The future of occupational safety and health

Pressures from 3 sources are combining to advance workplace safety and health throughout the globe. Firstly, an increasingly widespread growth in a State's interest in the individual, both in and outside the workplace. This leads to regulations, which are rapidly changing from prescriptive to enabling (performance) regulations. An increasing acceptance of sophisticated accounting procedures which will drive the real costs of poor health and safety to the bottom line of corporations. Finally, the trend to globalization, both of manufacturing and of marketing, has led to an increasing demand from consumer societies for product attributes beyond price. In many countries there is an expectation that working conditions in producing countries are not inferior to those in the consuming countries.