Attitudes to work health and safety legislation in Timor-Leste

Almost all high-income countries and many medium to low income countries have recognised the importance of occupational health and safety (OHS) by introducing specific legislation to protect workers' health and to improve productivity. Timor-Leste has in 2017 not yet taken this initiative nor as far as the authors are aware has research been published on the feasibility of introducing work health and safety legislation. This study aimed to investigate the attitudes of key stakeholders towards the feasibility of introducing work health and safety (WHS) legislation in Timor-Leste. Mixed methods were used to elicit the views of 50 participants from a range of key stakeholders including; employer associations, employers, workers and trade unions. The results suggested that it would be feasible to introduce an appropriate form of OHS legislation in Timor-Leste. However, the knowledge and awareness of workplace health and safety generally ranged from poor to very poor and the institutional capacity to support change was generally weak. Among survey respondents, there was widespread support for work health and safety legislation but much needs to be done to create OHS awareness and to improve the capacity of the institutions before introducing legislation