USCIB Secures Balanced Outcome at International Labour Organization (ILO) Meeting on Occupational Safety and Health and Extreme Weather Events

Matias Espinosa (ACT/EMP), Pierre Vincensini (IOE), and Jose Arroyo.

USCIB participated as a designated Employer Expert at the International Labour Organization (ILO) Meeting of Experts on Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) in Extreme Weather Events and Changing Weather Patterns, held in Geneva from April 20-24. Jose Arroyo, Policy Manager, Corporate Responsibility and Labor Affairs at USCIB, represented US employers throughout the negotiations and served as Employers’ Spokesperson towards the end of the meeting.

USCIB engaged actively throughout the negotiating process to ensure that the outcomes reflected a practical, evidence-based approach, and an accurate allocation of responsibilities across all parties. The resulting conclusions reflect a balanced allocation of responsibilities between governments, employers, and workers. Employer obligations in the outcomes are also consistently qualified, preserving the flexibility that businesses need to implement OSH measures in ways that reflect their specific sectors, operational contexts, and available resources.

The conclusions also affirm that governments bear primary responsibility for the infrastructure that makes workplace preparedness possible: early warning systems, public meteorological data, inter-institutional coordination, and resilient public infrastructure. Employers can only be as prepared as the information and frameworks available to them, and the conclusions appropriately recognize this interdependence. The negotiations did establish workers’ duties to comply with OSH measures, participate in training and health surveillance programs, use personal protective equipment properly, and actively contribute to the identification and prevention of risks by reporting unsafe conditions.

The meeting brought together government, employer, and worker experts from across the globe to develop a set of tripartite conclusions providing guidance on effective OSH policy frameworks and workplace-level measures in the context of extreme weather events and changing weather patterns. The conclusions are non-binding and are addressed to governments, employers, workers, and their respective organizations; they will now be submitted to the ILO Governing Body for consideration and future action.