Transcript How much of a priority is occupational safety and health
Challenges in incorporating safety and health into national plans: Between policy and practice in Lebanon
Manal Azzi, PhD SafeWork
Implementing Occupational Safety and Health Standards Globally
International ILO Conference Düsseldorf, Germany 3-6 November 2009
OUTLINE
• Background: – Occupational safety and health (OSH) – Lebanon • Objectives • Methods • Sampling • Tool design • Data Collection • Results
Questions
• How effective is the law? • How effective is a national policy on OSH? What do managers think of OSH? • Is there a gap between policy and practice in Lebanon?
• What are the dynamics that drive a manager to ensure a safe and healthy workplace?
Background
• Occupational Safety and Health (OSH)
– The Scope of the Problem
• Lebanon
– Socioeconomic context – OSH in Lebanon – Stakeholders – Legislation – Knowledge Attitude and Practice Comparison internationally
Lebanon under the bombs 2007-2008
Objectives
• To assess the dynamics affecting the implementation of safety measures at the workplace – role of knowledge, attitude and behaviour of employers in this regard.
• To identify shortcomings in translating the policies to implementation in the OSH domain in Lebanon • To give recommendations that would assist policymakers and improve OSH in Lebanon.
Research Question
• What factors at the enterprise level can play a role in either facilitating or impeding adherence to safety measures?
– How are employer knowledge and attitude driving occupational safety and health practice?
– Why are managers motivated or uninspired to implement health and safety legislation?
– As part of the enterprise level OSH practice, to what extent are the articles pertaining to the National Decree 11802 and the ILO convention 155 being implemented at the level of enterprises?
Methods
• Cross-sectional study was conducted on the employers from 70 work organizations. • Randomly selected from a list of 234 member industries of the ALI, covering the top 5 largest industrial sectors in Lebanon: minerals, metals, chemical products, paper and cardboard, and food products. • A mixed methods approach • Each employer was visited once – asked to complete an interview using a close-ended questionnaire. – An in-depth qualitative interview was used to probe into the questionnaire responses for 32 employers (data saturation point). Notes were taken during each interview, then translated and transcribed. – The analysis of the quanti. data generated the main points of interest and the quali. analysis allowed the generation of new themes
Questionnaire Design
• Structured questionnaire – Key informant interviews, literature, Lebanese National OSH Decree 11802 and the ILO OSH convention 155. • Questionnaire covered Socio-demographics, employer’s knowledge and awareness of OSH legislations, employer’s attitude towards OSH , & employer's practices relating to: physical health, psychosocial health, communication of OSH policies within the workplace, exposure to occupational hazards, training, accident documentation and notification etc. • The results were analyzed using descriptive statistics including means and standard deviations for continuous variables and frequency distributions for categorical variables.
Key Informants Interviews
Association of Lebanese Industrialists General Federation for Lebanese Workers Ministry of Labour: labour Inspector
In-depth interview scope
Employer perception of worker attitudes and practices; Employer perception of safety ; Employer awareness of national OSH decree and reasons why they haven’t heard of the decree 11802; The incentives for management to implement safety measures; The reasons for non or partial implementation of safety measures at the enterprise level; Relationship with Ministry of Labour (MOL); The reasons why OSH is a priority or not.
A thematic analysis of the in-depth interviews was conducted resulting in higher order themes
Data Collection
ISO certificates Manufacturing procedure neatly displayed
Where signs exist, they are not in a language workers can understand, or are not pertinent where they are placed
Dangerous work with no PPE and no safeguards Vs. Neat electrical boxes and storage
Very chaotic workplaces
Steep entrance of a printing industry Confined spaces Unhealthy and unsafe storage sites
Small toilet space, bad hygienic conditions & used also as locker
Vs.
Good Locker space for workers
Workers resting on the floor Vs.
