To understand safety in construction.

1. Safety
in Construction
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2. Introduction
Why is construction work risky??
Projects – incomparable, distinct , Variation in climate & material
Sites – Moving, congested, confined, Discomfort, Access & Egress.
Current trend - Subcontracting way of execution, multi-skill workers & too many
unskilled workers
Workers – Stubborn, Uneducated, Ignorance, Attitude, Hurry & choosing short cut.
Summary
New hazards keep coming and the workers are exposed to unknown risks each time of the
day!
Exposure to different hazards and danger can/may result in illness, injury, permanent
disability, and even death
Toll of construction accidents is still high
Ironical statement – Expenses on safety is sure, while accidents may/may not occur

3. Definitions
Safety – absence of danger or a state of protection
Incident – an unplanned and unwanted event which disrupts the work
process and may cause injury or damage
Near miss – incidents where no property was damaged or personal injury
sustained, but given a slight change in time or position, damage and/or
injury easily could have occurred, but didn’t occur this round
Accident – the National Safety Council defines an accident as an undesired
event that results in personnel injury, loss of business opportunity or
property damage
Accident is an incident plus its consequences
In reality, construction accidents are the result of negligence, needless
and they can be easily avoidable.
Injury – cut, fracture, sprain, etc.
Not only an accident; a near miss and even an incident should also be
investigated to achieve zero accidents in site

4. Documented
Undocumented
What injury is to be reported/recordable?
– Death
– Accident
– Injury
– First aid
– Health issues
• 2 % are Acts of God & 98% are preventable
• 10% are unsafe conditions & 88% are unsafe
acts.

5. Unsafe Acts & condition
Unsafe act – an activity that is not done according to
safety standards.
Failure to wear PPE
Ignoring tools defects/fault working
Violation of safety and health rules
Unsafe conditions – hazards that may cause injury, property
damage or death
Congested work places.
Dangerous soil conditions
Excessive noise in the construction site

6. Hazard
Hazard means anything that can hurt people and property.
When personal injury occurs, it often is initially assumed that the
victim was at fault, the equipment was misused, etc.
 It is unwise to keep a hazard as you may have to pay for the harm it
causes.
When you pay to remove the hazard, it costs you a little money- that’s
all.
When you do not pay to remove the hazard, you sometimes lose
Everything to pay for the harm it caused

7. Punctures Fractures Cut
Minor Injury in Construction
Strains Crushes

8. Adverse health effect
• Any change in body function or the structures of cells that can lead to
disease or health problems. It include
– Disease,
– Change in the way the body functions, grows, or develops,
– Effects on children, grandchildren, etc. (inheritable genetic effects)
– Decrease in life span,
– Change in mental condition resulting from stress, traumatic
– Experiences, exposure to solvents, and so on, and
– Effects on the ability to accommodate additional stress.
• Factors that influence the degree of risk in exposure include:
– what is the hazard in terms of its danger potential
– how much a person is exposed to a hazardous thing or condition,
– how the person is exposed (e.g., breathing in a vapour, skin contact),
and
– how severe are the effects under the conditions of exposure.
• The effects can be acute (immediate) or chronic (delayed)
• Once the hazard is removed/eliminated, the effects may be
reversible/irreversible

9. Statistics
 Frequency rate for lost − time injury
= Number of lost – time injury x 1000000 / (Man hours worked OR MHW)
 Frequency rate for reportable lost − time injury
= Number of reportable lost – time injury x 1000000 / (Man hours worked)
 Severity rate for lost − time injury
= man-days lost due to reportable lost – time injury x 1000000 / (MHW)
 Severity rate for reportable lost − time injury
= man-days lost due to reportable lost- time injury x 100000 / (MHW)
 Incident rate for lost – time injury
= Number of lost - time injury x 1000 / avg number of person employer
 Incident rate for reportable lost – time injury
= number of reportable lost – time injury x 1000 / avg number of person
employed
Ref – IS 3786 – 1983 method for Computation of frequency and severity
– rates for industrial injuries and classification of industrial accidents

10. Why is OSHA important?
Until 1970, there were no national laws for safety and
health hazards.
On average, 15 workers die every day from job injuries.
OSH Act of 1970, an agency of US Department of Labor.
OSHA’s responsibility is worker safety and health protection.
Mission is to save lives, prevent injuries and protect the
health of American workers

11. OHSAS 18001:2007
Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series (BS OHSAS
18001)
BSI (British Standards Institution) Group decided to adopt
OHSAS 18001 (OHSMS) and OHSAS 18002 (guidance
specification) as British standards
BS OHSAS 18001 was updated in July 2007 in particular to
better reflect ILO-OSH guidelines and additionally, the "health"
component of "health and safety" was given greater emphasis
OSHAS can be aligned with ISO 9001 & ISO 14001
management systems
Compliance with it enabled organizations to demonstrate that
they had a system in place for occupational health and safety

12. ISO 45001: 2018
ISO 45001 is a milestone!
To achieve this, it is crucial to control all factors that might result in
illness, injury, and in extreme cases death, by mitigating adverse effects
on the physical, mental and cognitive condition of a person – and ISO
45001 covers all of those aspects.
WHAT ARE THE MAJOR DIFFERENCES BETWEEN OHSAS 18001 AND ISO
45001?
While ISO 45001 draws on OHSAS 18001 – the former benchmark for
OH&S – it is a new and distinct standard, not a revision or update, and is
due to be phased in gradually over the next three years. Organizations will
therefore need to revise their current thinking and work practices in order
to maintain organizational compliance.
There are many differences, but the main change is that ISO 45001
concentrates on the interaction between an organization and its business
environment while OHSAS 18001 was focused on managing OH&S hazards
and other internal issues.
The Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle is the foundational operating
principle across both standards
ISO 45001 favors a preventive process that requires hazard risks to be
evaluated and remedied before they cause incidents and/or injuries—this
differs from OHSAS 18001, which focused only on hazard control

13. (BoCW Act)
There are more than 28 million skilled and unskilled workers engaged in the
construction sector in India. The sector is labor-intensive and most of the
labourers are unskilled, unorganized and tend to work under inhuman and
pitiful conditions.
To address inhuman working conditions and poor health and safety
standards in the real estate industry, the Government of India enacted the
Building and Other Constructions Workers Act, 1996 ("BOCW Act")
It is a social welfare legislation that aims to benefit workers engaged in
building and construction activities across the country
The preamble of the BOCW Act - "An act to regulate the employment and
conditions of service of building and other construction workers and to provide
for their safety, health and welfare measures and for other matters connected
therewith or incidental thereto“
The BOCW Act makes sure that workers are not being exploited and a
healthy and safe working environment is provided to them.
Since a building worker is basically defined as a person involved in building
or construction work, the definition of "building or construction work" is to be
looked into.