ABSTRACT
The International Labour Organization (ILO) Guidelines are in three parts: a short section on objectives; a rather longer section on translating the Guidelines into national practice; and, a section on "The Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) management system in the organization". The Japanese Guidelines are not systematic, with little coverage of management commitment, resources, and objectives. It is ironic that a country such as the United Kingdom, with a reputation for weak and ineffectual management, should be in the forefront of management systems while a country whose manufacturing sector is reputed to be very efficiently managed, pays so little attention to management systems and their documentation. Like the United States, Canada does not have a national, voluntary standard for health and safety management systems emanating from its national standard-writing bodies. The British Standards Institution (BSI) is a non-governmental standard-writing body which publishes voluntary standards.
