Editorials

Occupational disease

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-12-10 07:50

It is an outrage.

More than 100 migrant workers who have been diagnosed as suffering from pneumoconiosis because they worked as dynamiters for more than a decade cannot be certified as having the disease by the occupational disease prevention hospital in Shenzhen. The hospital refused to diagnose and certify their occupational disease because they don't have a labor contract with their employers or relevant documents from their employers.

The hospital is not to blame as the law on occupational disease prevention stipulates that one must have a labor contract and documents from the employer to have an occupational disease checked and certified in such a specialized hospital.

It would appear that the migrant workers themselves are to blame for not signing a labor contract with their employers. But the workers are quoted as saying that their request for a labor contract was turned down by their employers, who know that those working as dynamiters on construction sites are quite likely to contract pneumoconiosis because of the dust from drilling holes for dynamite.

It was reported that such employers only hire migrant workers who make do without a labor contract. Anyone who insists on a labor contract is shown the door. It is obvious that the employers shirk their responsibility for labor protection by refusing workers a labor contract.

Such employers have apparently violated the Labor Law - which stipulates that an employer must sign a labor contract with anyone hired - by refusing their workers a contract.

The law on occupational disease prevention stipulates that effective measures must be adopted to protect workers from contracting occupation diseases in hazardous working conditions. It is reported that drilling blast holes with water greatly reduces the amount of dust produced but these employers refuse to use the technology because of higher cost. So these employers have also broken the law on occupational disease prevention.

But now it is the workers who have been reduced to desperation and despair, find nowhere to have the injustice addressed and no way to get compensation for the disease they have contracted in their workplace.

Diagnosis of such diseases must be based on the analysis of the patient's vocational experience, his or her contact with hazardous working conditions and an investigation of the work site. In addition, the work unit must provide information related to labor protection. This shows that these workers will never have their disease diagnosed at the authorized hospital without cooperation from their employers.

Then how can they expect their employers who even deny them a labor contract and necessary labor protection to admit to being the culprit?

Their case points to the necessity of amending the law on occupational diseases and making it easy for workers to have their occupational disease diagnosed and certified in specialized hospitals. And it also points to the necessity for an intervention by the local government to investigate into the violations by the employers of these poor workers.

It would be a shame for the country's rule of law and the protection of workers' rights to leave these workers to wait to die without witnessing justice being delivered.

(China Daily 12/10/2009 page8)