Workplace Safety Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Workplace Safety - Research Paper Example However, the cases of hazardous workplace injuries are still caching the attention of public. Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) is the American employee safety act which also deals with workplace safety issues. In this paper we will discuss whether OSHA is proving successful in dealing with workplace safety issues or not. Problem Statement The problem statement for the research paper is, ‘Is OSHA Proving Successful in Ensuring Workplace Safety for Construction Related Occupations and Other Dangerous Occupations’. Literature Review There are various kinds of occupations that an individual chooses to earn his/her living. Some of those occupations are considered dangerous from the perspective of personal heath, whereas some occupations are somewhat less dangerous and are considered harmless. Workplace safety is the biggest concern for any individual while adopting any occupation. People prefer to adopt such occupations that are considered less dangerous. The reason is that health is the most precious asset for a person. Employees’ level of productivity is linked directly with the level of protection that they feel while at work (Hayes, Perander, Smecko, & Trask, 1998). If employees feel safe at work, their level of productivity increases as they can focus on their work properly. On the other hand, concerns over safety adversely affect their levels of concentration and productivity. However, sometimes people have to adopt such occupations that are most vulnerable to personal safety. Construction related occupations fall into the category of those occupations that are considered dangerous. The reason is that construction related occupations have many concerns regarding workers’ safety. As Cullen (2002) states, â€Å"most jobs have expected, known hazards† (p. 7). For example, many laborers and even engineers while working lose their lives falling accidentally from high roofs of multistory buildings. In the same way, sometime s electricians suffer deadly electric shocks when they forget to apply appropriate security measures regarding electric current while doing electric work in new buildings. These are just some of those risks that make construction related occupations unsafe and dangerous for health. However, the fact is that construction related occupations are not the only type of occupations that are hazardous; there also exist some other occupations that are even more dangerous as compared to construction related occupations. Some of those occupations include firefighting, fishing, criminal justice system related occupations, farming, and aircraft pilot. OSHA guidelines are there to protect most of these occupations. The guidelines are proving very effective as they have reduced the number of per year causalities associated with these occupations up to some extent (Lanoie, 1992). However, workers are still suffering workplace injuries because management officials of most of these occupations are n ot skilled enough to implement OSHA safety mechanisms properly. Therefore, a lot more still needs to be done by the management officials in order to overcome the issue of workplace safety properly. Workplace safety is the main factor that plays its part in making people consider some occupations dangerous and risky for personal health and safety. People are usually not aware of OSHA guidelines regarding workplace safety nor they have in their minds that whether the companies for which they are going to work follow OSHA safety guidelines or not. Therefore, they consider