INDUSTRIAL SAFETY AND QUALITY OF WORK LIFE

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*DR.SHANMUKHA RAO PADALA ** DR.N.V.S.SURYANARAYANA

Quality of work life (QWL) has its roots in scientific management advocated by F.W. Taylor way back in 1940’s. The mechanical approach or quantitative approach that scientific management assured gave way to the frustration of workers which led to human relations movement and later socio-technical movement which is the basis for today’s Quality of Work Life. Thus, the evaluation of the concept QWL was mainly in three phases- Scientific management, human relations movement and finally socio-technical movement. The socio-technical system advocates such an organizational design which ensures high quality of work life. Most of the organizations are interested in enhancing employee’s QWL and generally try to instill the feeling of security, equality, pride and prestige, among its employees. For this purpose procedures and policies are framed to make the work less routine and more rewarding for the employees. These procedures or policies provide autonomy, recognition, good working condition and conferring awards in appreciation of work done etc.

QWL dimensions are broadly divided into: Classical dimensions and Contemporary dimensions. Classical dimensions include physical working conditions, employees’ welfare, employee assistance, job factors and financial factors whereas, Contemporary dimensions include collective bargaining, industrial safety and health, grievance redressal procedure, quality circles, work-life balance, workers’ participation in management etc. Industrial Safety is one of the contemporary factors, which influence the QWL of the employees.

Industrial accidents cause disastrous damage to the life and property of the people. The dawn of 20th Century ushered a new era in Industrial Safety. The modern industrial safety movement was started in 1912 with the help of Co-operative Safety Congress.The National Safety Council was set up on 4th March 1966 in Mumbai at the initiative of the Union Ministry of Labour and Rehabilitation, Government of India to promote safety consciousness to prevent accidents and to conduct safety programmes.

The Government of India extended top priority to industrial safety, particularly after the Bhopal Gas tragedy in Union Carbide Factory in 1985, where thousands of people lost their lives and lakhs of people turned disabled. This situation compelled the Government to implement mandatory safety measures in every industrial undertaking. The Workmen’s Compensation Act imposed a financial burden on Management for the workforce to be insured against injuries, disablements, deaths and diseases. More sophisticated organizations, discovered that safety programmes were cost effective. The hidden costs of accidents are typically four times the direct and obvious costs. Federal Legislation and accompanying court decisions have added a “police and punish” approach in the form of surprise inspections and fines.

Safety is defined as “Protection of physical health of people in the organisation and prevention of work related injuries and accidents.” The safety awareness programmes are very important to industrial employees. The safety rules need to be laid down and be enforced by every organization. Safety is primarily the responsibility of the management. This responsibility should rest on the shoulders of all cadres of management; such as plant managers, maintenance engineers, supervisors, foremen and safety managers.

The accident represents a social loss of great magnitude in the form of pain, loss of earning capacity and disturbance to economic efficiency. Getting men to work safely is primary concern of employer to ensure safe performance. Prevention of accidents is an objective of every organization which requires no explanation. This is one area in which there is complete identity of employer-employee interests, the employee does not want to be injured and the employer does not want to incur the cost of injury.

Safety measures prevent accidents and ensure regular flow of work. In turn, it helps, to increase not only the workers morale but also productivity of the organisation without fear unless otherwise safe working conditions are provided. The employer has primary responsibility to provide or arrange such type of environment. The main causes of accidents may be Human causes like: age, education, health condition, experience, psychological factors, social factors etc., or Technical Causes like, hazardous arrangement, defective equipment, poor house keeping etc., or Environment causes like, poor lighting and ventilation, congestion and over-crowding, humidity, long hours of work and high speed working machines.

Two types of ratios are used to measure industrial safety i.e., Frequency rate and Severity rate. The frequency rate can be expressed as the lost-time due to accidents per million man-hours worked; the severity rate is the number of days lost due to accident per million man-hours worked. According to National Safety Council USA, prevention of accidents depends upon 3E’s –Engineering, Education and Enforcement. The job should be engineered for safety, employees should be educated in safety procedures and safety rules should be properly enforced.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY:-
The objectives of the study are:

1. To know the contribution of safety measures for the improvement of employees’ quality in work life of Hindustan Zinc Limited.

2. To examine the number of accidents in HZL, Visakhapatnam during the period under study.

3. To study the employees’ opinion on working conditions, preventive suggestions given by safety officers and safety education programmes of the organization.

