WORK SAFETY
ABSTRACT
Work safety ensures that labour conditions are healthy
and safety. Also, it is a science which decreases work
accidents and work illness. Today people, who are the
most important factor of production, have a lot of
problems in workplaces because of technological
developments. These problems cause some kinds of
menaces to human health and then manipulation. When
the industry was inchoate, work safety hadn’t been
thought as a problem. However, when the activity areas
increased, the hazards also have increased; as a result
people required that some rules and laws. Therefore
scientific researches begin and work safety occurred. If
work safety is in the workplace or even tough in a
country, people will be happy and healthy. If it is not,
there are illness, death, disability, money and time
wasting. This is the importance of work safety. Safety
and health management system, or safety program, can
help you focus your efforts at improving your work
environment. Whatever you call it, your plan describes
what the people in your organization do to prevent
injuries and illnesses at your workplace. Work safety
can provide with safety education and training. An
important part of accident prevention work is the
education of workers and supervisors concerning the
importance to them of safe conditions and practices.
This is accomplished by supervisory training programs,
periodic supervisors’ meetings, employee safety
meetings, labor-management safety committees, safety
films, safety posters, safety contests, safety awards,
company publications, suggestion systems, and
numerous other educational devices. These increase the
employee’s interest in accident prevention and make
him safety conscious.
KEYWORDS
Work safety, Importance of safety, Objects of work
safety, Risk, OHSAS
1. RISK
Risk’s dictionary definition is ‘chance of bad
consequences; or expose to chance of injury or loss’.
Risk has become a term with extensive implications in
society and is used in reference to stock market
volatility, public health and safety management, and to
the potential for failures of organizational systems.
Firms manage safety by developing strategies to control
hazards and the associated risks. A simple and effective
method is to ‘spot the hazard, assess the risk, and make
the changes’. Tools have also been developed to
quantify or prioritize risks such as the Risk Scorecard
and to select appropriate interventions, for example, the
Hierarchy of Controls.
1.1. Accident causation models
Why is it that risk has been differentiated further? The
answer lies in the theories and models used to explain
how accidents happen. These show how threats are
translated into an injury and loss. An example is the
domino theory developed in 1931. It suggests that one
event leads to another, then to another and so on,
culminating in an accident.
The domino theory found that 88 per cent of accidents
are caused by unsafe acts of people, 10 per cent by
unsafe actions and 2 per cent by ‘acts of God’.
Interestingly, the ‘acts of God’ concept alludes that
there may be a level of risk that is not controllable and
therefore, noncompressible. The domino theory was a
very simple model based on a singular concept of risk.
Accident causation models are separated into four
groups.
‘Structure of accident model’ identifies immediate
causes and contributing causes of accidents. Immediate
causes involve unsafe acts and contributing causes of
accidents.
‘Human factors in accidents model’, assumes for
example the worker error leads to equipment design
faults and limitations. Poor maintenance practices or
further mistakes may exacerbate these faults, such that
the combination of these factors with inappropriate
operating procedure may result in a safety deviation.
The benefit of this model is that it indicates the need for
training to enhance skills and safety consciousness
because of the two categories of risk – the risk
associated with poor skills and the risk associated with
complacency. In the 1980s, a further group of accident
causation theories was developed.
These focused on individual perceptions of risk and
motivational factors, an example of which is the risk
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‘risk homeostatic accident model’. It applies
particularly to road traffic. This model introduces the
notion of a target level of risk- that people have a
degree of risk that they accept, tolerate or choose.
‘The Hale and Glendon model’ explains how
individuals control risk. It suggests that the worker acts
following a comparison of the current situation against
the desired situation.
All of the models discussed have enhanced the
understanding of accidents and how they occur. A
major weakness of the models is that they do not
clearly illustrate how risk is affected by business
activity. Some current OHS literature perpetuates this
emphasis on negligence, for example, workplace
accidents are caused by people. More accurately, they
are caused by the things they do or do not do.
Equipment and machinery will sometimes fail, and
incidents may occur which cause accidents, but they are
nearly always traceable to some degree of human error,
negligence or ignorance.
1.2. The entropy model
There are two categories of risks that are present in all
natural systems including or organizations. There is an
inherent or residual risk that cannot be completely
eliminated and the risk caused when systems degrade.
The latter is referred to as ‘entropic risk’. Entropy is a
measure of degradation or disorganization of the
universe.
The entropy model identifies these two types of risk
and explains how they are affected by the condition of
system factors. It begins by creating on organization
within a void, independent of natural law in section.
This is an ideal context in which the firm always
operates with perfect safety, performance and system
factor quality. All factors are fully and effectively
utilized with the accident rate and level of risk equal to
zero.
The entropy model is a significant contribution to the
understanding of the nature of risk and its impact on
organizational systems.
The concept of residual risk may cause some
organizations to be less than diligent in their efforts to
manage risk because incidents may be prematurely or
conveniently attributed to inherent danger rather than
systematic weakness. This may be particularly the case
in workplaces such as underground mines where the
level of residual risk is high. Concurrently, however,
because the entropy model raises awareness of the
significance of residual risk and its impact on safety
and performance, there is more reason for firms to be
diligent in the management of such risks.
2. RISK MANAGEMENT PRACTICES
2.1. Job safety analyses (JSA)
Job safety analysis can be carried out at any time but is
particularly required prior to new wok practices being
introduced, for example, when a firm starts
manufacturing an additional product line that involves
the use of new technologies. These changes affect
system factor risk levels and also the risks associated
with the interaction of these system factors.
