PROTECTION OF WORKERS AGAINST OCCUPATIONAL HAZARDS

INTRODUCTION

Occupational health and safety encompasses the social, mental and physical well-being of
workers that is the “whole person”. Successful occupational health and safety practice requires
the collaboration and participation of both employers and workers in health and safety
programmes, and involves the consideration of issues relating to occupational medicine,
industrial hygiene, toxicology and more.

Occupational health issues are often given less attention than occupational safety issues

because the former are generally more difficult to confront. However, when health is addressed,
so is safety, because a healthy workplace is by definition also a safe workplace. The converse,
though, may not be true a safe workplace is not necessarily also a healthy workplace. The
important point is that issues of both health and safety must be addressed in every workplace. By
large, the definition of occupational health and safety given above
encompasses both health and safety in their broadest contexts.

Efforts in occupational health and safety must aim to prevent industrial accidents and
diseases, and at the same time recognize the connection between worker health and safety, the
workplace, and the environment outside the workplace. Unfortunately some employers assume
little responsibility for the protection of workers' health and safety. In fact, some employers do
not even know that they have the moral and often legal responsibility to protect workers. As a
result of the hazards and a lack of attention given to health and safety, work-related accidents
and diseases are common in all parts of the world.

Effective workplace health and safety programmes can help to save the lives of workers
by reducing hazards and their consequences. Health and safety programmes also have positive
effects on both worker morale and productivity, which are important benefits. At the same time,
effective programmes can save employers a great deal of money.
 SEARCH STRATEGY

Internet, when it is open for public usage often brings advantage and disadvantages to
everyone. In this case, internet is used to gain some knowledge on the protection of workers
against occupational hazards. There are a few strategies used in order to be able to search for the
materials needed.

In part A, I have identified two main concepts for my search which is ‘workers’ and
‘occupational hazards’. Then, I came up with another two alternative keywords for each concept.
I replaced ‘workers’ with ‘labour’ and ‘employee’ whereas ‘occupational hazards’ was replaced
with ‘psychosocial hazards’ and ‘physical hazards’. So, my search statement turned out to be
Workers AND (Labour OR Employee) and (Psychosocial Hazards OR Physical Hazards) AND
Occupational Hazards.

Moving on to Part B, I was instructed to look for three materials using my search
statement in Pendeta Discovery provided by the website in Universiti of Malaya Library
(http://umlib.um.edu.my). I managed to lookup for three conference collections and all of these
materials can be found in the main library itself. It’s time saving and efficient.

Next will be Part C. Here, I was assigned to search for eight full – text articles in the
databases subscribed by University of Malaya. To be able to log into the portal, one must enter
the bar code which was printed behind the matric card. I found eight journal articles from eight
different databases which includes Ebsco Host, Cambridge Journal Online, Emerald, Hein
Online, Springer Link, Science Direct, Sage Journals and Taylor & Francis online.

I completed Part D by searching for 3 articles through the search engine using the search
statement above. By using Google, I managed to get two journal articles and one document from
the organization website.

Last but not least, we compiled all the citation for each and every source we found from
Part A to Part D and lay it in Part E. An introduction was also written based on the information
found in the internet.
 OBJECTIVE

1) To identify the types of protection available for workers.

2) To identify the types of occupational hazards that workers are exposed to.
3) To identify the ways to protect workers against occupational hazards.
 LITERATURE REVIEW

According to the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, indoor air
is air within a building occupied for at least one hour by people in varying states of health.
Indoor air pollution has been recognized as a serious health problem. Poor indoor air quality
(IAQ) can affect our health and environment significantly. Moreover, these impacts have a
serious burden on the economy. As stated by Brown (1998), CSIRO estimates the cost of poor
IAQ in Australia may be as high as $12 billion per year. Comparative risk studies undertaken by
the US EPA has ranked indoor pollution among indoor pollutants, gases like CO, CO2, NO, SO,
O3 particulate matter and volatile organic compounds. As for outdoor air, there has been a well-
established method to determine the air quality index (AQI). Most countries have established
their own system of AQI such as the air pollution index (API). It would be very useful if we
could develop a system assessing the IAQ for various building types. The present work is an
attempt to establish and define an IAQ index known as the EQI for the manufacturing process.
Occupational hazards associated with IAQ are a recent phenomenon, being related in many cases
to buildings that were constructed or modified with energy conservation in mind starting in the
1970s and 1980s. The occurrence of illness among occupants of these modern structures has
given rise to the terms sick building syndrome (SBS) and tight building syndrome. Then the
industrial building looks at the ventilation for safety and health, and environmental purposes.
(Leman, Yusof, Omar & Jung, 2010)

