2.1 History and Concept of Occupational Safety and Health
Occupations Safety and Health (OSH) is not a common issue nowadays for most of people
that involve in the industrial businesses. It is today become a very serious matter of discussion
about the topic where The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that each year
around 2.3 million workers die as a result of occupational accidents and work-related diseases.
(Niu, 2010). This shows that OSH is really a serious matter. There are several types of
regulations in OSH.
“Occupational health and safety is a discipline with a broad scope involving
many specialized fields. In its broadest sense, it should aim at:

the promotion and maintenance of the highest degree of physical, mental
and social well-being of workers in all occupations;

the prevention among workers of adverse effects on health caused by their
working conditions;

the protection of workers in their employment from risks resulting from
factors adverse to health;

the placing and maintenance of workers in an occupational environment
adapted to physical and mental needs;

the adaptation of work to humans.”
(http://actrav.itcilo.org, 2010)
This few disciplines that practice in OSH and in a concept of offering safety to workers life
and taking care of health and safety in the workplace. The articles on history and Concept of
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Occupational safety and Health (OSH) suggest that it can be discussed in two different
perspectives. The first concept and theory in history of OSH used is the old concept and then
the new era concept of OSH which have the similarities and differences.
The old concept of OSH history suggests that OSH was began just after the
establishment ILO which after Second World War and functions as an organization in putting
all workers either male, female, children or adult in safe hand. (Holmesa, Giffordb, & Triggs,
1998). According to Stellman, in her book Encyclopedia of Safety and Health noted that the
concept of OSH after Second World War was not very general and indeed lack of supervision.
She suggested that the concern about safety in the workplace was not so much and the system
used during that time still have not been organized completely. The lack of supervision leading
towards unpredictable accident occurs (stellmen, J. M. 1998) which bring into fatal cases.
Greenberg. L, in his article asserts that old concept of OSH have a lot of weaknesses. One of
the weakness listed is the regulations and supervision in providing enough guidelines to the
employee of a company in ensuring the safety in the workplace. ILO is one of the international
organization that fuctioned to standardized all safety regulations in workplace, running
campaign for the awareness, delivering projects for inspection, analyzing databases and
statistics, and preparing training to any companies that needed. (www.ilo.org, 2010). The very
first concept of OSH does not have a clear aim and objectives, however only few years after
the ILO was introduced, it became more practical. Most of the employer during second world
war era have not being guide by rules and regulations of safety and health in their workplace.
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Few years after ILO were established, new concept of OSH started in the early
1970’s. The are many additions in the regulations of safety guidelines. Ergonomics, a term that
first surfaced in the 1940s, is the science of adapting work and working conditions to the
physical needs of the workers rather than requiring the worker to adapt to the inadequately
designed working environment. (Niu, 2010)
“World War II marked the development of new and complex machines and
weaponry and these made new demands on operators' cognition. The decisionmaking, attention, situational awareness and hand-eye coordination of the
machine's operator became key in the success or failure of a task. It was
observed that fully functional aircraft, flown by the best-trained pilots, still
crashed. In 1943, Alphonse Chapanis, a lieutenant in the U.S. Army, showed
that this so-called "pilot error" could be greatly reduced when more logical
and differentiable controls replaced confusing designs in airplane cockpits. In
the decades since the war, ergonomics has continued to flourish and diversify.
The Space Age created new human factors issues such as weightlessness and
extreme g-forces. How far could environments in space be tolerated, and what
effects would they have on the mind and body? The dawn of the Information
Age has
resulted in the new
ergonomics
field
of
human-computer
interaction (HCI). Likewise, the growing demand for and competition
among consumer goods and electronics has resulted in more companies
including human factors in product design.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergonomic,2010)
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According to Niu in his article, the new concept of OSH introduced with a definition of
occupational health with the Joint of ILO/WHO Committee at its first session (1950) and
revised at its 12th session (1995) which had stated the aim of the OSH:
1. the promotion and maintenance of the highest degree of physical, mental and social
well-being of workers in all occupations
2. The prevention amongst workers of departures from health caused by their working
conditions
3. the protection of workers in their employment from risks resulting from factors adverse
to health; the placing and maintenance of workers in an occupational environment
adapted to their physiological and psychological capabilities; and, to summarize, the
adaptation of work to the workers and of each worker to his or her job.
From the aim listed, it were clearly stated that new concept of OSH has a clear objectives in
caring and protecting the worker from any accident that might be happen to them in the
workplace. This Concept had been practiced until today and the regulations have been
renewed and lots of addition because of the advancement of technology used in the industry.
In the 21st century, OSH management system was developed into a computer program.
Greenberg. L (1982) stated that this module is intended to assist the practitioner with the
preparation, management, and planning of the safety program. Towards this end, the safety
sampling program allows one to prepare a plan for sampling safety behavior or performing air
monitoring at random times. Therefore, the management of safety and health in workplace
become easier and faster.
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In a nutshell, OSH has two concept according to historical timeline which are
the old concept which lack of regulations and not very practical and the new concept which is
eligible in this era. Both of the concepts still do have similarities which is the concern about
the safety and health of employee in the workplace to be ensured. In the same time, both
concepts have a big difference to each other where the problems and weaknesses in the old
concept were revised again and renewed to ensure the system is up to date. This is to ensure
that the employees of this era were treated more carefully and in justice. The system of safety
and health in workplace should be taken more seriously by government and employer because
the matter of safety and health is not a small thing and it can cause big impact to one’s
employee. Technology should be taken in to ensure the system of OSH in any company is
more strategic.
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(2010, Jan). Retrieved August 9, 2010, from Labor Education Program: http://actrav.itcilo.org
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