Construction Industry Safety

2.0 Construction Industry Health and Safety

Construction workplace exposure to hazards

Construction workers or labor are mostly not permanent, hired by employer from time to time and may spend only a few weeks or months at any one project to complete the particular jobs given by employer. From this scenario, there are consequences for both workers and the work project where the workers must make productive and safe working relationship with other workers on site whom they may not know. This apparently may affect safety at the work site.

For a particular project, there is frequent change in the number of workers and the composition of the labor force depending on the project’s need and requirements. This change results both from the need

Excavation workers, for example, can develop histoplasmosis, an infection of the lung caused by a common soil fungus. Since there is constant change in the composition of the labour force on any one project, individual workers come in contact with other workers and, as a consequence, may become infected

Culture of Construction Industry Does Not Promote Health and Safety

It is widely and generally known that health and safety at construction workplace is one of the fundamental matter in construction. However, according to Muiriri and Mulinge (2014) in their research paper, most of developing countries in the world does nor promote health and safety in their construction industry particularly at construction workplace. This is mainly due to the competitive tendering practice that have been applied where the possibility of lowest price of tender to be awarded with the contract have driven the tenderer to cut their cost which in turn affects health and safety matters of the

It is as a guideline or rules on how health and safety is managed within the organization. Apart from that, it also demonstrates a commitment from employer towards the health and safety of staffs and others. All employers have a duty of care to protect their employees and others from harm arising from work activities. The policy should cover all aspects of the organization and be relevant to the employees. It is only required to address health and safety matters relating to employees, however, employers also have a duty to protect others from risks arising out of their work activities and so it is best practice to consider the safety of people whose health and safety might be affected by the organization, such as volunteers, contractors, the general public and so on.

It is important that all employees are aware of, and understand the health and safety policy and have access to a copy of it. This means that it should be clear and easy to