4. To know the effectiveness of the present accident communication reporting system and suggest appropriate system.

METHODOLOGY:

The study is based on both primary and secondary data. The secondary data is collected from organisation records, management reports and special project reports to understand the present state of industrial safety. Primary data is collected from the workers of the organisation with the help of questionnaire. There are 807 employees in HZL, Visakhapatnam, out of which 80 are in management cadre. The remaining 727 employees are grouped into nine categories based on the nature of work from which 115 employees are selected randomly.

SAFETY MEASURES IN HZL, VISAKHAPATNAM:

Hindustan Zinc Limited (HZL) was established on 10th January 1966 as a public sector unit. Initially, the Sterilite Opportunities and Venture Limited (SOVL) running under the Vendanta Group of Company have only 26 percent of paid up capital; further 20 percent is brought from market through open offer and 18.92 percent from Government of India (GOI) under call option in 2003-04 according to disinvest policy system implemented by GOI in 2002. Now 64.92 percent of stake is going under the private control of SOVL. At initial stage the annual turnover was only Rs. 2 crores, whereas 2004-05 the annual turnover of the company around Rs 1841.5 crores. HZL, Visakhapatnam unit started its production in 1977. The total cost of the project was around Rs. 48.5 Crores. The Lead plant was expensed in 1984 with a cost of Rs.9 Crores. The products and installed capacity of the company are Zinc Ingots: 33,000 TPA, Cadmium Pencils: 115 TPA, Sulphuric Acid: 75,000 TPA and silver: 30 TPA.

The company has recognized Human resource as the best asset, without developing human resources; the company cannot face the challenge in the changing global environment. An innovative employee learning concept, “Continuous Learning Environment” has been developed and implemented in HZL, Visakhapatnam. Vizag Zinc-Lead Smelter won National Award for Best HRD Practices for 2002-03 from Society for Training and Development. Depending upon the categories and department requirements, different training programs have been conducted by HZL.

A separate corporate level safety department is set up at New Delhi to maintain safe working conditions at all units of the HZL by appointing a Senior Manager (Safety & Environment) to look after the safety environment at the corporate level. At the same time a separate safety department is set up to ensure the safety measures in HZL, Visakhapatnam. Unit heads and officers working under them are responsible for implementation and monitoring the safety policy at unit level. The safety objectives of HZL are:

· To develop a culture conduct to safe working in the mines and smelters.
· To improve working conditions and environment.
· To propagate safety measures and create safety consciousness among the women, supervisors and officers.
· To train workmen as well as supervisors in their respective field of operations.
· To reduce the scope of accidents and to aim at accident free performance.
· To adopt measures for improvement in Health Standards.
· To ensure that there is no long-term effects on health due to smelters and industrial environment.
· To ensure that all statutory provisions relating to the safety are followed.

To achieve the above objectives the organisation spends Rs.30 lakhs, annually, by following seven golden safety rules along with 5E’s for ensuring safety. The Seven Golden safety rules are:

1. If a worker has seen any unsafe situation, which is likely to cause an accident, then it may be intimated to the supervisor, plant in-charge or manager (safety). The accident even of small nature may be intimated immediately.

2. Keep once’s premises neat and clean. There are possibilities for accidents due to bad management of the house.

3. Do not act hurriedly or in a careless way, which may cause accident for any other person.

4. Observe prescribed rules inside the factory and keep it always clean and hurdleless.

5. Wear the appropriate uniform and safety devices given to the employee at the work spot while he is working.

6. Comply the instructions of concerned supervisor and plant in-charge while working at the work-spot and ask them for clarification if any doubt arises.

7. Do not worry during emergency and act immediately carefully and on understanding the situation.

As regards the 5E’s, the job should be Engineered for safety, employees should be Educated in safe procedures, the seven golden rules should properly be Enforced, the accident prevention should be achieved only by Enthusiasm and the supervisors and foremen should be an Example to others in the implementing the safety rules.

Safe working conditions play a key role for prevention of accidents and maintaining safety environment. The employees’ opinion on the working conditions of HZL, Visakhapatnam is shown in Table.1. Majority of the respondents felt happy with regard to Illumination (84.35per cent), Ventilation and temperature (75.66 per cent), Sanitation (73.04 per cent), Machine Fencing (71.30 per cent) and Drinking Water (100 per cent). Thus it can be concluded that the overall working environment of HZL is praise-worthy.

