Worker Characteristics and Compliance to Occupational Health and Safety: A Study of Naja David Wood Industry Limited in Kumasi Metropolis.
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Date
2012-08-19
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Abstract
Several studies have been conducted on occupational health and safety in the wood processing industries in Ghana and elsewhere. The reports of these studies indicate that wood workers are exposed to various types and degrees of occupational hazards ranging from bacterial, viral and chemical infections to physical injury and accidents. In Ghana, it is a known fact that there is no comprehensive national policy on occupational health and safety except Act 651of the Labour Act 2003 which enjoins employers not to expose their employees to conditions that would lead them to work related injuries or illnesses. Employees are also required by this Act to exhibit their duty of care in ensuring that they work as per the employers’ standard operating procedures which must incorporate safety and health requirements. Notwithstanding the Act and efforts made by companies especially in the Ghanaian wood industry at ensuring that employees work in safe and healthy conditions, wood workers suffer or sustain a lot of hazards at work. These hazards have been chronicled in earlier studies but the questions which remained unanswered were: what health and safety mechanisms or specific policies are in place to regulate the activities of workers such that they do not fall victim to disasters? What characteristics of workers may lead them to violate company codes on occupational health and safety? These questions and many several others formed the bases for which a survey questionnaire administered among 150 respondents in the Naja David Group of Companies to find out the role of sex, age, education and experience on compliance or no-compliance to occupational health and safety. The results revealed that age, education and experience play significant role in ensuring compliance whereas sex does not play significant role in ensuring compliance to occupational health and safety. The results further indicated that unavailability and low usage of personal protective equipment (PPE) increase the risk of getting involved in accidents. The study thus, recommends constant provision and replacement of PPE for workers to use at work. Immediate supervisors should also be officially empowered to enforce usage of PPE and punish violators as way of preventing accidents at work. Wood processing companies are also encouraged to print policies on safety and health in black and white and circulate it among workers for their education and information.
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A thesis submitted to the Department of Sociology and Social Work,
Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology,
in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the degree of Master of Arts in Sociology, August-2012