Effects of Occupational Safety and Health Hazards on Women and Children

This article discusses the impact and effects of occupational safety and health hazards on women and children, industrial safety for women working in industries, companies etc. We all know, unlike the old conventions that women are less efficient than men, the contribution of women in industries is increasing drastically giving a strong statement that they are equally capable as men. They are also willing to take the challenging assignments in Industries even if they are doing the same in their home. But there are always risks associated with every challenging job. We have recently discussed  that the identification of occupational health and safety hazards among informal sector workers are very poor, but in case of women, it is even less understood. If a women is working in an unorganized sector, then the situation is even worse. 

For a woman doing a job, the first and foremost thing to behold is the balance between her professional work and family. The imbalance of the same will lead to occupational stress. In addition to paid work, women also do other demanding jobs like cooking, cleaning and taking care of children. In this scenario, the extended work hours for a women in an industry puts tremendous pressure on women's bodies and minds. Women also face an increased risk of musculo-skeletal disorders because of the repetitive nature of jobs they perform, and having to work in uncomfortable positions for long hours. They also work with chemicals in home based work. A women working in plantation kind of job is vulnerable to pesticide poisoning. The extend of the effect of all these factors on women depends up on their personal demographics.

You may wonder why the effect the of children on occupational safety and health is also mentioned in this article even though many countries have banned child labour and children are not legally supported to work. But the true fact is that, even after implementation of stringent laws there are many children working in the informal sectors of industry. Sometimes children have to help their parents for economic reasons. But the dangerous fact is that the growing body of a child is more susceptible to hazards at the workplace. Moreover because of the legislation that children are not supposed to work, very few initiatives are targeted at improving their working conditions.

Informal Sector Problems in Indian Industries

This article is related to problems in informal/unorganized sector of Indian industries especially related with occupational health and safety and the contributing factors that leads to poor working conditions in informal sector. We know that India has moved to a service sector economy from an agrarian economy, however India is still in its emerging phase as an industrialist economy. If you take the case of Indian industries, 90% of the workers are employed in informal sector. But the works in these sector are hazardous and insecure but still they used to admit their job to strive against their hunger and to continue means for their daily bread and butter. However the real scenario is, employment is not eradicating their poverty, rather they are prone to more risks and vulnerabilities. Many of the workmen are accepting these facts and for many of them, the reason is simple and realistic as they used to say "We might die of work, but if we don't work, our families will die out of hunger. So according to them, having work is important than the quality of job.

A welder unaware of fire hazard nearby him.
Welding near oil drum may cause fire hazard.

There are many contributing factors that leads to poor working conditions in informal sector. The foremost reason is the unawareness about workplace hazards due to lack of education and access to information. Most of the workmen employed in this sector is not having preliminary education and they cannot comprehend even if information is passed to them. The other major problem is no proper work hours. Piece rate work often leads to exploitation and extended exposure to hazardous processes. Moreover, workmen demands over time work as their daily wages on normal time is not so attractive and will not satisfy the daily needs in an inflation dominated economy. Diagnosis of occupational diseases is another difficulty in informal sector. So the treatment of occupational diseases is hardly possible in this sector. No clear distinction between living and working area complicates the problem, and exposes relatives and other living in the vicinity to work related risks. Another major problem in this sector is short term employment. Most the workers in informal sector is backed by a contractor whom they will approach for job. These contractors will deploy these workers for a short assignment in one particular job and afterwards they will be shifted to another category of jobs. This will not allow the workmen to expertise in a particular kind of job.

Labour reforms and labour laws from the government can be the best solutions to these problems in informal sector. There is a need to revive the grand old Factories Act 1948, which are still based on old concepts and definitions. Work oriented training must be given to these workers from the employer prior to the work and frequent up-gradation must be done during coarse of work. 

Legal Perspectives of Occupational Safety and Health in India

Safety and health occupy a significant place in India's constitution. This  article provides you important legislation and legal aspects, legal framework and legal norms for occupational safety and health in India. It is equally important for all HSE/EHS engineers/officers to have a good knowledge about legal perspectives along with the technical safety knowledge base. This is also important for all the managers, engineers and safety officers because they are responsible for the safety of staffs/workmen/labours working under them. A safe work place for the workmen and basic needs of the workmen must be satisfied. The people working under an industry have their legal rights. 