The safety department provides necessary safety appliances to every employee. The employees’ opinion on quality of safety appliances provided by safety department is shown in Table.2. More than 90 respondents out of 115 accounting for 78.26 per cent stated that the quality of safety appliances except safety shoes is either good or satisfactory.

The HZL, Visakhapatnam has conducted many Safety Education-Training Programmes in the organization to educate the employees and minimize the occurrence of accidents. The study revealed that the employees’ participation and their opinion on safety education training programmes. 83 respondents out of 115 (72.17 per cent) have participated in Safety Education Training Programmes. Out of 83 respondents, 66 employees (75 per cent) are of the view that the training programs are good and 67.47 per cent of employees are opinioned that these programmes are very much helpful to reduce the number of accidents.

The essential condition for the efficient maintenance of safety in the organisation is frequent inspection by safety manager who is staffed with experience engineers. By adopting the constructive attitude, making plant visits and valuable suggestions, accidents can be reduced and improve the safe working conditions. Along with safety manager the HZL, management also assists in the fulfillment of its obligation concerning prevention of personal injuries and maintaining a safe working environment. The safety manager prepares a schedule for visit to each and every plant/department atleast twice in a week and gives utmost importance to large department/plant like Zinc Electrolysis & Melting plant, Mechanical Department etc., and to hazards nature plants like Roaster Acid plant, Leaching Purification plant, Electrical department, Laboratory etc.

The study highlighted that out of 115 employees 49.56 per cent have mentioned that the safety manager visits once in a week; 22.60 per cent of respondents said that he visits twice in a week; but 23.48 per cent are mentioned that he visits rarely. The main reason for dissatisfaction of respondents on safety manager visit is that more importance is given to large and hazardous nature of plants/departments than others and he visits between 8 A.M. and 5 P.M i.e., General shift time; it does not cover the all other three shifts. As and when he visits, the safety manager gives suggestions to plant/department managers, supervisors and workers safety measures. 66.95 per cent of respondents’ opinion that the safety manager suggestions are very much useful to prevent/reduce of accidents if they are implemented.

In spite of the precautions taken by the safety department, still accidents have been occurring in HZL, Visakhapatnam. The HZL, Visakhapatnam has taken more time to achieve ‘Zero Accident’. The number of accidents occurred in HZL, Visakhapatnam over a period of last nine years is shown in Table.3. The occurrence of accidents is erratic and varied between 15 and 90 during the period under study. Even though there is a change the management from Public Sector to Private Sector the number of accident has not reduced appreciably. On the contrary, the number of accidents has increased gradually from 31 in 2006 to 34 in 2007.

Accident Communication Reporting System:

The primary purpose of an accident report is to reveal facts and figures pertaining to occurrence of an accident and not fix up or blame with any person. A report form may be considered effective only when it achieves objectives by furnishing information and promoting action. Due consideration should be given in the designing of the accident report form to achieve the following purpose.

1. Report should contain necessary injury data to help safety engineer or the investigator to find out the causes of accident.

2. Report should permit to classify the accident by type, agency, sub agency etc. and helps in assessing safety performance of the company.

3. Report should carry necessary information for insurance company carrying the compensation risk.

4. Report should furnish injury data to the Industrial Commissioner or the Labour Department for statistical purpose.

5. Report should provide for information about the accident to factory inspector.

Accident report form is essentially interrogative in character and with question ‘what had been going wrong?’ Covetously something is wrong otherwise no accident would have occurred. Report form very widely depending on the type of industry, nature of plant operations and usual environmental factors. The form should furnish facts and opinions all pertaining to conditions or activities leading to an accident. Irrespective of the type of accident or nature of operation, the form should provide adequate information regarding causes of accident as well as some clues for corrective action to be taken.

At the time of accident all of them must be concentrating to provide timely better treatment to the injured person. Time is most important factor; every one minute is also helpful to save the life of the injured person. For this purpose a good accident communicated reporting system is necessary. The Hindustan Zinc Limited designed an Accident Communication Reporting System is displacing in Chart No.1. But it has so many defectives and unnecessarily wastage of valuable time. According to the existing accident reporting system any accident occurred three employees are help to the injured person as well as communicate the information to other departments. First person inform to the department as well as hospital, then he care to the injured person. Second person communicate the information to their department and hospital along with the time office. Third person communicate to the concerned department and hospital at the time of accident, then after communicate to the concern department form the hospital from time to time. The department informs to the safety department; and the safety department in turn inform to the time office.

