Topic description

Occupational health and safety as a public health field regard to study in injuries and trends among workers population as well as proposing and implementing regulations and strategies of prevention.  Therefore, the scope of this topic is wide as it encompasses various disciplines ranging from epidemiology and toxicology to violence prevention and ergonomics.  Over the past few decades, occupational health and safety have been focused on manual laborers such as factory workers. However, the scope of occupational health and safety has changed due to dynamic changes in modern workplace thus encompassing the protection of workers in all occupations (Alli, 2008).  In ensuring a work environment such as office and construction buildings have required precautions and safety measures to prevent possible injuries, the occupation health experts set long-term and short-term safety measures to avoid injuries.  Another crucial area for this topic regards to physical threats such as heavy machines and tall buildings as a significant concern for construction workers.

Controversy on occupational health and safety

The occupational health and safety scope if a three-fold as it requires recognition and anticipation of health problems that workers face at the working environment.   The main controversy in occupational health and safety regards to legislation policies that focus on promoting the good safe working environment. With an increase in repetitive injuries at the workplace, the legislation policies for occupational health have facilitated improvements in the workplace by addressing a number of health concerns and safety (Hala, 2007).  According to studies, many people die on-job every year while others become victims of fatalities, for instance, the construction workers.  The controversy in legislation policies for occupational health has enhanced establish safety Acts which promotes workplace safety.  Legislation policies have been enacted by the OSHA thus mandating the employers under federal laws in ensuring no safety hazards at workplaces. For this reason, the controversy on legislation policies has resulted in OSHA emphasizing on the protection of workers from different hazards and injuries by advocating for rest, water and shades at the workplace.

The aspect of legislation polices has enhanced classification of different hazards on occupational health and safety.  This aspect has been contributed by an increase in the number of deaths, disabilities and the spread of diseases at the workplace.  Thus, the main classifications recognized by the legislation policy includes ergonomic, chemical, physical, mechanical and psychosocial hazards (Johnson & Lipscomb, 2006). Therefore, the controversy on legislation policy has spearheaded categorization of hazards depending on the workplace environment providing a mechanism for the establishment of measures that promote occupational health and safety at the workplace environment.

However, the controversy in legislation policy has resulted in complexities in establishing mitigating measures to improve the workplace environment.  Some employers have the opinion that legislation policy that focuses on promoting occupation health and safety acts as an approach of regulating operations rather than centered on employees safety.  Thus, the employers have become adamant in integrating health and safety leading to more injuries and deaths at the workplace environment (Tadesse & Admassu, 2006). Also, the legislation policy remains controversial due to lack of comprehensive agencies and professional competency provisions to ensure effective implementation of health and safety measures at the workplace. Additionally, the legislation policies may fail to stipulate the level of expertise for an individual implementing occupational health and safety measures which may lead to failure in protecting workplaces.

Thesis: To investigate the impact of legislation policy controversy on occupational health and safety as a tool for mitigating occupational hazards.

References

Alli, B. O. (2008). Fundamental principles of occupational health and safety Second edition. International Labour Office, Geneva.

Hala, J. (2007). Controversy over New Workplace Health and Safety Legislation.

Johnson, J. V., & Lipscomb, J. (2006). Long working hours, occupational health and the changing nature of work organization. American journal of industrial medicine, 49(11), 921-929.

Tadesse, T., & Admassu, M. (2006). Occupational health and safety. Lecture Notes. Gondar, University of Gondar August.