The global perspective of legal aspects in occupational safety and health is majorly contributed by International Labour Organisation (ILO). It has 18 conventions that are focusing on issues of Occupational Safety and Health (OSH). India has only ratified only 3 conventions on OSH. Some of the important conventions which India is yet to ratify are Convention 155 on Occupational Safety and Health and the working environment, Convention 161 on occupational health services, Convention 167 on safety and health in construction, Convention 187 on promotional framework for OSH, Convention 176 on safety and health in mines etc. Note that India has ratified 41 ILO conventions, among that only three is related to OSH.

If we come to the history of legislation on occupational health and safety in India, the principal laws were based on 50 year old British Factories Act. The factories which comprise of more than 10 workers will come under factories act. The turning point on these legislation was the dreadful Bhopal gas disaster which opened the eyes of many safety legislators in India. The Factories Act 1948 has been amended for the first time after this incident. The amendment introduced a proactive approach for dealing with prevention of its occurrence rather than 'dealing with disaster' concept. In the amended act, a special chapter on occupational health and safety was added to safe guard workers employed in hazardous industries. Moreover pre-employment medical examination and periodical medical check up were made mandatory for hazardous industries and a limit has been set for the quantity of chemicals. There are also prohibitions on employing children under the age of 14 thereby protecting their health and strength by discouraging employment unsuitable to the workers age.

Some of the important Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) regulations in India are as follows. Read the detailed document about these acts for more details.

• Explosive Act, 1884
• Indian Electricity Act, 1910
• Indian Boilers Act, 1923
• Petroleum Act,1934
• Factories Act, 1948
• Plantation Labour Act, 1951
• Mines Act, 1952
• Indian Atomic Energy Act, 1962
• Insecticide Act, 1968
• Radiological Protection Rules, 1971
• Dangerous Machines (Regulations) Act,1983
• Dock Workers (Safety, Health and Welfare) Act, 1986
• Manufacture, Storage and Import of Hazardous Chemicals Rules, 1989

The Factories Act is implemented by state factory inspectorates and is aided by industrial hygiene laboratories. The Director General of Mines Safety (DGMS), Misnistry of Labour, is responsible for health and safety of mine workers and implementation of Mines Act. Similarly, The Directorate General of Factory Advice Service and Labour Institutes (DGFASLI), assists the labour ministry in formulating national policies on occupational health and safety in factories and docks, and enforcing them through inspectorates of factories and inspectorates of dock safety.

Reasons for Implementing Good Standards of Health & Safety

It is important that we must implement good standards of health and safety as in this technology driven era, working life in the world as a whole is changing at an ever increasing pace. We are exposed to challenging jobs which can give rise to new risk areas or change the way that occupational safety and health needs to be managed.

The level of safety implementations and HSE cultures will vary significantly depending on the level of internal and external pressures existing within an organisation and the industry. There is always challenges between safety and other business priorities and objectives. There will be clash between safe behaviors Vs corner cutting for speed or cost reduction. Moreover there will be expectations of client, customers and the society.There will be legislative requirements and client demands to expedite project completion. A good organisation need to step up against all these challenges for effective implementation of industrial health and safety.

Effective implementation of good standards of health and safety has many monetary advantages too. It can reduce loss of time associated costs through injury or ill health. It can reduce loss of cost due to absenteeism, damage, insurance costs, reduced costs associated with fines, compensations and legal defense costs etc. Moreover effective implementation of health and safety standards results in improved quality and output due to improvement employee morale. 

It is also important to implement health and safety standards for legal reasons. There are 3 levels of statutory duties which form a part of the legal reasons. They are absolute duty, practicable duty and reasonably practicable duty. The financial justification for the health and safety function is given by the cost benefit arising from the advice provided by the expert, against the costs to the business of obtaining that advice. Accident always cost more than the initial estimates.

Barriers to Establish Standards of Occupational Health & Safety

Barriers to establish good standards of occupational health and safety in most of the companies/firms can be due to mainly 3 reasons.

1. Complexity
2. Conflicting Demands
3. Behavioural Issues

Complexity: Workplaces can be complicated, requiring coordination between many people performing different activities. Therefore, finding a solution to a specific health and safety problem or issue can be complex, needing extensive background knowledge and awareness of the possible consequences of the various courses of actions that are likely.

