"Work is central to people's lives, to the stability of families
and societies. It is key to poverty reduction and to the achievement of social
inclusion and cohesion. Such work must be of acceptable quality. Decent work
must be safe work and we are a long way from achieving that goal."

--Juan Somavia, Director-General, International Labour Office, United Nations,
2002

Companies and nations have tried to make the case that they can't afford workplace
safety. The premise of this argument--that there's an economic advantage to
be gained from disregarding safety--is completely wrong. As we saw last week,
failure to ensure the health and safety of workers does great damage to a nation's
economy.

The Competitive Advantage of Safety

There's a flipside to this analysis. The evidence shows that not only does
bad safety hurt economic performance but that good safety boosts it. On the
national level, research by the International Labour Organization (ILO) demonstrates
that the safest countries also have the best competitiveness ratings.

The International Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Lausanne, Switzerland,
publishes what are widely considered the most authoritative annual rankings
of countries by economic competitiveness. The IMD analyzes the competitiveness
of 60 nations based on 320 criteria.

The ILO plotted the IMD rankings against its own occupational health and safety
rankings. The results show a strong link between safety and competitiveness.
As illustrated by the chart below, the countries with the fewest fatal accidents
per 100,000 workers also were the ones that ranked highest in economic competitiveness.

Conclusion

There is no statistical evidence to show that spending money on workplace health
and safety hurts economic performance--either at a macro or a micro level. On
the contrary, the evidence overwhelmingly suggests the opposite. This makes
the continuing neglect of workplace safety on the part of developing countries
not just tragic but profoundly foolish.

Source: "Safety in Numbers," International
Labour Organization, Geneva, 2003.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF TERRORISM, PART 2

Kali: Hindu goddess of terror and destruction

Assassins & Thugs

The organized terrorism that took roots in the Middle East in ancient times
continued to grow during the middle ages.

Assassins: In the eleventh century, practitioners of a new
sect of Islam called Shia Muslims believed in the forceful spread of a purified
form of the religion. A splinter group from this sect stepped up the zeal to
a higher level by introducing violence. Emulating the tactics of the ancient
Zealots and Sicari, they stabbed their victims -- mostly politicians and clerics
opposed to the new radical teachings -- in broad daylight. These practitioners
of violence became known as "assassins," literally "hashish-eaters."

Thugs: Terrorism spread east into Asia. An Indian religious
cult ritually strangled its victims -- usually travelers that they chose at
random -- as an offering to Kali, the Hindu goddess of terror and destruction.
Their motives were more religious than political. Nevertheless, this group,
known as the Thugees, is thought to be responsible for as many as a million
murders from the seventh to the 19th centuries. Part of their legacy is the
word "thug".

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