Industrial accidents and injuries are prevalent amongst the industrialized world. Accident
related research has long attempted to find common denominators among the human end
environmental antecedents of occupational hazards. Chemical substances can adversely affect
one or several of the body systems. While occupational health physicians will be familiar with
hazards or particular industries, general physicians or chiropractic health clinicians may easily
overlook industrial poisoning as a cause of symptoms because of its relative rarity. Even though
awareness of chiropractic and use of chiropractic care has been increasing, there are still millions
of people who know little or nothing about chiropractic and are not part of its utilization profile.
(Dhami & Vernon, 1985)
 Welding is a manufacturing industry where workers could be exposed to several hazards.
However, there are studies to clarify the situation in Ethiopia. The present study determined the
level of awareness of occupational hazards and associated factors among welding employees at
Lideta Sub-City, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. A work site-based cross-sectional study was conducted
among welding employees Lideta Sub-City, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from April to May 2015.
Stratified sampling followed by simple random sampling techniques was used to select the study
participants. A pilot tested and structured questionnaire was used to collect data. Multivariable
analyses were employed to see the effect of explanatory variables on workers’ awareness of
occupational hazards. According to our criteria of awareness, 86.5 % of surveyed workers were
aware of occupational hazards. A higher work experience, presence of work regulation, job
satisfaction, being married, being single, and a higher educational status were factors
significantly associated with workers’ awareness of occupational hazards. This study revealed
that the level of awareness of occupational hazards among welders was high. However, this does
not mean that there will be no need for further strengthening of the safety measures as significant
proportions of the workers still had low awareness. Interventions to boost workers awareness of
occupational hazards should focus on areas, such as provision of safety trainings, promotion of
safety advocacy, and enforcement of appropriate workplace safety regulation. (Tadesse,
Bezabih, Destaw & Assefa, 2016)
A.M. Leman, M.Z.M. Yusof, A.R. Omar, W. Jung. (2010). Environmental quality index
(EQI) for industrial ventilation and occupational safety and health evaluation in
manufacturing plant. Asian Journal on Quality. 11(3). 210-222. DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1108/15982681011093970
Dhami, MSI; Vernon, H. (1985). Occupational Hazards at Work Place. The Journal of the
Canadian Chiropractic Association. 29(3). 141-144. Retrieved from
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2484362/
Tadesse, S; Bezabih, K; Destaw, B & Assefa, Y. (2016). Awareness of Occupational Hazards
and Associated Factors among Welders in Lideta Sub-City, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Journal of Occupational Medicine and Toxicology. 12(13). Retrieved from:
https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1186%2Fs12995-016-0105-x.pdf
 DISCUSSION/ CONCLUSION

It can be seen that as the days goes by, the rate of occupational hazards seems to be
increasing in an uncontrollable rate. As the saying goes, prevention is better than cure. There are
various ways which can reduce occupational hazards. In this case, everybody should come hand
in hand to make sure the objective can come true. Therefore, everybody should walk the talk.

For instance, a seminar or talk will be more effective if it comes together with equipment
which can provide further protection workers whose job scope requires experience in dealing
with dangerous substances or are always at a risk of facing death. As for employers, it is known
that most employers provide workers with very little safety precaution for their workers in order
to save cost and earn more profit. The Parliament should enact more laws which can protect the
workers against all those cruel employers. Employers who are unable to compromise with the
law set shall be punish severely such as the ongoing work should cease immediately, the
employer loses his or her business and also they must pay a hefty amount of fines in order to
compensate their faults.

In conclusion, in order to minimize the rate of occupational hazards, everybody have to

look out for possible dangers when they are at work and they should also be wearing protection
gears at all time. It is impossible to bring the rate to zero as unforeseen circumstances happened
sometimes. What we can possibly do is to be safe at all times and follow the safety procedures
set by every job.