Occupational Health and Safety

Sharon Clarke, Ronald J. Burke, Ronald J. Burke

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317086253
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Labour & Industrial Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Workplace accidents and errors cost organizations hundreds of billions of dollars each year, and the injured workers and their families endure considerable financial and emotional suffering. It's obvious that increasing employee health and safety pays. The accumulating evidence shows that investing in occupational health and safety results in improved financial and social responsibility performance. There are extensive country differences and wide occupational differences in the incidence of accidents and errors. The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that every year there are 2.2 million fatal and 270 million non-fatal accidents or occupational diseases worldwide. Occupational Health and Safety looks at the research into what causes accidents and errors in the workplace. In line with other titles in the series, Occupational Health and Safety emphasizes the psychological and behavioral aspects of risk in organizations. It highlights how organizations differ in their health and safety performance, with case studies throughout and best practices. Key elements focus on: employee selection and training, fostering employee understanding, participation and engagement in health and safety matters, developing a health and safety culture at organizational and group/work unit levels, communicating and reinforcing safe workplace practices and bench-marking one's organization against the industry leaders. The contributors to this volume come from various countries, reflecting unique interest and knowledge in particular areas.

PART I
Occupational Health and Safety—Key Issues

CHAPTER 1
Building a Safe and Healthy Workplace

RONALD J. BURKE

This collection, consistent with our emphasis on the psychological, behavioral, and social aspects of risk in organizations (Burke and Cooper, 2010), focuses on understanding the causes of accidents, injuries, and illness in the workplace and increasing employee occupational safety, health, and well-being. In the first part of this chapter, central concepts, themes, research findings, and practical recommendations are reviewed. The second part of the chapter summarizes the contributions that follow.

Consider these facts and incidents:

• Between 1962 and 2002 there were 13,337 work-related highway deaths in the US. In 2002, there were 808 truck driver deaths; 62 percent of highway accidents. Semitrailer trucks were involved in the greatest number of work-related driver deaths. Older drivers accounted for more deaths than did younger drivers. The cost of a single work-related truck driver fatality in a highway incident was an average of $821,049 with a median cost of $928,322. Costs to US society from truck driver incidents range from $316 million in 1992 to $506 million in 2000. Driver fatigue was a major factor in driver incidents, accounting for 31 percent of driver deaths. Forty seven percent of drivers in New York State reported falling asleep at the wheel at least once during their career. To combat driver fatigue, drivers are limited in the number of hours they can drive each day or each week. Unfortunately, 73 percent reported violating these limits, 56 percent of drivers worked more hours than they recorded, 25 percent of drivers worked 75 hours, and 10 percent worked more than 90 hours.¹

• About 1,000 deaths and 240,000 accidents each year in the US are the result of individuals being on cell-phones while driving their vehicles A recent US study (January 2010) found that cell-phone use was cited in 28 percent of road crashes. Even drivers using hands-free phones exhibit reduced skill and attention while on electronic devices (texting).²

• Almost 1.3 million people are killed and between 20 and 50 million are injured each year on the world’s roads according to a study by the World Health Organization (WHO). Road deaths are the leading cause of death in people aged 25 to 44. Countries differ widely in number of reported road deaths with the Netherlands, Sweden, and Britain being low and the Eastern Mediterranean and African region being high. About half the deaths occur in motor vehicles with half involving pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorcyclists. The WHO estimates that road deaths will reach 2.4 million per year by 2030.³

• Within a two to three week period in late Mar ch/early April 2009 there were at least three helicopter crashes involving fatalities. Eight people were killed after a helicopter crashed in the North Sea as it returned from an oil-rig offshore. The second helicopter crash also occurred in the North Sea, making it the third crash in six weeks involving oil-rig helicopters. In Canada, 17 people died on Mar ch 12 when another oil-rig helicopter fell into the Atlantic. Analysis of this fatal crash by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada indicated that the Sikorsky helicopter gearbox failed ten minutes into a test designed to show that it could run half an hour without oil, a failure rate judged to be 267 times worse than the standard. Some accidents and workplace fatalities result from faulty equipment. The lone survivor and the families of 17 people who died in a helicopter crash of Newfoundland in March 2009 recently settled their lawsuit against the air craft’s manufacturer (January 2010). There were obvious safety concerns with the Sikorsky helicopter.⁴

