The In­ter­na­tion­al Labour Or­gan­i­sa­tion (ILO) has is­sued two guid­ance doc­u­ments with rec­om­men­da­tions for coun­tries on how best to cre­ate safe and ef­fec­tive re­turn-to-work con­di­tions, dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

In a Guid­ance Note ti­tled “A safe and healthy re­turn to work dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic”, the ILO ad­vis­es that re­turn to work poli­cies “should be in­formed by a hu­man-cen­tred ap­proach that puts rights and in­ter­na­tion­al labour stan­dards at the heart of eco­nom­ic, so­cial and en­vi­ron­men­tal strate­gies and en­sures that pol­i­cy guid­ance is em­bed­ded in na­tion­al oc­cu­pa­tion­al safe­ty and health sys­tems”.

The Guid­ance Note is ac­com­pa­nied by a 10-point, Prac­ti­cal Guid­ance ac­tion check­list for em­ploy­ers, work­ers and their rep­re­sen­ta­tives. The ILO ex­plains the check­list is in­tend­ed to com­pli­ment, and not re­place, na­tion­al oc­cu­pa­tion­al safe­ty and health reg­u­la­tions and guid­ance, to help es­tab­lish the prac­ti­cal de­tails of a safe re­turn to work.

The ILO un­der­scores that so­cial di­a­logue—the bring­ing to­geth­er gov­ern­ments, work­ers’ and em­ploy­ers’ or­ga­ni­za­tions—will be crit­i­cal in cre­at­ing the ef­fec­tive poli­cies and trust need­ed for a safe re­turn to work.

The Note draws on spe­cial­ist ILO guid­ance doc­u­ments and In­ter­na­tion­al Labour Stan­dards, which pro­vide a nor­ma­tive frame­work for cre­at­ing a safe re­turn to work. The doc­u­ment stress­es that pol­i­cy guid­ance should be em­bed­ded in­to na­tion­al Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health (OSH) sys­tems, as these cre­ate the ba­sis for safe work­place en­vi­ron­ments. The guid­ance, there­fore, can con­tribute to a cul­ture of con­tin­u­ous, coun­try-lev­el im­prove­ment, in ad­min­is­tra­tion, in­sti­tu­tions, laws and reg­u­la­tions, labour in­spec­tions, in­for­ma­tion gath­er­ing, and oth­er ar­eas.

Ac­cord­ing to the ILO, Work­ers must feel safe at their work­places, both from risks di­rect­ly re­lat­ed to COVID-19, and in­di­rect risks, in­clud­ing psy­choso­cial is­sues and er­gonom­ic risks re­lat­ed to work­ing in awk­ward po­si­tions or with poor fa­cil­i­ties when work­ing from home, the guide­lines say. They should have the right to re­move them­selves from any sit­u­a­tion “which they have rea­son­able jus­ti­fi­ca­tion to be­lieve presents an im­mi­nent and se­ri­ous dan­ger to their life or health”, and “shall be pro­tect­ed from any un­due con­se­quences”.

The doc­u­ment pro­pos­es that each spe­cif­ic work set­ting, job or group of jobs should be as­sessed be­fore re­turn­ing to work and that pre­ven­tive mea­sures should be im­ple­ment­ed to en­sure the safe­ty and health of all work­ers ac­cord­ing to a hi­er­ar­chy of con­trols. For work­ers stay­ing at home, the risk of in­fec­tion in a work con­text can be elim­i­nat­ed.  For all work­ers re­turn­ing to work­places, pri­or­i­ty should be giv­en to op­tions that sub­sti­tute haz­ardous sit­u­a­tions for less haz­ardous ones, such as or­ga­niz­ing vir­tu­al in­stead of phys­i­cal meet­ings. When this is not pos­si­ble, the ILO ad­vis­es that a mix of en­gi­neer­ing and or­ga­ni­za­tion­al con­trol mea­sures will usu­al­ly be re­quired to pre­vent con­ta­gion, and points out that the spe­cif­ic mea­sures to im­ple­ment are spe­cif­ic to each work­place, but may con­sist of in­stalling phys­i­cal bar­ri­ers such as clear plas­tic sneeze guards, im­prov­ing ven­ti­la­tion, or adopt­ing flex­i­ble work­ing hours, in ad­di­tion to clean­ing and hy­giene prac­tices.

The guide­lines al­so re­call that the use of ap­pro­pri­ate per­son­al pro­tec­tive equip­ment may be re­quired to com­ple­ment oth­er mea­sures, in par­tic­u­lar for the most haz­ardous oc­cu­pa­tions, and that this equip­ment should be pro­vid­ed with­out cost to work­ers.

The needs of work­ers at high­er risk of se­vere ill­ness should be tak­en in­to ac­count, in­clud­ing old­er work­ers; preg­nant work­ers; those with pre-ex­ist­ing med­ical con­di­tions; refugees and mi­grants; and those in the in­for­mal sec­tor.

The ILO's Deputy Di­rec­tor-Gen­er­al for Pol­i­cy, Deb­o­rah Green­field, ob­serves that spe­cial at­ten­tion will be need­ed to en­sure that re­turn to work poli­cies do not cre­ate dis­crim­i­na­tion re­lat­ed to gen­der, health sta­tus, or oth­er fac­tors.

“Un­safe work prac­tices any­where are a threat to both health and sus­tain­able busi­ness, every­where. So, be­fore re­turn­ing to work, work­ers must be con­fi­dent that they will not be ex­posed to un­due risks,” Deb­o­rah Green­field said. “And, to help en­ter­pris­es and economies get go­ing as soon as pos­si­ble, work­ers will need to co­op­er­ate with these new mea­sures.”

She added: “This means that so­cial di­a­logue will be par­tic­u­lar­ly im­por­tant be­cause it is the most ef­fec­tive way to feed in­for­ma­tion and views in­to poli­cies and ac­tions, thus cre­at­ing the best chance for a swift and bal­anced re­cov­ery.”