Job safety analysis can also be carried out as part of the
auditing process. When there are obvious changes in
the quality of system factors, for example, when
hazards are identified or when safety concerns are
raised, JSA should be used to identify the risks
involved and to develop remedies. In firms that actively
promote safety consciousness, any member of the
organization may initiate a JSA. Workers are
encouraged to take ownership of their own safety and
the safety of others involved in or affected by the
operations of the business.
Job safety analysis is the most important process in
managing workplace risks. It should be undertaken
whenever new work practices are introduced, when
new technologies are installed and when the physical
environment is significantly modified. New employees
should also be taken through the process during
introduction to increase their awareness of workplace
risks and to give them these analytical skills.
2.2. Workplace inspections
Workplace inspections are also used to monitor and
manage risks. Firms committed to safety undertake
these reviews habitually to identify any changes in the
condition of system factors since the last inspection.
2.3. Hazard inspections
Workplace inspections involve a general review of the
four system factors in a work area. Hazard inspections,
on the other hand, specifically focus on a particular risk
source. The basic underlying premise of hazard
monitoring is that there is an ’acceptable’ level of risk.
There are measures to quantify this level such as
maximum acceptable concentration (MAC),
permissible exposure limit (PEL) and short-term
exposure limit (STEL). These cutoffs are based on the
assumptions that exposure to levels below the defined
value will have no long-term effects on the worker and
that short-term effects are reversible.
When the hazardous condition rise above the industry
standard ‘acceptable’ level, the probability of an
incident or threat to human health and safety has also
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risen. The greater this rise, the greater the need for
urgency to correct the condition or to modify work
practices to avoid the risk.
Traditional approaches to hazard inspection have
focused on unsafe conditions in technologies and the
physical environment. The entropy model suggests that
hazards are also present in processes and human
resources. There is a need, therefore, to consider also
these systems factors as potential sources of danger.
For example, in the case of the mechanical fitter who
was trapped while working on the rope shovel, the
investigation revealed that the process was extremely
dangerous and pre-operational hazard inspection should
have been undertaken before the work was attempted.
2.4. Visitor safety
The risk management practices discussed so far have
focused primarily on protecting the health and safety of
direct employees. The company is also responsible for
the welfare of other individuals including visitors.
Visitors are any persons who are not an employee or a
contractor and include students on work experience
programs, family members, children who are in the
workplace for any reason, clients and customers.
Having people on-site who have no or limited
knowledge of the risks which are present leads to
additional hazards. Wherever there is a dilution of the
average level of competency in a work area according
to the number of people in attendance, there is an
increase in residual risk in the human resources system
factor and greater susceptibility to entropic risk.
3. WORK SAFETY
3.1. Objects of work safety
Work safety aims that protect to employees in the
office from occupational diseases and work accidents,
and thus minimize the loss of manpower and working
hours in order to protect its production, so jobs will
increase in efficiency. These measures not only protect
to workers, but also make them happy.
3.2. Labor and Social Safety
Work security is related to various parts of society.
States must deal with accidents directly or through
public institutions. The Ministry of Labor and
Social Security is interested about this subject. It is
affiliated: Inspector of Business, Worker Health and
Safety Center, Worker Health and Head of Department,
Inspector of Occupational Safety.
3.3. Working areas of work safety
Work safety is a multi-faced science that associated
with sociology, economics, and law. It is capitalize-on
sciences like physic, economics, chemistry,
engineering, sociology, chemistry, engineering etc…
By the end of work, work safety returns to professional
and technical project. As a work field, work safety
includes industry and service sectors.
4. WORK ACCIDENTS
4.1. Accidents
Accidents are events which are unplanned and
unexpected. They may cause injuries, disabilities or
death. Accidents can order as follows: ‘home accidents,
work accidents, traffic accidents, etc…’
4.2. Work accidents
It is an accident which occurs because of worker’s job,
in a workplace.
4.3. Causation of work accidents
These are the reasons:
1. If material isn’t appropriate for production,
2. Environment: Temperature, humidity and lighting
effects of physical health conditions such as noise.
3. People: Education and the inadequacy of
information, abstraction careless, indifference,
insensitivity incompatibility, nutrition problems, family
and mental health problems.
4. Configuration of production machinery is not
suitable or protective measures to be taken.
4.4. Increasing of the work accidents
Factors which affect the workers negatively cause
to increase the work accidents. These factors are:
‘work fatigue, irrational business regime, spending
more and continuous labor, worker's physical and
mental structure etc…’
The fundamentals of increasing of the work accidents
are:
1. Using the old technology,
2. Conditions that are not appropriate for health and
safety,
3. Deficiency of control in the accidents,
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4. Unexperienced employee and the new employees
who are not educated with training programs,
5. Not research the accidents why and how occur.
4.5. Prevention of work accidents
Precautions will be taken to prevent work accidents at
the same time providing the security policy that creates
jobs. Some measures must have taken :
1. To eliminate unsafe conditions,
2. To prevent unsafe behaviors,
3. Use of good study methods
4. Using to automation,
5. Using the personal protector.
5. OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY
MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS (OHSAS)
5.1. Definition of OSHAS
An Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) system is
the way you secure, safe and well-managed businesses
to create a lead: Determine the functioning of your
organization and minimize the dangers associated,
workplace incidents, accidents and reduction of
disability, workers' compensation and liability cases
related to reducing the risk of legal action, if an
incident or accident has been shown that the evidence
necessary to ensure.
5.2. OHS training
Occupational Health and Safety training courses are
designed for companies which need for apply to OHS
management system. If you want to know how to apply
OHS, control an OHS system or understand its
standards and issues, you can find the best course for
your business.
5.3. OHS training benefits
Occupational Health and Safety training courses ensure
that you can understand the risk control better.
Education equips the people with skills and information
which are necessary. OHS can increases staff morale
and pride, allows personnel to concentrate on the basis
of business activities and finally increases performance
and productivity.