Occupational health and Safety performance

Health and safety consultation is an integral part of ABB's commitment to introduce into all businesses occupational health and safety management systems based on OHSAS 18001 and the International Labour Organization (ILO) guidelines. The form of health and safety consultation with employees varies according to local requirements, and includes health and safety committees and employee forums.

At Group level, ABB has a standing Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) committee chaired by an Executive Committee member whose mandate covers all employees.

	2010	2009	2008
Employee work-related fatalities	1	1	*3
Incident rate	0.01	0.01	*0.03
Employee work-related serious injuries	15	27	*37
Incident rate	0.13	0.23	*0.32
Employee business travel fatalities	2	1	2
Incident rate	0.02	0.01	0.02
Employee business travel serious injuries	5	0	3
Incident rate	0.04	0	0.03
Contractor work-related fatalities	2	3	4
Contractor work-related serious injuries	16	11	16
Contractor business travel fatalities	0	0	1
Members of the public fatalities	0	0	1
Employee working days lost due to industrial incidents	8.362	7,633	16,877
Employee occupational health diseases (number of cases)	13	47	102
Employee total recordable incident rate	13.48	14.32	18.93

* There is a change in the number of work-related fatal incidents and serious injuries for employees. An ABB employee who was seriously injured in a workplace incident in 2008 died in December 2010.

In four countries (Brazil, Mexico, Philippines and South Africa) ABB has programs in place to address HIV/AIDS.

At Group level, ABB has a program in place to deal with pandemic diseases, which has involved the development of pandemic plans and the appointment of pandemic coordinators for all countries. The pandemic plans are an element of a country's overall crisis response plans. ABB issued an online pandemic newsletter in 2010, which includes advice, hygiene recommendations and a description of symptoms of A/H1N1. The key reference point being used by ABB is the World Health Organization.

This information is not recorded by the Group, but local legislation requires formal agreements in some countries such as Germany and South Africa. Group health and safety performance is reported annually by the head of Group Function Sustainability Affairs at a meeting with the European Works Council.