is education. Jamaica, does not have a culture of OH,S therefore, to simply ask a society such as this to readily accept this phenomenon is asking too much, seeing that not much is known about the field.

14 years

She is right in saying that the OHS Act has been in the drafting stage for 10 years, in fact its 14 years, and that we do not need to re-invent the wheel; but if one looks at OHS in Jamaica, retrospectively, it could and should have ratified the related The International Labour Organisation (ILO) conventions and or subscribe to the accompanying recommendations which it hasn't. These include C155, C164, etc.

Additionally, one needs to examine the fact that most of these 'companies' that are employing these workers are informal operators, i.e. they are not legal entities, also many of the workers are sub-contracted which, therefore, means that whoever employs them is not responsible for them. Simply put, they work at their own risk.

Seasonal workers

If an act is to be introduced, it has to consider these 'seasonal' workers so maybe legislators should also look at section 3 of the Health and Safety at Work Act in the United Kingdom and also convention 177 of the ILO which seeks to include these workers.

Finally, if such workers are to be accounted for, the country needs to look at the 'decent work' drive by the ILO to get ideas on how to provide safe working environments for these workers.

I am, etc.,

NADINE DOWNER

enidan73@yahoo.com

Via Go-Jamaica