Conflict of demand - Productivity vs Environment Protection

Conflicting Demands: Often, competing and conflicting demands are placed upon people and organizations. A common conflict of interest occurs when the organization needs to choose between the need to supply a product and/or service at an appropriate speed, so as to make profit and the need to do so safely and without risk to people’s health. Another conflict can be created by the need to comply with different types of standards at the same time. For example, having to comply with health and safety laws, environmental protection laws etc, simultaneously.

Behaviour Triangle

Behavioural Issues: Good standard of health and safety often reply on the perfect behaviour of individuals, and as we all are aware, people do not always behave in the ideal way. The solution to a health and safety problem usually requires a worker to undertake their task in a particular way. For example, a worker on a construction site should wear head protection (hard hat) to protect themselves from falling objects. But people are not robots; they do not always behave as they are supposed to. Workers sometimes make mistakes (they do wrong things, thinking that it is the correct way to do something). At other times, people even do wrong things deliberately. The fact that health and safety standards are affected by workmen behaviour can be a significant barrier to maintaining god standards in a workplace.

Variation in Health & Safety Performances in Industries

It is important to look for how and why health and safety performances vary. Occupational health and safety performances varies significantly between economic sectors within the country. It mostly depends on the nature of job. The most lead in the incidence of occupational deaths worldwide is due to agriculture, forestry, mining and construction. The international Labour Organisation’s (ILO) “Safe Work” programme has estimated, for example, that tropical logging accident caused 300 deaths per 100000 workers. On an average every tenth logger will die of work related accidents. Similarly, certain occupations and sectors, such as meat packing industry and mining have high rates of work related (Occupational diseases), which could even be fatal.

Develop a safe work culture

Generally small workplaces have a worse safety record than large ones. It seems that the rate of fatal and serious injuries in small workplaces (defines as less than 50 employees) is twice that in large workplaces (defined as those with more than 200 employees). This may be of the reason that the employer of firm is not serious about the safety of its workforce thinking that the workforce is small. Moreover the works will be unorganized or casual in most of the cases. To make an incident free surroundings, all the workplaces must develop a safety culture. There should be an industrial health and safety department in every industry even if the work place is small. There should be a safety officer and safety stewards, supervisors supporting him. Every firm must display their safety policy and  safety obligations towards their work force. Ineffective implementation of safe work practices may also leads to variation in health and safety performances among the firms. There are firms which are doing safety inspections and audits for the name sake and for false documentation. This will degrade the safety performances of the firm. The top management of every firm must ensure that, proper implementation of safety practices are prevailing and are carried out in a regular manner. There should be a safety culture in each work site. Developing a safe work culture is not a one day process rather it should be a habit to follow everyday. For a good work site, there must be a system established in each work place for continuous monitoring and implementation of the existing safety norms and there must be scope for further improvement.

Introduction to Industrial Health & Safety

It may seem so silly to ask such a question that why we need Occupational health, work safety and safe environment as it is well understood that nothing is more important than one’s life and a good health. But this question is so relevant in an industrial scenario where you will be made to work or you make others to work in such a way that you can’t be able to distinguish your consciousness and your work at some point of time, some days or many days. There will be times in an industrial scenario when we used to take risk with our life or others life when it comes to matter of time, work pressure or money. So it is important to convince our subconscious mind that you have to be alert and must have an additional imaginary sensory organs to deal with such indistinguishable situations. So it is essential to know more about the safe work practices relating to your work.

Millions of workers die, are injured, or fall ill every year as a result of workplace hazards. And one simple question is, aren’t they aware while working that their life is more important than their work. And the answer is that the situations may leads to such unexpected events as already discussed above. Nowadays improving occupational health and safety is in the best interests of all employees and workmen. So it is the responsibility of all to take measures for improving the occupational health and safety standards in ones workplace. Occupational health and safety has broad range of scopes such as

1. Promote and maintain the well being of employees.

2. Protect employees and others who may be affected by an organization’s activities from the risk to their health and safety.

3. Provide suitable and sufficient welfare facilities.

4. Establish a management frame work to manage and control workplace hazard, Minimize the consequences of failure, Monitor safety performance with the aim of continual improvement and align with other aims and objectives of the business.