Good cafeteria space and seats
Quantitative Results
Awareness of OSH Legislation
94.0% 92.0% 90.0% 88.0% 86.0% 84.0% 82.0% 80.0% 78.0% 76.0% 91.4% 87.1% 81.2% Head of enterprises not aware that the ILO has conventions on Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Head of enterprises not aware of the national OSH Decree No 11802 endorsed by the government in 2005 Establishment doesn't have a written occupational safety and health policy
Workplace Policy on OSH
What enterprises used as guidelines to set their workplace OSH polices
Employer’s attitude towards occupational safety and health
OSH as a priority in spite of high ignorance on OSH
Motivation for providing OSH at the workplace
80.0% 70.0% 60.0% 50.0% 40.0% 30.0% 20.0% 10.0% 0.0% 69.6% 52.2% 29.0% 55.1% 8.8% 0.0% Safety of employees means higher productivity Improves image of the company Employees requested that the company gets involved in OSH To abide by national OSH regulations To respect international safety standards Ethics-care for workers
Factors impeding enterprises from providing OSH
Lack of management follow up Ignorance and no risk perception assessment Economic and political instability Workers' non compliance Lack of aw areness of OSH importance Too much w ork w hich does not allow concentration on OSH issues Lack of in formation on safety and health and related measures Lack of budget 0.0% 7.2% 5.8% 11.6% 10.0% 17.4% 15.9% 20.0% 24.6% 21.7% 30.0% 40.0% 49.3% 50.0% 60.0%
Practices relating to safety and health: Communication of OSH policies within the workplace Practices relating to safety and health: Communication of OSH policies within the workplace
Communication and training for workers on OSH
Relation and communication between the enterprises and the Ministry of Labour
Accident documentation
Analyzing Quali Data
1 st Order Theme
Reasons managers consider OSH as a priority
Meanin -gful Units
Increase productivity - Give/ get something in return - Decrease absenteeism - Worker as a valuable human resource - More sales - Give and take - Ethical reasons - Respect to human being - We are family - Responsibility of employer - Basic duty of employer - Plant reputation - Multi-national/ mother company audits - Image of company - International companies
Higher Order Theme
- Productivity and resources - Equity theory - Moral obligations - Family values - Valuing the human Sense of duty Globalization and occupational safety
Themes Qualitative Results Sub-themes Globalization and occupational safety and health Relation between employers and national OSH stakeholders and reflection of national priorities on enterprise management International standards certification and its effect on Safety and health Lack of trust in the local government and its services and no information dissemination Deficient expertise and guidelines in the field of OSH lack of national Economic and political Instability Knowledge and attitude of employers towards OSH Employer OSH perception of workers’ attitude towards Lack of knowledge about certain legislations is a major factor for not implementing them Management commitment and involvement affected by their attitude to safety and health (Ignorance/risk perception) Valuing the human being We are a family Company Image Safety of productivity employees implies Victim blaming approach Safety Behaviour
Macho Concept and Risk behaviour
Culture of being lax about safety higher OSH practices affected by the level of employer OSH knowledge and attitude Communication with employees
Training on OSH
Results & Discussion
• Few work organizations in the representative sample implemented OSH law in Lebanon.
• Major factors which impeded or encouraged employers to adopt safety and health measures – Employers lack of awareness on safety and health and its provisions; – Employer’s low perception of worker’s capacity to implement safety and health measures; – low cultural value given to prevention processes in Lebanon.
Main Findings
• The provisions of ILO OSH Conventions and National OSH decrees do not reach the enterprises, which are ideally, the audience the law is meant to benefit: – The enterprises are not aware a national OSH decree exists; it is not accessible to employers and not promoted. – In the rare cases that the decree reaches the enterprise, it is generally discarded because relevance is not understood.
– There is no communication between government (Ministry of Labour and its inspection arm), employer associations and enterprises.
Main Findings
(Cont’d) •
Motivators
– Enterprise OSH management systems that are recognized in the international market are more appealing to employers because they are hands on, provide certificates and hence improve the company’s image and raise their competitive profile i.e. increasing productivity. – This is also apparent in the fact that where workplace OSH policies do exist, they are never based on the national decree. Instead, they are either based on similar companies’ policies worldwide or they are the result of trial and error and institutional memory.
– Employers in Lebanon and the region value the human being and family; this is an important drive to protect their workers.
– Workers who are safe and healthy will keep working, which will increase productivity.
Main Findings
(Cont’d)
Inhibitors
• Management lack awareness on occupational safety and health: its core matter, its relevance and significance in the workplace. • There is no perception of risk or risk assessment. – workers who have very low education are not worth training on OSH and will not understand it – even if they were to enforce safety and health measures, there is high worker non-compliance – direct link between a safe and healthy environment and productivity is just not clear; the benefits don’t seem to be tangible. – Lower management complain that there is no higher management commitment, some good initiatives start, but there is no follow-up.
– There is the real work to do which makes money and pays salaries to worry about, rather than the conditions of work, which are secondary.
– Economic and political instability bring the priorities down to the basic needs of survival, in light of which, OSH is considered a luxury.
– Ignorance leads to the lax attitude management have towards occupational safety and health. This in turn results in poor safety and health practices.
Conclusion
• A proposed strategy
– build on the motivators of employers in Lebanon and the region whilst answering to the hesitations and misconceptions which impede implementation.
• More future research needs to target workers’ safety and health KAP to find consistencies and inconsistencies with management beliefs.
International OSH standards and globalization National Influences: Political & economic instability. OSH is a wise investment regardless of national instabilities Community Culture: Non preventive culture: where safety not a priority, making quick money comes 1 st . OSH should not be a luxury but a need even in unstable economic situations Trade Unions (sector syndicates should be informed & trained) Ministry of labour Gives no incentives or support to employers and they have a competitive regional market
Tax free & approval of only OSH friendly projects at their licensing phase
National law should have guiding and practical nature as compared to ISO
Compensation systems require prevention Employer Association & Chamber of commerce (member industries should be informed & trained)
Build trust & share knowledge (Bulletin, brochure, website, email), training for management on OSH and on decree, simplify decree), with the help of OSH Institutes.
Communication strategy Enterprise (management): Lack OSH awareness
lax attitude & Performance pressure Training on OSH
Worker attitude and behaviour influenced by management attitude and behaviour
Management perception of worker: Worker low education means no use training them and blames worker for risky behaviour
If so many accidents are due to human error as employers put it, then to avoid accidents, tasks have to be fitted to “human limitations” and taken care of in the design phase
Internationally recognised OSH management systems--link to profit
OSH focal pts. trained on OSH in order for OSH decrees not to be brushed aside
Proper promotion of PPEs by sensitizing workers to risk perception and removal of barriers
Don’t count the number you have… of policies count who is implementing them… and then ask why