Promoting health and safety in the workplace

There are a number of techniques that can be employed to improve and promote effective levels of health and safety in the workplace that complement legislative requirements and are good industrial and commercial practice. They aim to increase awareness of the need for high standards of health and safety at work. 

A safe system of work is a considered method of working that takes proper account of the potential hazards to employees, and others such as visitors and contractors, and provides a formal framework to ensure that all steps necessary for safe working have been anticipated and implemented. 

All systems of work should be safe, but where the risk is such that unambiguous working instructions are necessary, the system of work should be in writing. 

Typical procedure for developing a safe system of work  

I - Identify hazards R - Remove dangers P - Provide protection S - Safe system of work T - Training E - Equipment M - Monitor. 

Including health and safety as inherent part of skill training. 

Ensuring supervisors are trained and competent in health and safety matters. 

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The Canadian Center for Occupational Health and Safety Act. C-13. (1978) This act created CCOHS to promote health and safety in the workplace, establish and maintain safety standards, develop programs to reduce or eliminate occupational hazards, and collect statistics. 

Constitutive Law Occupational Health and Safety Structures and Procedures Having empowered the participants in the market and in regulation, occupational health and safety laws further attempt to constitute structures and procedures for promoting health and safety in the workplace and most importantly... 

Analysis of the research data reveals that occupational health and safety regulation did have an institutional impact on BR. The company had responded to the constitutive demands of regulatory law and had put in place fairly elaborate systems for the promotion of health and safety in the workplace. But the systems were in many respects too elaborate and counterproductive as they proved difficult to communicate. So while health and safety had been incorporated into organizational scripts, the evidence is that understanding of these scripts was variable (Ch. 6). 

Using the workplace you selected earher, draw up a programme to promote health and safety in that workplace, using five approaches. 

The purpose of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is to promote health and quality of life by preventing and controlling disease, injury, and disability. The CDC provides limited information on occupational safety and health. For example, their web page has information about accident causes and prevention, back belts, cancer—occupational exposure, effects of workplace hazards on male reproductive health, latex allergies, needle stick, occupational injiuies, teen workers, and violence in the workplace (see website http //www.cdc.gov). The Center for Health Statistics is located within CDC and provides basic health statistics on the U.S. population. This information is used to identify potential occupational health risks by occupational health researchers (see website http / / WWW.cdc.gov/nchs). 

Health and safety representatives are employees who are appointed, nominated, or volunteer to assist in the promotion of safety to ensure a safer workplace. Health and safety representatives contribute greatly to the health and safety of the woik-place and assist in the identification and elimination of hazards. 

International Labour Organization. Global industry is affected by occupational health and safety initiatives. The International Labour Organization was founded in 1914 and is part of the United Nations it supports decent treatment of all workers. It provides international labor standards and oversees their implementation. The organization promotes social justice consistent with human rights in a safe and healthful workplace. 

The International Chemical Safety Cards (ICSCs) provide essential health and safety information on chemicals to promote their safe use. They are intended for use at the shop floor level by workers, but also by other interested parties in factories, agriculture, constmction, and other workplaces and often form part of education and training activities. 

This coalition of businesses, business groups, and individuals promotes efforts to reduce drug and alcohol abuse in the workplace in order to protect the health and safety of workers as well as business productivity. It also supports drug-testing programs when done under proper guidelines to protect employees rights. 

Today, numerous organizations are devoted in full or at least in part to the promotion of safety and health in the workplace (see Table 2-2). These lists are extensive now, but there was a time when these agencies and organizations didn t exist. We will discuss three important ones. 

This combination of standards development, stan-dards-related regulatory advocacy and market insight shows the value of the association in promoting members common interests and the broader interest of worker health and safety. ISEA Fall Protection Group members are united in (heir determination to extend the benefits of modem fall arrest technology to all workers and workplaces. For more information about the Fall Protection Group or any other ISEA activity, go to www.safetyequipment.org. 

The response of senior company officers who are concerned to avoid personal liability is to set in place management systems which promote workplace health and safety and to audit these systems to ensure that they are working as well as possible. Directors and managers who have set up such systems can be reasonably sure that they have exercised due diligence and that they could not be held personally liable in the event that a worker was killed or injured or, worse, that some disaster resulted in more widespread death and injury. 

That holistic approach is represented in the Total Worker Health program, introduced earlier this year by NIOSH and its partners. The TWH seeks to identify and promote integrated health programs in the workplace and recognize factors that influence health, safety, ability to work and well-being in all aspects of a person s life. 

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