A REVIEW ON EMPLOYEES SAFETY AND

HEALTH IN THE WORKPLACE

INTRODUCTION
Employee can be claimed as one of the valuable asset to the companies. In industrial sector,
they are exposed to many hazards and risks at the workplace. Without we realized, in these
rapid economic development has not only led to significant improvements in incomes and the
quality of life, but also resulted in great increases in the number of people killed and injured
at work. Tables 1 respectively present the number of industrial accidents by sectors from
1994 to 2008. There was significant decline in the total number of industrial accidents
reported for all sectors, a decrease of 55.30 percent from 125,506 in 1994 to 56,095 in 2008
(Said, Halim, & Said, June 2012)
Table 1 Industrial Accidents Reported by Sectors, Malaysia, 1994 2008.

This could be attributed to the remarkable improvement in the safety and health conditions in
the workplace. The growing concern among the regulators and employers over the safety and
health issues at workplace in Malaysia has led to the introduction of the comprehensive
OSHA enacted in 1994 along its related regulations. Although the statistic shown a decline in
number of accidents, it is important to government or agencies or even the employer to do
some research on the causes of the accident and take action to minimal the accidental risk of
the job.

WORKPLACE ACCIDENT
 An accident can be defined as an unplanned, undesirable, and uncontrolled event. In
Suchmans study (as cited in Khan & Abbasi, 1999), an event can be categorised as an
accident if it is unavoidable, unexpected and unintended. He has proposed the following three
characteristics with which to classify an event as an accident: (1) degree of expectedness, (2)
degree of avoidability and (3) degree of intention. Secondary characteristics are: (1) degree of
warning, (2) duration of occurrence, (3) degree of negligence and (4) degree of
misjudgement.
Accidents in the workplace are not just happens. There are several causes that lead to
the number of accidents in industrial sector. According to Ridley (as cited in Hamid, Majid, &
Singh, 2008) 99 per cent of the accident are caused by either unsafe conditions or unsafe acts
or both.
Hui-Nee (2014) analyses the occupational accidents occurrence in the Malaysia
workplace. From the documentary analysis, construction industry and manufacturing industry
accounted for 37% and 22% of all fatal injuries investigated by the Department of
Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH). This study highlighted the problems in the
Malaysian workplace i.e. the high occupational accidents which is probably due to lack of
safety culture and non-compliance of the requirements of Occupational Safety and Health Act
(OSHA) 1994.
Jeongs study (as cited in Said, Halim, & Said, June 2012) analyses the characteristics
and causes of accidents for Korean manufacturing industry during 1991-1994. The causes
that have being analysed that includes in the study are firm size, age and work experience.
The analysis shows that larger companies tend to have a lower accident rates compared to
small companies and adults and less experience workers are more prone to accidents.
In conclusion, accidents in workplace though preventable however still occur due to
multiple causes. Non-compliance of OSHAs requirement will lead to lacking of safety
culture (Hui-Nee, 2014) . Therefore, the implementation of safety and health in companies
must be improves which requires actions from all parties namely workers, employers and the
government.

WORKPLACE SAFETY REQUIREMENTS AND ITS IMPORTANCE

The definition of workplace safety and health requirement is, the prior factors must be
considered to be designed or allocated for a work environment with the lowest level of
danger and risk. In order to achieve safety requirements, different kind of approaches and
safety standards which have already been specified. Followings are the steps that can be
utilized to ensure safety and healthy working environment: (Mbakaya, Onyoyo, Lwaki, &
Omondi, 1999).

Carry out a survey on baseline hazard

Regular inspections at workplace
Analysis and inspection on working hazards
Use fabric safety databases to easily recognize hazardous chemicals
 Always switch to a new hazard when there is any changes introduced
Investigate the source of accidents happen
Investigate the source of incidents happen
Introduce how to use Personal protective equipment (PPE) to the employee
Regular maintenance of the equipment used.
Keep the place clean and out of risk
Strictly enforce the rules to maintain safety workplace
Be prepared with plan during emergencies
Documentation on hazard control methods

Those steps mentioned above cannot be achieved without a permanent and effective
commitment and cooperation between all the members in the organization including those in
the highest level management to the lowest level employees. Moving on to the safety
importance, there is an article says that when worker experience upset, paining or illness
resulting from job, they might tend to become stress, dissatisfied of the work and c can result
in worker stress, dissatisfaction of job, and plan turnover (McCaughey, DelliFraine, McGhan,
& Bruning, 2013). As already mentioned in previous topic, there are a lot of incidents and
accidents happened due to some less effective OSH practice implementation. Therefore, it is
a must to have safety requirements in all organizations because it can reduce the risk for the
employees working in those places. The more effective the OSHA practices implementation
by the organization, the lower the risk towards harm.

OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH ACT (OSHA) 1994

Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA), established in 1994, is the guiding act
that governs occupational safety practices in the country. It became the main legislation in
OSH regulation in Malaysia, replacing all other legislations before it. It outlined the
legislative framework to promote, stimulate and encourage high standards of safety and
health at work, as stated in Act 514 -Occupational Safety and Health, 1994: "An act to make
further provisions for securing the safety, health and welfare of persons at work, for
protecting others against risks to safety or health in connection with the activities of persons
at work, to establish the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, and for matters
connected therewith." (GUIDELINES ON OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH ACT
1994 (ACT 514), 2006)
OSHA, 1994 also defines general duties of employer, employee, manufacturer, self-
employed person, designer, importer and supplier in respect to safety, health and welfare of
people at work and other people against risks to safety and health arising from activity of
person at work. Therefore, the Act tries to ensure that all parties at workplace are held equally
responsible to safety and health.
Besides, there are a few departments that being set us by Malaysia government for
monitoring closely the workplace safety and health. They are Department of Occupational
Safety and Health (DOSH), National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (NCOSH),
and The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). These three agencies
under the Ministry of Human Resources are amongst the major enforcement bodies that in
charge of issues regarding to occupational safety and health in Malaysia.
The major responsibilities of DOSH are to ensure occupational safety, health and
welfare of people at work as well as protecting other people from the aspect of safety and
health hazards arising from the activities of various sectors. NCOSH is a highest body
responsible for determining the direction and policy of the State in relation to occupational
safety and health in Malaysia. Accordingly, NCOSH always strives to improve the level of
occupational health and safety in making a safe and healthy work practices part of the
Malaysian culture (The Official Portal of Department of Occupational Safety and Health ).
On the other hands, NIOSH will ensure that adequate resources, training and time are made
available to industries especially small and medium-sized industries (National Institute of
Occupational Safety and Health, 2015).
In summary, this Act and others agencies seek to promote safety and health awareness
and institute effective safety practices through self-regulations for people at work. Although
the government has taken all the efforts to promote these practices, yet the occupational
accident and workplace hazard still occur from time to time. Therefore, placing this burden
totally to the government seemed to be unwise strategy as the number of accidents occurred
at workplace still high.

MANAGEMENT COMMITMENT AND INVOLVEMENT IN OSHA

"it should be the duty of every employer and every self

employed person to ensure, so far as is practicable, the
safety, health and welfare at work of all his employees "

(GUIDELINES ON OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH

ACT 1994 (ACT 514), 2006)

The clause of OSHA above clearly showing the responsibility of employers in

protecting the workplace and worker safety and health. This shows that the employers and the
management must provide a safety and proper workplace and good health. Therefore, the
main topic discussed in this part is involvement of management of the chemical companies in
implementation of OSH principles in the companies. Coppers study briefly defined
commitment of management as the engagement and involvement of the management in
working out towards achieving an aim or goal to create a safe and protected environment for
the employees working in the company (as cited in Surienty, 2002). According to Gilkey et.
al. (2003), support from management is really important in order to implement OSH in every
single department available in every sector. According to Surienty (2002), in Malaysia, under
Section 16, OSHA 1994, each and every employer and self-employed person is responsible to
develop safety and health policy. Nevertheless, management alone is not really responsible in
providing useful safeguard to ensure riskless workplace and workers safety and health. Ashill,
Carruthers and Krisjanous (2006) discovered that there are various ways to manifest
management commitment. Those ways are, having training and education on safety,
rewarding those who give good involvement in OSH implementation, and empowerment of
workers to come out with their own decisions.
In conclusion, this article would like to suggest that a good commitment of the
management and best participation of the other parties, like consultants, employees and union
are very important component to ensure the safety environment at the workplace.
EMPLOYEE AND OSHA

Are workers responsible towards OSHA? This kind of question is often asked by the
employees. This article found that there are about three responsibilities of employees in
implementing OSHA principles in their workplace. Based on Lin and Mills (2001) it is
increasingly identified that in order to protect own life and health at workplace is an
important and fundamental workers right; in which, decent work implies safe work (as
cited in ALLI, 2008) Furthermore, workers have to be responsible to ensure their own safety,
and as well as others where they have to avoid behaviour that might cause danger to other
people. This insinuates a right to sufficient knowledge, and a right to avoid working if there is
imminent danger to health or safety. In order to secure workers own safety and health, they
must really understand and know how to manage occupational danger and risks. Therefore,
every worker should be provided with proper information about the hazards and they must be
trained to carry out the task given to them safely.
To do improvement in occupational safety and health within the enterprises, employees
and the representatives need to give a good cooperation with employers and management, for
instance by involving themselves in implementing and elaborating preventive programmes. It
has been identified that participation of employee is the key precondition of great OSH
management and Employee participation has been identified as a key precondition of
successful OSH management and a major contributing factor in the reduction of occupational
diseases and injuries (Zakaria, Yu, & Hussin, 2005)The good commitment of employees in
every OSH programmes formulated in order to benefit them will guarantee the efficacy of
related measures and will also give possibility in sustaining an acceptable level of safety and
health at an affordable cost.
As a conclusion, from the reference it can be seen that not only employers but
employees also have to concern about safety and health practices implemented in their
company.

CONCLUSION

Therefore, the most important aspect that every company should have is a good
implementation of occupational safety, health and environment which also known as OSHE.
This practices will determine how good is the company will be in the future because if the
company play a vital role in educate employees, the employees will have a good discipline
and they will work in a conducive environment which eventually increase the production of
making the product and give a good reputation to the company.
While reviewing journal regarding how most company implement OSHE practices,
most of the paper has its own objectives for instance in journal titled Analysis of the
Decision Making Process in Chemical Safety by Stern (as cited in Akbary, 2013), it has
contributed his idea to take care of and control the poisonous chemicals in exacting and bad
human action. He measures the decision making details and the compassionate of the
procedure to a range of foundations of information.
Other than that, writer by Malich et.al (as cited in Akbary, 2013), they discussed on
the comparison of regulations concerning hazardous substances from an international
perspective. In this research it is important to do judgmental of broad strategies, basic rule
and standard setting-events amid the declared countries had been carried out.
 From all of the review, we found that there is a research gaps that need to be focused
on. The gaps is that most of the journal on OSHE implementation was focusing on the other
fields such as in the construction site which have the high rank of accidents happen on the
site. In contrast, the journal on the chemical field is hard to find due to less accidents to be
announce to public. Hence, this research was done in order to fill up the gaps so that it will
contribute to humankind.

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