100993498 1 Health and safety on construction site PARTH NITINKUMAR JADAV aka YADAV 100993498 Swinburne University of technology Acknowledgement: I would like to express my truthful gratitude to T.Y. Chen for the guidance and encouragement, and also knowledge which I have gained in this course I perceive as very valuable element in my future career development. I also express my sincere gratitude to my beloved parents for their heartfelt support and encouragement in all my endeavours. Abstract: Working on construction site is a dangerous job as it includes many hazardous task like using power tools & equipment, excavation, noise, dust and working at height. Some construction site includes high rise building, bridge, dam, roads and so on. Construction has been increasing all over the world in recent years. Rate of occupational fatalities has also amplified in this years. Occupational health and safety on construction site in many countries is not up to that level and it’s also not consistent and no control for its implementation. It is very important to have a safe environment on construction site. In developed countries, there are certain laws and regulations that maintain safe environment on site like basic training, emergency procedure to provide safety on construction site. This research scrutinizes different aspects associated with the implications of laws and regulations in developing countries. This qualitative research will illustrate consequence of effect of laws and regulations in developing countries. In order to apply rules and regulations, it is essential to compare approaches taken by developed countries and developing countries and how it is implemented for health and safety on construction site. The research here states laws, regulations, methods and their processes implemented in developed countries like Australia. Keywords: Occupational health and safety (OHS), safety, construction site, health, risk 100993498 2 Contents 1 Introduction: .................................................................................................................................. 2 1.1 Problem: ............................................................................................................................ 3 1.2 Sub problem: ..................................................................................................................... 3 2 Literature Review:.......................................................................................................................... 3 2.1 Occupational health and safety:.............................................................................................. 3 2.2 Hazard identification and training: .......................................................................................... 4 2.3 Safety plans and programs: ..................................................................................................... 4 3 Approaches and methods: ............................................................................................................. 4 3.1 Occupational health and safety acts, regulations: ................................................................... 4 Occupational Health & safety act 2004:............................................................................. 4 Occupational Health & safety regulation 2007: ................................................................. 5 Work health and safety regulation 2011: .......................................................................... 5 4 Result and discussion: .................................................................................................................... 6 5 Conclusion: .................................................................................................................................... 7 References: ....................................................................................................................................... 7 1 Introduction: Major portion of workers in developing countries are facing problems related to safety, laws, regulations and compensation. Many site accidents lead to death or serious injury like handicapped that cause labour to retire early or unable to do work anymore. Theses labours have nothing to support their future like no laws or regulation, no government support. Even, their employers do not take care of them. These need to be stopped in developing countries. We cannot stop this completely but we can adopt laws or regulations about work safety, human rights and equality from developed countries like Australia. Their statistics show that after the laws and regulations, number of accidents and claims have decreased over the time. Occupational health and safety is an Australian law, which provides rules and regulations for both employer and employee. It also ensures compensation and rehabilitation if worker gets injured at work. Australian safety and compensation council is an advisory body which represents interest of employee, employer and government. It provides safety on site to lessen the probability of serious incident to occur. Construction activities have their own risk and hazards. Safe work Australia has established the model Work Health and Safety Act and Regulations in 2011 which provide safety and strategy to 100993498 3 reduce the incidence of injury by 30% by 2022 and reduce work related fatalities by 20%. (2015) Nearly 28% deaths occur on construction site due to fall from height. Over the period of 11 years from 2003 to 2013, accident rate has decreased 68%. The body part, often injured during accident was lower back, which accounted for 15%, followed by thumb & fingers (12%), knee (11%) and shoulder (9%). Rate of claim also decreased over this period of time. The rest of the research is categorised in different sections. The section literature review and problem analyses give brief information about the current situation and implementations of occupational health and safety laws and regulations according to different research done previously. Methodology is discussed in the further section and after that research is concluded with a brief discussion on adaptability of laws and regulations in developing countries. 1.1 Problem: Major problem related to site safety regulations in developing country is their implementation. Problems related to implementation are discussed below: According to laws and regulations, employer is responsible for safety related issues on site of his employees and any other person on site over which owner has control. In developing countries like India, it is difficult for employer to restrict people other than employees on site as they are not used to of following rules and regulations. Work health and safety regulation 2011, this law states that any person who wants to work on site must have taken general construction induction training. After the completion of training, person will receive white card. This procedure is time consuming and also cost money. In developing countries whose economy is not so strong, people will take this training as Government’s new strategy to take money. Another major problem is adaptability of laws and regulations among workers as they are used to of working in environment without any restrictions. 1.2 Sub problem: Corruption is the main problem in these countries. It is difficult for employer to store Personal Protective Equipment to all the workers as it is difficult to manage equipment and store it in proper place to ensure that it does not get steal. Some labours will take unnecessary benefit of claim, which result into time delay and cost overruns. 2 Literature Review: A detailed literature is conducted on site safety and health, occupational health and safety laws and regulations and its limitations. 