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Knowledge And Practice Of Occupational Safety Among Workers In Jalingo Bakery, Taraba State
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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Safety and
health principles are universal, but how much action is needed will
depend on the size of the organization, the hazards presented by its
activities, the physical characteristics of the organization, products
or services, and the adequacy of its existing arrangements.Many of the
features of effective safety management are analogous to the sound
management practices advocated by proponents of quality management,
environmental protection, and business excellence. Commercially
successful companies often excel at safety and health management as
well, precisely because they apply the same efficient business expertise
to safety and health as to all other aspects of their operations. On an
average day, 17 US workers are killed and 16,000 are injured in work-
related accidents, resulting in a cost to industry of more than USS 110
billion annually (Barr, 1999). This injury rate is increasing.
Traditional safety efforts have focused on the engineering aspects of
safety; however, relatively few accidents (10%) are a consequence of
unsafe mechanical or physical conditions.While most on-the-job accidents
and injuries appear to result from employees’ unsafe acts, incidents
typically are not caused by single operator errors, but are end-events
in a chain of interacting factors on several systems levels (Wilpert,
2004). While many unsafe acts are committed, very few will penetrate an
organization’s defenses to result in accident or injury (Reason,
2004).It is becoming increasingly apparent that it is restrictive to
discuss failures of large- scale technological systems solely in terms
of the technological aspects. Individuals, their organizations, groups,
and cultures are all-important factors in the design, construction,
operation, and monitoring of technological systems. Until recently, this
issue has been described in the related literature of error.†While
human error does contribute to accidents, the behavioral causes of
failure are often found to be far more subtle when incidents are of a
technological system (Pidgeon, 2011).Many expectations are built into
the current Nigeria health and safety 1e2islation that specifies the
responsibilities of managers and employees with regard to safe working
practices. These suppositions are more likely to be fulfilled if a
positive cultural attitude toward safety exists. The costs of failure to
comply with these expectations are increasing.As workers become more
educated, they are more likely to expect safer working conditions; a
more safety and environmentally conscious public is increasingly willing
to express its disapproval of companies that are perceived to behave
carelessly. This public reproach was evident during the American
consumer boycott of Exxon gasoline following the Valdez oil spill
(Turner, 2001). Researchers have found that safety performance is
affected by organization’s socially transmitted beliefs and attitudes
toward safety (Ostrom, Wilhelrnsem, & Kaplan, 2009).
The concept
of safety culture (Pidgeon, 2011) was developed as a result of the 1986
Chernobyl accident, which focused attention on the human and
organizational elements contributing to the unsafe operation of
technological systems. The goal of a safety culture is to develop a norm
in which employees are aware of the risks in their workplace and are
continually on the lookout for hazards (Ostrom et al., 2003). A safety
culture motivates and recognizes safe behavior by focusing on the
attil4ides and behaviors of the employees. It is a process not a
program; it takes time to develop and requires a collective effort to
implement its many features (Ban, 2008).In order for employees to be
active participants in a safety program, they must receive occupational
safety training. Several issues affect: the perception of risk levels
and should be understood when training employees in occupational safety.
People tend not to use the likelihood of injury in their judgments of
product safety; rather, the severity of injury plays the foremost role
in decisions to read warnings and act cautiously (Young, Brelsford,
2007).In today’s competitive world, every organization especially
construction company is facing new challenges regarding occupational
safety and creating committed workforce. Organizations can perform at
peak levels only when employees are committed to the organization’s
objectives. Hence, it is important to understand the concept of
commitment and its feasible outcome (Wogalter, 1990).Vredenburgh and
Cohen (2005) found that the level of perceived danger increased
compliance to warnings and instructions; therefore, it is critical that
all employees are trained to identify the hazards associated with their
workplace.Finally, experience and knowledge of issues in workers
protection have led to a greater appreciation of how safety management
is directly related to employee’s job commitment.
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ABSRACT - [ Total Page(s): 1 ]This study was carried out to examine the knowledge and practice of occupational safety among workers. Specifically, the study examined the extent of awareness of workers about the knowledge and practice of occupational safety, examined the various factors that may affect/influence employee health, investigated the extent to which workers comply to the laid down occupational safety and health measures and examined the factors that influence workers poor compliance to occupational safety and heal ... Continue reading---
