The project in five facts.
Challenge, approach and results.
The purpose of the diploma thesis was to study and investigate the legislation regarding the regulation of worker safety on construction sites. They investigated whether all participants in construction, such as employers-contractors, workers, coordinators for occupational health and safety, supervisors and clients, could prevent any accident themselves by complying with the legislation, if they had observed the regulations governing occupational health and safety, or if they had at least observed the safety plan. ** The first hypothesis** they formulated states that their national legislation precisely regulates and defines safety on construction sites. It can be observed that there is no progress compared to previous years in ensuring health and safety in the workplace, as the inspectorate finds that the highest number of violations to date was identified last year.
Problem
The purpose of the diploma thesis was to study and investigate the legislation regarding the regulation of worker safety on construction sites. They investigated whether all participants in construction, such as employers-contractors, workers, coordinators for occupational health and safety, supervisors and clients, could prevent any accident themselves by complying with the legislation, if they had observed the regulations governing occupational health and safety, or if they had at least observed the safety plan. ** The first hypothesis** they formulated states that their national legislation precisely regulates and defines safety on construction sites.
The hypothesis has been confirmed, as the legislation precisely and comprehensibly defines what the participants in construction must observe, **what their task is and what rights they have. ** The second hypothesis, that contractors pay too little attention to safety plans, has also been confirmed. From the statistical data of the Labour Inspectorate of the Republic of Slovenia, which are available on their website "http://www.id.gov.si/si/o_inspektoratu/javne_objave/letna_porocila/", it follows that employers-contractors devote too little attention to safety plans, as some do not even read them.
Solution and method
If the safety plan for occupational health and safety were observed, a very large number of work-related accidents could be prevented, as it precisely determines what must be observed during construction, what the work equipment is, what is the safest procedure for the construction itself, what personal protective equipment workers must wear, etc. The hypothesis stating that workers on construction sites must always wear helmets does not hold, as the coordinator can specify in the safety plan a location where workers may be without helmets. ** The coordinator**, who determines that there is no longer a danger of head injury, may determine by entry in the book of measures that the construction site may be entered without a helmet.
Despite the fact that workers have all personal protective equipment, they often do not use it through their own fault, which is evident from the inspection data, which still detects violations every year related to the non-use of personal protective equipment. ** The hypothesis** that injuries usually occur because safety equipment is not used and instructions from the safety plan are not observed has also been confirmed. ** Data obtained from the report of the Labour Inspectorate of the Republic of Slovenia** show that the number of violations in the field of occupational health and safety increases every year.
Results
In 2017, as many as 49 per cent of all identified violations represented violations related to workers' health protection and training of workers for safe work. In 2016 there were 50.10 per cent, in 2015 44.50 per cent and in 2014 42.20 per cent. It can be observed that there is no progress compared to previous years in ensuring health and safety in the workplace, as the inspectorate finds that the highest number of violations to date was identified last year. Most violations are in risk assessment in the workplace, in ensuring workers' health and in their training for safe and healthy performance of work. ** All of this represents the fundamental obligations of the employer, as by preparing a risk assessment statement they determine** what type of danger threatens the worker in their work, assess its risk and adopt measures to reduce this danger.
They must supplement or amend it with every significant change that occurs in the work process. The risk assessment statement determines the obligations and measures of the responsible worker, which they must respect and consistently implement. The obligation and right of workers is that they must be informed of the content of the adopted statement and must actively participate in its preparation. The last hypothesis they formulated is that the content of the safety plan for high-rise construction does not differ from the content of the safety plan for municipal infrastructure. ** We partially confirm this hypothesis.** Differences occur in the loading, transport and unloading of construction materials and in the determination of securing dangerous places in high-rise construction due to work at height.
Whilst studying safety plans, they learnt that employers, by observing the measures specified by safety plans, could prevent many a work accident, as the entire construction process from beginning to end is specified in them in detail and precisely. ** Many an employer, however, does not read the safety plan and does not instruct the worker how to act in certain cases.** ** The BIM approach** could also contribute greatly to the improvement, better transparency and adaptation to a particular situation in the preparation of the safety plan before and during construction itself. ** Designers and contractors** could change the construction site plan for each construction phase separately without additional costs, whilst ** the investor** would have current data on the actual costs regarding ** occupational health and safety** during construction.
Module, programme and stories.
Your diploma project for a real company.
A diploma thesis at Academia solves a challenge from a company – often the one where you do your 800 hours of placement. Read about the Gradbeništvo module or book a consultation.