2.1 Occupational health and safety: As in the matter of safety, we cannot achieve absolute result. But, Occupational health and safety laws and regulations provide safer environment on construction site as it follows strict rules and regulations. According to study, it concludes that best practice in occupation 100993498 4 health and safety will provide safer environment as it includes safety plans, OHS education and training, safety equipment, control strategies and hazard assessment. (Charles, Pillay et al. 2007) 2.2 Hazard identification and training: For workers’ safety and health concern in case of emergency, safety training and education must be provided as precaution is better than cure. Safety training includes first aid procedures and OHS theory to enhance performance. According to study conducted by Charles, it concludes that worker’s training must focus on hazard and danger recognition, regular inspection, inspection of safety tools. This safety training enhances safety performance. (Charles, Pillay et al. 2007) 2.3 Safety plans and programs: Before commencement of any project, risk assessment must be carried out in construction planning stage to identify the possibility of any kind of danger that workers may encounter. For workers’ safety, personal protective equipment should be provided to workers for their safety and no worker must be allowed on site without personal protective equipment. Referring to Study, it states that safety plans and programs are beneficial for construction parties; responsibility should be allocated to authorised person who can conduct regular site visits, document any faults or corrections and safety plan must be submitted with tender documents. (Charles, Pillay et al. 2007) 3 Approaches and methods: In developing countries, 25 out of 40 deaths occur due to carelessness or negligence. Proper safety in construction is of utmost importance (Priyadarshani, Karunasena et al. 2013). In most of the developing countries, there are laws for construction of various structures but none for safety. In developed countries, there are particular laws and regulations for site safety are as follows: 3.1 Occupational health and safety acts, regulations: Occupational Health & safety act 2004: It aims to provide safety, health and well-being of employees and other persons at work; eliminates the risk; ensure public is not at risk because of the conduct of employer or contractor; promote training and education of occupational Health and safety. Section 21: An employer must provide, as far it is practicable, safe working environment that do not put the life of the employee at risk. Section 21 (2): An employer must provide suitable training to their employees, maintain safe working environment on site, make arrangements for safe storing, handling and transporting of substances. Section 21 (3): An employee also includes independent contractor and its employees and any matter employer can control. 100993498 5 Section 22: Keep the records of incidents; monitor health of staffs. (Maxwell 2004) Occupational Health & safety regulation 2007: This is the programme to improve construction works in context with health and safety. It provides information regarding hazard identification, risk control, review of risk control measures, safety signs and emergency procedure. It provides more responsibility to contractor to improve safety or sometimes construction firms appoint special occupational health and safety officer. (Hermanus 2007) Work health and safety regulation 2011: It provides information regarding workplace management, personal protective equipment, managing hazardous work, licensing to work; general electrical safety; duties of designer of structure, principal contractor, general construction induction training, storage and handling of hazardous chemical, lead and asbestos. According to Work health and safety regulation 2011, person who works on construction site or wants to work, have successfully completed necessary training before beginning of work. Person must have general construction induction training card or white card as shown below to work on site and it also states fines for breaching of regulations. (Worksafe 2011) Image 1 General construction induction training card or White card With proper application of these laws in developing countries and considering priority of safety over project cost and time, we can reduce the number of accidents happen on site. I am adopting this approach because after the occupational health and safety training, 100993498 6 workers are more aware of their task; it changes their attitude of doing work and not willing to take risks and take more precautions than before; and as per the rules and regulation, all the incidents happen on site despite the level of risk major or minor all are registered or noted in detail. This helps in improving laws and regulations and having a clear view of in which area more consideration is required. Results are described in more detail in following section. 4 Result and discussion: After providing necessary training and basic knowledge regarding first aid and safety, workers are assessed according to their efforts in different activities. In case of using tools, safety performance was highest (97%), safety performance was lowest for working at height (47%) before providing training but after training it rose to 78%. The use of personal protective equipment after training found to be 95% safe for participants. After providing training to participants, an interview was conducted. From interview, it clearly states that participants are more aware of consequences and their attitude altered from “will not happen to me” to “can happen to me”; they are unwilling to take risks in case of risk taking. It clearly shows that participants after training are more aware of what could go wrong and its consequence. (Lingard 2002) (Lingard 2002) Table 1 As we can see that after training, participant become more careful and serious towards their work, they aware of the casualties. Most of the accidents happen on site because of carelessness attitude. So after training participants become more careful and cautious for their task and result of providing training is positive. So with the above result, we can adopt Occupational health and safety laws and regulations to developing countries and spread awareness and knowledge and with that we can lessen the number of accidents on construction site. 100993498 7 5 Conclusion: In conclusion, the purpose of introduction of occupation health and safety laws and regulations is to aware the site workers of casualties/ consequences related to work or of their action; provide necessary knowledge and training, lessen the rate of claim; prioritising safety over money and time; provide compensation to injured workers in terms of paid leaves; maintain safe environment on construction site; fine employer if he breaches occupational health and safety laws and regulations. Along with the rules and regulations above report also states that training provided under occupational health and safety is very effective and it should be provided to each worker to increase awareness. The above research concludes that application of laws and regulations regarding safety in developing countries may harsh to employers but it surely benefits employees and results into increase in site safety and lessen the accidents on site. Thus, ultimately results into saving of time and money. References: Safe work Australia,(2015). Work-related injuries and fatalities in construction, Australia,. Charles, M., et al. (2007). "Guide to Best Practice for Safer Construction: Literature Review from Concept to Completion." Australia: Cooperative Research Centre for Construction Innovation. Lingard, H. (2002). "The effect of first aid training on Australian construction workers' occupational health and safety motivation and risk control behavior." Journal of Safety Research 33(2): 209-230. Maxwell, C. (2004). Occupational health and safety act review, State of Victoria. Priyadarshani, K., et al. (2013). "Construction safety assessment framework for developing countries: a case study of Sri Lanka." Journal of Construction in Developing Countries 18(1): 33-51. Worksafe (2011). Work Health and Safety Regulations 2011, Worksafe Australia. Hermanus, M.A., 2007. Occupational health and safety, State of Victoria.