Occupational injuries in underground coal mining in Serbia: A case study

Work ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Ivana Ilić Krstić ◽  
Danijela Avramović ◽  
Snežana Živković

BACKGROUND: Mining, especially underground coal mining, has always been a hazardous occupation. Injuries, including those that are fatal, are a major occupational risk that all miners have to face. OBJECTIVE: Despite the fact that all workers are aware of the risks, efforts must be made to increase their safety through the implementation of preventive measures. METHODS: This retrospective study includes injury data from all nine Serbian coal mines over a 16-year period, from 2000 to 2016. All injury data were collected from employee safety and health records. RESULTS: In the analyzed period, a total of 9,273 occupational injuries were recorded at Resavica. The highest number of occupational injuries (over 600) were recorded in 2008 (669), 2004 (651), and 2005 (603). The data shows that almost one fifth of the total number of occupational injuries, or 20.74%, occurred during the said three years. On average, 493.06 minor, 51.12 severe, and 1.29 fatal injuries occurred each year. Every day there were 1.29 minor occupational injuries and every seven days there was one severe injury. CONCLUSIONS: Despite indications that there is a connection between some of the variables and the number of injuries, the general conclusion is that injuries are accidental and unpredictable. The high percentages of injuries are due to the organization of work and the age or qualification structure of the staff and, of course, are the consequence of likelihood –the greater the number of workers, the greater the likelihood of injury. However, the present study showed that some measures can be taken to increase occupational safety and reduce the number of injuries.

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 1335
Author(s):  
Kanghyeok Yang ◽  
Kiltae Kim ◽  
Seongseok Go

The construction industry has experienced a lot of occupational accidents, and construction work is considered one of the most dangerous occupations. In order to reduce the number of occupational injuries from construction, the South Korean government legislated the occupational safety and health expense law, requiring companies to reserve a reasonable budget for safety management activities when budgeting for construction projects. However, safety budgets have not been spent based on the risk of accidents, and a large amount of the safety budget is spent either in the beginning or late stages of construction projects. Various accident risk factors, such as activity types, previous accident records, and the number of workers on a construction site, need to be considered when determining the safety budget. To solve such problems, this study investigated the expenditure trends of occupational safety and health expenses for 10 apartment construction projects in South Korea. This study also proposed an accident risk index that can be incorporated with the project costs, schedule, the number of workers, and historical accident records when budgeting for the safety costs. The results from the case study illustrate the limitations of the current planning strategy for safety expenditures and demonstrate the need for effective safety budgeting for accident prevention. The proposed safety cost expenditure guideline helps safety practitioners when budgeting for the occupational safety and health expenses while considering accident risk and the characteristics of safety cost expenditures in practice. The outcome of this research will contribute to the development of regulations for the budgeting of safety costs and help to prevent occupational injuries by providing a reasonable budget for safety management activities in an apartment construction project.


Author(s):  
Ankush Ambardar

Employee safety and health is considered to be one of the major important human resource functions for any hotel organization. The current paper focuses on the application of occupational safety and health of laundry employees looking at the nature of the tasks performed in day to day operations. OSH is one of the significant factors responsible for employees inspiration and moreover retention in a hotel organization. Health, safety and performance of the employees are dependent on understanding and application of ergonomic practices followed during laundry operations. The paper explores laundry employee protection against various critical factors such as injuries, accidents, work postures, chemical exposure, heat, fire, noise, etc. A questionnaire was used to perpetuate perception of laundry employees in regard to protection from factors concerning safety and health issues from hotels of India. The results reveal that some of the OSH practices are been followed in hotels, while some were missing from hotels such as training, periodical audit and protection against chemical hazards. The present study suggests need for adopting OSH practices and enforcing periodical check for the same in every hotel besides of its categorization.


1980 ◽  
Vol 74 (3) ◽  
pp. 745-756 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael S. Lewis-Beck ◽  
John R. Alford

With the 1970 passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA), federal regulation reached the American workplace. Given the newness of the legislation, any firm conclusion on its effectiveness seems premature. However, there is ample evidence on federal safety regulation of a specific workplace: the coal mine. The federal government has been directly involved in coal mining safety for over 35 years, operating under three major pieces of legislation, enacted in 1941, 1952, and 1969. Opposing opinions regarding the effect of this legislation can be grouped into three categories: radical, reactionary, and reformer. A multiple interrupted time-series analysis indicates that, in fact, the 1941 and 1969 regulations significantly reduced the fatality rate in coal mining. Certain conditions seem related to the effectiveness of this safety legislation: birth order, provisions, enforcement, target population, and goals. The first two conditions would appear to work for the success of the OSHA, the latter three conditions to work against it.