• A sight-seeing helicopter carrying Italian tourists and a small plane crashed over the Hudson River in mid-2009 resulting in 11 deaths. Two air traffic controllers were punished; one was on the phone at the time of the crash and the second was absent from the office.⁵

• A fatal commuter train crash in September 2008 in Los Angeles led to the company involved passing a ban on the use of cell-phones and related electronic devices by engineers operating trains. The engineer of a train involved in this crash had been text messaging shortly before the crash that killed 25 and injured 130 people. This ban was in place but apparently was often ignored.⁶

• Two transit trains crashed in Washington DC in June 2009 killing nine and injuring over 50 people. Investigators were focusing on the train’s computer systems that failed to stop an oncoming train though there was evidence that the operator (killed in the crash) tried to slow the train down. Investigators were also examining cell-phone records from the operator to see if she was distracted before the crash. The operator had been in her job only four months prior to the crash.⁷

• A ferry sank in the northern Philippines (December 26, 2009) making it the second sea disaster in three days. Three were killed and 22 people missing. On December 24, a ferry sank after colliding with a fishing boat near Manila Bay with 24 people still missing. Previous ferry accidents have been the result of ferries being over-loaded and going out in too rough waters.⁸

• A gas explosion in a coal mine in Northern China (February 2009) left at least 74 miners dead and 114 hospitalized. A mine explosion in China in December 2007 killed 105 miners when gas exploded in an unventilated tunnel. China’s mining industry has been described as the deadliest in the world (Wright, 2004).

• Another gas explosion in a state-run Chinese mine on November 21, 2009 killed at least 104 people. The chief engineer and two mine directors were fired after the disaster. A later story blamed overcrowding in this coal mine disaster as management attempted to increase output; making it very difficult to evacuate workers promptly. China closed about 1,000 dangerous small mines in 2008 reducing the number of fatalities. Yet hundreds still die in accidents each year in China.⁹

• One miner was killed and another injured on November 28, 2009 in Saskatchewan when a raw ore storage bin in Mosaic’s Esterhazy mine collapsed on them.¹⁰

• DeMont (2009) writes about the Westray mine disaster in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia in May 1992 in which 26 miners died. He sees these men as victims of corporate arrogance, greed, bad mining practices, and bad luck.

• Many individuals have attempted suicide or committed suicide by throwing themselves under trains in Toronto’s subway system. The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) has kept the numbers of attempted or successful suicides confidential. Just recently these have been made public. From 1998 to 2007 there were 100 unsuccessful attempts and 150 successful attempts. Both unsuccessful and successful suicides are sometimes viewed by other passengers and/or subway operators. Both subway operators and subway bystanders who have seen suicides indicate that they recollect these incidents for a long time. Subway drivers are kept away from the incident until other help arrives. Toronto police, firefighters, emergency personnel, the coroner’s office, and TTC supervisors and management are sent to the scene after a suicide incident. Subway drivers are typically traumatized, in shock, and may experience long-term depression and psychology trauma. One subway operator said that he once had three suicides over a four-month period. The TTC works with a Toronto hospital and health center to provide a support structure of train operators who suffer post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), at a rate found to be four times higher than for Toronto’s police officers. The TTC also has a program aimed at helping people in distress who may be thinking about suicide. This program trains operators, Supervisors, and special officers to see potential warning signs that someone may be thinking about taking their own life.¹¹

• Death awareness—there are some jobs in which the incumbents face concerns about their own death (for example, soldiers, miners, police officers, and power plant operators) because they work in dangerous jobs. Other employees work in jobs that expose them to the death of others (for example, doctors, nurses, paramedics, funeral directors, grief counselors, and rescue workers). Employees in several jobs suffer accidents and illness that can remind others of death (for example, truck drivers and construction workers). The Haitian earthquake (January 2010) has exposed not only trained rescue workers and soldiers to seeing and recovering dead bodies but also many Haitian men, women, and children. Grant and Wade-Benzoni (2009) suggest that making employees aware of death may bring about changes in their behavior. They propose a four-stage model of death awareness at work that includes situational triggers (mortality triggers such as mortality exposure), death awareness (anxiety, reflection), individual and work context contingencies (coping behaviors, individual work orientation, job design factors) and work behaviors (for example, stress-related withdrawal behaviors such as absenteeism, tardiness, and turnover, and cooperative behaviors such as helping others and change to a service job). Their model serves as a useful starting point for future research. Managers might foster discussions about mortality-related events in the hope of encouraging more generative responses to them. Managers in organizations where safety and physical dangers are high (mining, construction) might encourage death reflection to increase adherence to safety practices. Some employees may become motivated to also support and assist the safety of others as a result.

