Activity :

4) Discuss historical development of occupational safety and health internationally

and locally?

Occupational safety and health (OSH), also commonly referred to as occupational

health and safety (OHS), occupational health, or workplace health and safety (WHS), is
a multidisciplinary field concerned with the safety, health, and welfare of people at work.
These terms also refer to the goals of this field, so their use in the sense of this article
was originally an abbreviation of occupational safety and health program or department
and so on. The goals of occupational safety and health programs include to foster a safe
and healthy work environment. OSH may also protect co-workers, family members,
employers, customers, and many others who might be affected by the workplace
environment. In the United States, the term occupational health and safety is referred to
as occupational health and occupational and non-occupational safety and includes
safety for activities outside of work. In common-law jurisdictions, employers have a
common law duty to take reasonable care of the safety of their employees. Statute law
may in addition impose other general duties, introduce specific duties, and create
government bodies with powers to regulate workplace safety issues; details of this vary
from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

As defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) "occupational health deals with
all aspects of health and safety in the workplace and has a strong focus on primary
prevention of hazards." Health has been defined as "a state of complete physical, mental
and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." Occupational
health is a multidisciplinary field of healthcare concerned with enabling an individual to
undertake their occupation, in the way that causes least harm to their health. Health has
been defined as it contrasts, for example, with the promotion of health and safety at
work, which is concerned with preventing harm from any incidental hazards, arising in
the workplace.

The research and regulation of occupational safety and health are a relatively recent
phenomenon. As labor movements arose in response to worker concerns in the wake of
the industrial revolution, worker's health entered consideration as a labor-related issue.
In the United Kingdom, the Factory Acts of the early nineteenth century (from 1802
onwards) arose out of concerns about the poor health of children working in cotton mills;
 the Act of 1833 created a dedicated professional Factory Inspectorate. The initial remit
of the Inspectorate was to police restrictions on the working hours in the textile industry
of children and young persons (introduced to prevent chronic overwork, identified as
leading directly to ill-health and deformation, and indirectly to a high accident rate).
However, on the urging of the Factory Inspectorate, a further Act in 1844 giving similar
restrictions on working hours for women in the textile industry introduced a requirement
for machinery guarding (but only in the textile industry, and only in areas that might be
accessed by women or children). In 1840 a Royal Commission published its findings on
the state of conditions for the workers of the mining industry that documented the
appallingly dangerous environment that they had to work in and the high frequency of
accidents. The commission sparked public outrage which resulted in the Mines Act of
1842. The act set up an inspectorate for mines and collieries which resulted in many
prosecutions and safety improvements, and by 1850, inspectors were able to enter and
inspect premises at their discretion. Otto von Bismarck inaugurated the first social
insurance legislation in 1883 and the first worker's compensation law in 1884 – the first
of their kind in the Western world. Similar acts followed in other countries, partly in
response to labor unrest.

5) Please find the Occupational Safety and Health Management System Malaysian
Standard and discuss about what are the roles of the stakeholders to make sure
the system can be implemented?

OSHMS IN THE ORGANISATION

Occupational safety and health, including compliance with the OSH requirements
pursuant to national laws and regulations, and practice, is the responsibility and duty of
the employer. The employer shall show strong leadership and commitment to OSH
activities in the organisation, and make appropriate arrangements for the establishment
of an OSHMS. The system shall contain the main elements of policy, organising,
planning and implementation, evaluation and action for improvement. These categories
are :
 Policy
Include activities related to the development of the organisation’s OSH policy
statement and structures and practices that insure active and meaningful
worker participation in OSH arrangement.
 Organising
Addresses the establishment of OSH responsibilities and accountabilities
structures, a training system, competency definitions, documentation
practices and a communication system.
 Planning & Implementing
Addresses those activities associated with the fulfilment of the principles
expressed in the OSH policy statement. These activities include the initial
assessment of the OSH arrangement that then support the actual system
planning, development and implementation functions.
 Evaluation
Addresses those functions associated with measuring the management
system‟s performance. This involves the development of performance
monitoring and measurement protocols, investigation practices for accidents,
auditing methods and management review arrangement.
 Action for Improvement
Addresses issues associated with preventive/corrective actions and continual
improvement. With the information obtained from performance monitoring
and measurement, investigations, audits, and management review,
appropriate prevention/corrective and continual improvement actions can be
taken.
Figure 1 : OSH Elements; Source: ILO- OSH 2001 Implementation Manual
PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTATION

Initial review of the workplace is to gather necessary information to perform a baseline or

gap analysis by employer with the assistance of competent person(s) in consultation with
employees and/or their representatives. Organizations with well-established OSHMS may
find that they already have most if not all of the kinds of information. The purpose of the
review is to assure, as far as practicable, that all OSHMS issues are identified so that they
can be assessed and prioritized for further action. Initial review should ;

a) Identify the current applicable national OSH policies, laws and regulations, guidelines,
voluntary OSH programmes and other requirements to which the organisation
subscribes
b) Identify and anticipate hazards and assess risks to safety and health arising from the
existing or proposed work environment and work organisation, and established
procedures for the processes
c) Determine whether planned or existing controls are adequate to eliminate hazards or
control risks

Useful documents and records to be reviewed during the initial review include but
not limited to :

 Audit reports and findings

 Exposure, hazard, and/or risk assessments
 Relevant local and national OSH laws and regulations
 Existing OSH program/system manuals, policies, and/or procedures
 Regulators citations and/or fines
 Audit findings, SOPs and recommendations
 OSH training procedures and records
 The result of the initial review should be documented to be used as a basis for
making decisions regarding the implementation of the OSHMS and provide a baseline
from which continual improvement of the organisation's OSHMS can be measured.
Report should include :

 Method of conducting initial review (e.g. interview, workshop, meetings and

so on)
 Sources of information
 Findings on current status
 Recommendations (may include plan of action)

References :

1) Ministry of Human Resources DOSH. 2014.

http://www.dosh.gov.my/index.php/en/legislation/guidelines/general/597-04-guidelines-
on-occupational-safety-and-health-management-systems-oshms/file

2) Wikipedia Encyclopedia. 2019.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_safety_and_health