A worker’s rights are human rights, and human rights are worker rights. These rights are interrelated, indivisible, and universal. Every worker has a right to dignity, to be treated with respect, ethically and without subjecting them to dehumanizing or degrading conditions of work. States have undertaken an ambitious goal under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): to ensure decent work for all by 2030.
Despite clear obligations relating to the protection of worker health, workers around the world find themselves in the midst of a public health crisis due to their exposures to hazardous substances at work. While the World Health Organization (WHO) and others have called for action on this public health crisis for decades, the global problem of worker exposure to hazardous substances remains poorly addressed.
For example, it is estimated that one worker dies every 15 seconds from toxic exposures at work. Some 2.78 million workers die from unsafe or unhealthy conditions of work each year globally. These are preventable deaths. The inaction on this global public health crisis costs an estimated to 3.94 % global GDP, or 2.99 trillion USD.
The Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Toxics will focus his 2018 report to the UN Human Rights Council in in September 2018 on the rights of workers and toxic chemical exposure. The report will be available here and at the website of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.