• More Canadian soldiers committed suicide in 2008 than in 2007 (15 versus 11) (Burke, 2010). The military does not track suicides among reservists who are filling in increasing numbers of positions. The US army confirmed 128 suicides in 2008 (Burke, 2010). The US army confirmed record levels of suicides in 2009, with at least 140 among active duty soldiers and 71 suspected suicides by service members no longer on active duty.

• The job of a soldier has been described as “killing people and breaking things.” On May 11, 2009, a career soldier serving his third tour of duty killed five people in Iraq (Burke, 2010). He was having financial difficulties back home and had a conflict with his commanding officer who took away his gun and ordered him to receive psychological counseling. He had a confrontation with clinic staff and returned with a gun killing the five. Fourteen soldiers in a Colorado unit were accused in May 2009 of nearly a dozen slayings since returning home from Iraq. Half these soldiers reported seeing war crimes including the killing of civilians during their tours (Burke, 2010).

• A fire at a Mexico City daycare center in 2009 killed 41 children, most under the age of two. There were 142 children in the daycare center, most taking their afternoon nap when the fire began. There were only two doors, one of which was locked, and the windows were located very high on the walls. The daycare center was located in an industrial area near facilities having flammable materials.¹²

• A fire, apparently caused by pyrotechnics, killed 146 at a Russian nightclub in Perm on December 4, 2009. Enforcement of fire safety standards in Russia are very lax with blazes in apartment buildings and drug treatment facilities occurring over the past few years. Russia records about 18,000 fire deaths per year, the highest rate among develop (western) countries. Apparently managers of this Russian nightclub were fined twice previously for breaking fire safety regulations. Four people were taken into custody. Nightclub fires have killed thousands of people worldwide (for example, in the US and Indonesia).¹³

• The death of two Chinese workers at a large oil-sands project in Northern Alberta, Canada in 2007 resulted in the laying of 53 charges against Canadian Natural Resources Ltd and two other companies. A giant holding tank collapsed killing the two workers.¹⁴ The maximum penalty for a first offense under Alberta’s Health and Safety Act is $500,000 for each charge.

• More than 4,000 children between the ages of four and 19 were injured in one year in the Ottawa, Ontario area, based on data collected in hospital emergency rooms (severe hand injuries, eye injuries, broken bones, bruises, sprains). These were school-related injuries that required medical attention (MacKay, Osmond and MacPherson, 2009).

• Unions at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto made complaints in December 2008 about their staff members being attacked. During the week of November 12, patients injured three nurses: one suffered a broken shoulder and the second a broken jaw. Twenty-three violent incidents occurred in a six-week period beginning in October.¹⁵

• Domestic violence is now being seen as both a personal and business issue. Domestic violence is reported to cost US business $6 billion a year in absenteeism, turnover, health care costs, and lowered productivity.¹⁶

• Athletes in several sports (boxing, football, and hockey) suffer concussions in their playing days. Athletes suffering concussions are more likely to show mental decline as they age (for example, memory loss, slower reaction times, and mild cognitive impairment when can be a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease). The National Football League (NFL) in the US released the results of research indicating a link between concussions and Alzheimer’s disease in October 2009. A survey of 160 NFL players conducted by the Associated Press in early November 2009 indicated that 30 admitted hiding concussion symptoms. Players saw this as an inevitable part of their jobs. The NFL data indicates 120 to 130 concussions occur during their regular playing season.¹⁷

• “I was going to write a book about my career in hockey but I couldn’t remember it.”:...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Series page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Part I Occupational Health and Safety—Key Issues
• Part II Individual Factors
• Part III Work Environment Factors
• Part IV Occupational Factors
• Part V Innovative Organizational Approaches
• Index