Summary: The new concept of occupational health and safety correspond to the basic principles of legal regulation of labour relations in Ukraine, such as ensuring the right of every worker to fair working conditions, including working conditions that meet safety and hygiene requirements and others.
Key words: the system of «human-machine-environment», hazardous event, occupational hazard, criteria for risk acceptance, occupational health and safety management system.
Technical science
UDC 658.3:331.461
Zaikina D.P.
Ph.D. candidate
SHEI «Krivoy Rog National University»
IMPROVING THE PERFORMANCE OF TRADITIONAL OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM BASED ON THE USE THE CONCEPT FOR OCCUPATIONAL HAZARD MANAGEMENT
Summary: The new concept of occupational health and safety correspond to the basic principles of legal regulation of labour relations in Ukraine, such as ensuring the right of every worker to fair working conditions, including working conditions that meet safety and hygiene requirements and others.
Key words: the system of «human-machine-environment», hazardous event, occupational hazard, criteria for risk acceptance, occupational health and safety management system.
In modern conditions, the purpose of the risk management is becoming the process of optimal allocation of scarce resources for the elimination or reduction of various types of risk in order to achieve the highest possible security level - taking into account economic and social factors. The criteria in the process of risk management are used at the threshold levels of, which enterprise consider acceptable. For the purpose of risk management it is formulated as a «risk reduction to an acceptable level» [1, p. 85].
Conceptual bases of occupational health and safety management system is based on the existing legislative system formed in accordance with the existing social and labor relations, as well as international legal acts. Despite the existence of an extensive legal framework, the working conditions at the enterprises are not always safe for workers [2, p. 70-71]. According to a number of Ukrainian and foreign scientists, occupational safety and health must include the protection of professional health for worker considering his physical, physiological, psychological and mental characteristics.
These approaches to occupational health and safety are reflected in the Universal Global Strategy on Occupational Health, approved by the World Health Organization (WHO), «Guidelines on occupational safety and health management», developed and formulated by the International Labor Organization. Noting the need for a systematic approach to occupational health and safety, the European Union in 2002 adopted a strategy on health and safety in the workplace, in which they proposed to consider in the production health and safety issues as an integrated system «an industrial welfare», realized through the improvement of its quality characteristics while providing a safe and healthy working environment, taking into account the constant changes in the organization of work and the emergence of new risks (in particular social and psychological risks).
Effective management of occupational risks is largely due to the application of the basis of the HSEMS principles of prevention and continuous improvement. Preventive means that a risk assessment is carried out before the start of the planned activities. The measures are accepted considering the preliminary results of the risk assessment, which allows eliminating or reducing the extent of damage and the extent of the negative consequences. The permanent improvement is an iterative process of improving occupational health and safety management system in order to improve performance in the area of occupational health and safety, consistent with the policies in the field of occupational health and safety at the mining enterprise.
In addition, one of the important directions to ensure occupational health and safety of workers is to create a favorable working environment. Currently, in most countries with developed market economies modern regulatory decisions in is searched areas such as the working physiology. The comprehensive nature of the new concept of occupational health and safety shall be based on the assessment of the impact on the working of all possible risks, not only in the short term, but in the long run. To evaluate the effects on workers of all possible risks, not only in the short term but in the long run is extremely difficult; if an employee has been working for an extended period, and even during the whole employment at the same enterprise, it’s easier to trace the influence of occupational risks on him and to establish a causal link between this impact and employee illness than with a regular change of work.
The impact on the employee of harmful substances and malfunctions of the musculoskeletal system caused by the peculiarities of the production and employment functions are covered by the physiological activity. However, in recent years, to the harmful factors there were added new, which effects on the body of workers are in the process of research (working with technologies that use the ultrafine and nana-elements (nan toxicology), mutagenic substances, reproductive toxins, etc.).
These or other factors which will be recognized with harmful and (or) the adverse effects on employees' health, will later be displayed in the public health rules and norms «Hygienic classification of labor in terms of hazards and risks and psychology of the machine environment, the severity and intensity of the work process», approved by order of the Ministry of health of Ukraine from 04.08.2014, № 248.
However, attention should be paid to the need to assess the impact of psychosocial risks on employee health. In particular, the quality of life and health is provided by a set of indicators, because in addition to acute and chronic occupational diseases (poisoning), possible loss of life following acute exposures (e.g., sudden death as a result of stress, physical and neuro-emotional overload), etc. According to WHO recommendations one should take into account the components of psychosocial well-being when assessing the level of health: job satisfaction, family, income, the balance between work and private life of workers and the elimination of physical and psychological cruelties in the workplace.
It is important to note that the physiological risks and the unfavourable factors cause occupational stress (poor physical conditions of work, the need for a lot of work in a short period of time (long-term large congestion without adequate conditions of full recuperation), the lack of information about the professional responsibilities (when the employee believes that he is doing wrong things)) can be eliminated or minimized by legal regulation, while making relationships with work colleagues, to create a favourable business environment provided by the generally accepted rules of behaviour, moral norms and largely dependent on the worker.
Summing up the above, it should be noted that the new concept of occupational health and safety correspond to the basic principles of legal regulation of labour relations in Ukraine, such as ensuring the right of every worker to fair working conditions, including working conditions that meet safety and hygiene requirements, social partnership, mandatory compensation for damage caused to the employee in connection with the performance of his employment duties, the establishment of state guarantees to ensure the rights of workers and employers, the state control (supervision) over compliance with them, ensuring workers' rights to protection of their dignity at employment, and others. Many of the suggested concept of approaches to ensure healthy and safe working conditions are reflected in the current legislation of Ukraine.
Changing ideas about occupational health and safety in the light of new conceptual approaches to the provision of safe and healthy working conditions allows to reveal current trends of further development of relations in the field of occupational health and safety and to formulate objectives in this area:
the development of a comprehensive approach to creating a safe and healthy working conditions, providing for an assessment of human exposure to all possible risks, not only in the short term but in the long term (risk identification and standard fastening methods for dealing with them);
the expansion of the implementation of personalized approach to the organization of working conditions (in the organization of the workplace by the employer account health status, physical, physiological, psychological, mental characteristics of each worker);
the intensification of the development of modern regulatory decisions in areas such as physiology of the machine environment and psychology of the working environment;
the development of a preventive approach and improvement of the culture in the area of occupational health and safety of workers [3, p. 100-101].
Solutions to these problems will allow at the legislative level to carry out the dialogue in the framework of social partnership, to increase social responsibility and economic incentives for businesses.
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