Work Should Not Cost You Your Life

Every year, millions of workers around the world are killed, injured, or made sick by their work. The ILO estimates that 2.3 million workers die annually from work-related causes — roughly 6,000 every day. More than 300 million suffer non-fatal workplace injuries. The economic cost of poor occupational safety and health (OSH) is estimated at 4% of global GDP. The human cost is incalculable.

Africa bears a disproportionate share of this burden. With approximately 15% of the global workforce, the continent accounts for an estimated 54% of the world’s fatal occupational injuries. High-risk sectors — mining, agriculture, construction, and health care — are the backbone of most Southern African economies, and they are also the sectors where workers are most exposed to death, injury, and disease.

The Southern African Context

South Africa’s mining industry has made measurable progress on safety over the past three decades. Mine fatalities fell from 774 in 1994 to 49 in 2023 — a significant achievement driven by sustained pressure from the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), improved regulation, and employer investment in safety systems. But 49 deaths is still 49 too many, and progress has stalled in recent years. The 2023 Lily Mine tragedy — where workers were trapped for months after a collapse — exposed the continuing human cost of inadequate mine safety.

Agriculture is arguably the most dangerous sector in Southern Africa, yet it receives far less attention. Farm workers in Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia, and South Africa are exposed to pesticides, extreme heat, heavy machinery, and long working hours — often with minimal protective equipment and limited access to health services. Many are employed on seasonal or informal contracts that provide no OSH protections whatsoever.

Construction is another high-risk sector experiencing rapid growth across the region, driven by infrastructure programmes and urbanisation. Yet construction sites in most SADC countries operate with minimal inspection and weak regulatory enforcement. Health care workers — a group thrust into sharp focus during the COVID-19 pandemic — face biological hazards, violent patients, inadequate protective equipment, and chronic overwork that constitutes a serious OSH risk in its own right.

The Enforcement Gap

OSH regulation in Southern Africa is generally weak, not for lack of laws but for lack of implementation. Labour inspection systems are under-resourced. Inspectors are too few, too poorly equipped, and too easily overwhelmed by the scale of the informal economy. In Malawi, for example, the entire national labour inspection force numbers in the dozens — responsible for a workforce of millions across a country with challenging geography and infrastructure.

Employers in labour-intensive sectors often treat OSH compliance as a cost to be minimised rather than a standard to be met. Where penalties for violations are low and enforcement is rare, the calculation is straightforward. Workers — particularly those in precarious or informal employment — have little power to demand safer conditions without risking their jobs.

The ILO’s 2022 amendment to the Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work added a safe and healthy working environment to the list of fundamental rights at work. This is a historic development — it means that OSH is now firmly in the same category as freedom of association and the elimination of forced labour. But translating that global standard into improved conditions for farm workers in Zambia or construction workers in Harare requires sustained national and regional action.

Advocacy and Change

Trade unions and civil society have driven significant OSH improvements across the region. The Marikana massacre in 2012 — in which 34 striking mine workers were killed by South African police — was a watershed moment that forced a public reckoning with the conditions under which mine workers lived and worked. The subsequent Farlam Commission, while deeply flawed in many respects, produced recommendations on mine safety and labour conditions that shaped policy for years afterwards.

SATUCC’s regional OSH monitoring programme tracked conditions across the SADC region for nearly a decade, producing data that informed advocacy at both national and regional levels. The SADC Code on TB in the Mining Sector, developed through a tripartite process that included union input, was a direct product of that advocacy work.

What We Do

• Conduct OSH risk assessments in high-risk sectors, including agriculture, construction, mining, and health care.
• Review and support the development of national OSH programmes and regulatory frameworks across SADC countries.
• Assess the impact of excessive working hours and heavy workloads on worker health and safety.
• Support employers and workers’ organisations to develop practical workplace OSH tools and training programmes.
• Investigate the links between informality, precarious employment, and OSH outcomes.
• Produce evidence to support the recognition and enforcement of OSH as a fundamental right at work.