2021 ◽  
pp. 36-42
Author(s):  
Yury POLUKAROV ◽  
Olena ZEMLYANSKA ◽  
Nataliia KACHYNSKA ◽  
Liudmyla MITIUK

Purpose. Substantiate the need for development of new scientific and methodological foundations for forecasting occupational injuries and illnesses. Methodology. Analyze existing methods of occupational injuries and illnesses forecasting, propose a new algorithm for calculation of their levels, set scientific and methodological requirements to information analysis system used for the prevention of occupational illnesses. Findings. Modern methods of forecasting injuries make it possible to assess the effectiveness of preventive measures. However, there is no universal method for analyzing the occupational morbidity due to the different specifics of disease causes and manifestations which do not allow to conduct a realistic assessment of labor protection in a particular area over a given period of time. Therefore, it is the reduction in the level of occupational injuries and illnesses compared to the data obtained by the forecasting method that may be indicative of preventive measures effectiveness. At the same time, development of information analysis system of personal protective equipment continues to be a pressing issue (PPE). Originality. It has been proposed to develop a special mathematical tool for determining loss reduction and information analysis system, which will provide a forecasted estimate of occupational morbidity at an enterprise. To obtain a reliable forecast it is important to identify the average value of cases over a given period of time, which has been considered in this paper. Conclusions and Practical Significance. There are numerous methods available for analysis of occupational injuries and illnesses. Most of them, however, are unfit for the assessment of occupational diseases. Since chronic occupational illnesses have a cumulative nature, the rate of work-related diseases is more predictable than that of injuries and accidents. This makes it possible to determine the “occupational morbidity rate” provided that the time spent by workers in the area of exposure to occupational hazards is recorded together with reference data on the conditional level of exposure to each hazard. Keywords: forecasting, injuries, occupational morbidity, occupational safety activities, hazard, information analysis system.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 44
Author(s):  
Badr Almalki ◽  
Adel Zakaria ◽  
Mansour A. Balkhyour ◽  
Ijaz Ahmad

Systematic management of occupational safety and health (OSH) issues requires attention in many aspects like regulatory, technical, organizational and managerial. Approaching OSH from an organizational culture perspective can also facilitate achieving sustainable improvements in organizational OSH performance. OSH culture helps in seeing and organizing safety from different perspectives and should not be reduced to a matter of culture only. The knowledge, information and data gathered is expected to be very useful in the process of improving OSH-related procedures, practices and policies, eventually leading to enhanced OSH performance. This paper attempts to describe a cultural approach towards understanding organizational OSH. It will help the readers, professionals, authorities, and policy makers in understanding OSH from a cultural point of view, and how to assess this OSH culture as part of the of organizational improvement process. The aim is to disseminate latest information on this complex topic, trying to build a bridge between practice and research. The scientific literature shows these two terms, safety climate and safety culture, are often interchangeable, but they are distinct but related concepts. The word "safety culture" is a complex and persistent feature reflecting fundamental assumptions, expectations, norms and values, which are also represented by societal culture while "safety climate" best pronounces attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions of employees classically measured by surveys and observations. Safety culture measurement requires detailed investigation of how members in an organization interact to form a shared view of safety. This paper explores the ideas of an organization’s safety climate and culture for the purpose of determining which is more advantageous for accurately describing a "state of safety”. Preliminary results of a case study from a water and power project from Saudi Arabia has been added. 


Author(s):  
Lilis Surienty ◽  
Hui-Nee Auyong ◽  
Suhaiza Zailani

Occupational safety and health (OSH) issues have become a major concern to many corporations in Malaysia since the enactment of the Occupational Safety and Health Act 1994. While safety management system has been researched, only limited literatures have given attention to warehousing. The development of effective partnerships between customers and vendors to identify opportunities for enhancing safety management system. Employee safety behaviour in the workplace is crucial in approaching towards safety compliance and safety performance indicators. The main objective was to test the safety behaviour of the workers. Data were collected throughout the warehousing processes of a multinational electronics manufacturer in Malaysia. A questionnaire has been filled-up by the warehousing employees. This study proposes the theory of planned behaviour were to explain the linkage between customer - vendor partnership and safety behaviour. Respondents were questioned partnership with its customers to systematically improve safety behaviour. Usually most of the occupational accident or disease took place in the material handling operations and activities with cargo interface. The findings of this study show that customer-vendor partnership has a significant and positive relationship on safety behaviour. This approach to be examined for improved safety ownership and the possibility that enhancements would become an essential part of the vendor's processes, systems, and culture. This customer-vendor partnership approach will develop safety improvements for next heights of success. SPSS was applied for processing the data. It was found that information dissemination and collaboration with the client are important. Employees should participate in the safety program as required by the clients so as to obtain the merits of high performance workforce.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document