Societal Factors H&s Standards - Reduced

1.
IDENTIFY THE REASON FOR

EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT OF
HEALTH AND SAFETY
LEARNING
OUTCOMES:
2. OUTLINE THE SOCIETAL FACTORS
WHICH INFLUENCE H&S STANDARDS
Introduction
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdLfDLjIqXE
2. Reason for effective management of health and safety
MORAL LEGAL ECONOMIC
There are three fundamental reasons for organizations to manage health and safety risk:
• Moral – as human beings, we should feel obliged to look after each other’s safety.
• Legal – there are strict legal obligations imposed on employers and employees relating to the safety
of employees
and others affected by the business.
• Economic – businesses that address health and safety risk are invariably more successful than those
that do not.
Loss events, such as accidents or ill health, lead to significant direct and indirect costs.
Moral
• Moral obligations are based on the concept of an employer owing a duty of reasonable care to their
employees.
• A person should not be expected to risk their physical health, or indeed their life, as a condition of
employment.
• Society expects every employer to demonstrate a morally correct attitude to the health and safety of their
workforce. It is unacceptable to place employees in situations where their health and safety is at risk.
• In addition to the obvious duties owed by an employer to their workers, they also have a moral obligation
to protect other people whose health and safety may be affected by their undertaking (e.g. contractors or
members of the public)
Legal
In an ideal world, organizations would all ‘self-regulate’ or ‘self-police’, so that they identified and
enforced the most appropriate health and safety standards for their activities.
Unfortunately, not all organisations are sufficiently motivated or enlightened. Over the years many moral
obligations have been turned into health and safety law. For example, the International Labour Organization’s (ILO)
Occupational Safety and Health Convention (C155) 1981 identifies some basic general legal duties of employers
towards their employees in Article 16:
“1. Employers shall be required to ensure that, so far as is reasonably practicable, the workplaces,
machinery, equipment and processes under their control are safe and without risk to health.
2. Employers shall be required to ensure that, so far as is reasonably practicable, the chemical, physical
and biological substances and agents under their control are without risk to health when the appropriate
measures of protection are taken.
3. Employers shall be required to provide, where necessary, adequate protective clothing and protective
equipment to prevent, so far as is reasonably practicable, risk of accidents or of adverse effects on
health.”
There are strong legal reasons for employers to manage risk:
• Preventive – enforcement notices (improvement or prohibition) can be issued by enforcement inspectors.
• Punitive – where the criminal courts impose fines and imprisonment for breaches of legal duties. These
punishments can be given to the company or to individuals within the company.
• Compensatory – where employees are able to sue in the civil courts for compensation.
Economic
Accidents and ill health are costly. The costs of accidents and ill health are categorized as:
• Direct costs – the calculable costs arising directly from the accident (e.g. sick pay, repairs to damaged
equipment, fines and legal fees).
• Indirect costs – consequential costs that do not, generally, involve the actual payment of monies (e.g. lost
orders and business interruption).
Indirect costs, though often difficult to calculate, are often substantially more than direct costs
https://www.oshatrain.org/courses/pages/700costs.html
An Accident at Barton’s
Microsoft
PowerPoint Presentation
Makkah Crane Accident
1. Cause of the Accident

2. Proposed Solution
3. Cost of Accident
2. Societal factors which influence H&S standards
• High volume/Low profit manufacturing, heavy industry and chemical industries
exported overseas to export lower labor costs and lower environmental standards
• Effect: Overall injury rates down, but ill-health up (possibly because of time:
asbestos etc.
Migrant workers can be at high risk of exposure to workplace hazards and face
additional work-related risk factors and unfavorable social determinants of health
including employment and wage discrimination, poor working and living
conditions, lack of access to social protection and language and culture barriers.
These work-related risks can result in higher incidence of occupational injuries
and work-related diseases among migrant workers, compared with non-migrant
workers.
TO SUM IT ALL UP:
Task – Migrant Worker
Microsoft Word
Document
This safety training video outlines the two causes of most accidents and the human behaviors that
make accidents happen. Understanding these causes and behaviors can help us reduce both the
frequency and severity of accidents.
1. What are the two causes of most accidents

2. What are the human behaviors that make these accidents happen?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBf6BTX1bmM

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1.

IDENTIFY THE REASON FOR

• Preventive – enforcement notices (improvement or prohibition) can be issued by enforcement inspectors.

Makkah Crane Accident

1. Cause of the Accident

1. What are the two causes of most accidents

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