ACCIDENTS AT WORK

What are the consequences of accidents at work ? The consequences include the following :

• Financial costs
• Losses of output
• Lowered morale
• Negative publicity

If there is an accident at work, the employer will have to pay medical bills and possibly hospital bills for the injured workers. For this purpose, companies take out the insurance coverage and pay contributions to the Employees Social Security Organization (SOCSO). 

Below are some examples of newspaper headlines in recent years.

Landmark Case in Factory Safety

Taiwanese company Hualon Corp. (M) Sdn. Bhd was fined RM25,000 in default two months' jail, after the textile factory pleaded guilty to not providing safety equipment to its workers during maintenance work, resulting in a death and five injuries.

The Star, 28 October 2003

Death at Work Site : Company Director Charged

A 36 year old company director has been charged with failing to provide adequate supervision at his firm's work site, leading to the death of an employee.

The Star, 17 December 2003

Therefore, there are many types and cause of accidents. Accidents may be categorized by their impact or severity, in which case the following descriptions may be caused :

• Near miss,  whereby no one was injured or hurt, although damage to property may have occurred
• Non - fatal, whereby one or more employees required first - aid treatment
• Non - fatal, whereby one or more employees were temporarily disabled 
• Non - fatal, whereby one or more employees were permanently disabled
• Fatal, whereby one or more workers were killed

Accidents at work may be caused by :

• technical causes
• human causes
• environmental causes

Adding on, fatigue caused by long working hours may be a caused of accidents, as is boredom and generally low morale. Fleishman (1967) summarizes the human causes of accidents as follows :

• Faulty attitudes
• Low attention span
• Drinking and drug abuse
• Faulty judgement of speed and distance
• Impulsivesness
• Irresponsibility
• Nervous and fear
• Worry and depression

As a worker, we should avoid such human causes accidents because the safety is very important at working place despite of the causes by those other two.