The present accident communication reporting system is not given more importance to the safety rather than other departments. The following are the main defectives of the existing accident communication reporting system.

1. This system not concentrates on first aid treatment. It is most important for save the life of the injured person.

2. The existing system not properly communicate the information to the important departments, due to this reason unnecessarily wastage of valuable time.

3. First aid report is most important for further immediate treatment in the hospital; but in this system first aid is not at all mentioned.

4. For carryout the injured person to hospital/dispensary then must be required ambulance or vehicle; but it is not described in the reporting system.

5. Next most important thing is to inform to the family members for morale support to the injured person; but there is no scope to inform to the family members according to this system.

6. According to the existing system they are not inform to the HR department or GM office or the Top Management of the factory.

In the above reasons the existing accident communication reporting system have many defectives, so it must be replaced immediately, unless other wise the injured persons either loose their life or disability or damage per cent is increased. Thus, a new accident communication reporting system is suggested to the organization (Chart No.2).

Accidents are usually the result of unsafe equipment and unsafe conditions. Due to a small reportable accident the organization incurs huge amount of loss directly or indirectly. It may be damage of machinery, temporary interruption to the production process; loss of labour working hours etc. An attempt is made in this study to find out the amount of loss the organization is incurring due to an accident and the information is presented in Table.4. As can be seen from the table the total loss to the organization on account of a single reportable accident varies from Rs. 23,968/- to Rs. 28,028/-.

CONCLUSION:

To sum up the study revealed that the quality standards of safety appliances used in Hindustan Zinc Limited as perceived by the workers are satisfactory. As regard the number of accidents it is revealed that there is no perceptible reduction in the number of accidents through there is change in the management from Public Sector management to Private Sector management. The total loss to the organization due to occurrences of a small reportable accident is between Rs. 24, 000/- and Rs. 28, 000/- depending upon category of the workers. Finally a new model of accident communication reporting system is suggested in the study by which the total loss to organization as well as the victim can be minimized. Due to implementation of safety measures in Hindustan Zinc Limited, the QWL of the employees in terms of improvement in the working conditions, safety, social security, increasing the individual status will increase.

Reference:

1. C.K. Podder, (1997) “Quality of work life- Key to vibrant organization”, Personal Today, October-December, p.22-24.

2. Ediwin B. Flippo (1984), “Personnel Management”, Sixth Edition; McGraw-Hill Book Company; p.515.

3. Tripathi (1996), “Personnel Management & Industrial Relations”, 12th edition, Sulthan Chand & Sons; p.346.

4. Gokakar (2001), “Safety, Accident and Working Conditions” Kolhapur; p.129.

5. H.W. Heinrich (1959), “Accident Prevention”, McGraw Hill Publishing House; p.66.

6. C.B. Mamoria, (1989), “Personnel Management”; Seventh Edition; Himalaya Publishing House; p. 881.

7. Mirza S. Saiyadain (2004), “Human Resources Management”, Third Edition; Tata McGraw Hill Publishing Company; p.410.

8. C.S. Venkata Ratnam and B. K. Srivastava (2004), “Personnel Management and Human Resources”; Tata McGraw Hill Publishind Company; p.214.

9. Dr. C.B. Gupta (1999); ” Human Resource Management”, Fourth Edition; Sulthan Chand & Sons p.6.13.

10. Shanmukha Rao. P (2006), “Collective Bargaining System impact on Quality of Work Life: a Case study of Hindustan Zinc Limited”, Personnel Focus, July-September, p.1-7.

11. Gary Dessler (2004), “Human Resaource Management”, Ninth Edition, Pearson Education, p. 427-463.

12. Shanmukha Rao. P (2007), “Quality Circles for Quality of Work Life: A Case study on Visakhapatnam Steel Plant”, Raj Journal of Commerce, February, 2007, p. 25-28.

13. Manga M. L. and Maggu, (1981) “QWL: A Study of Public Sector in India ” ASCI, Journal of Management, Vol. 19, No. 2.

14. Devashish pujari, (1992) “Managing quality of work life: The key of success”, The Indian Journal of Commerce, Vol. XLV, Part-III, No.172, September 1992, P.93-102.

15. M.Ekramul Hoque and Alinoor Rahman, (1999) “Quality of working life and job behaviour of workers in Bangladesh – A comparative study of private and public sectors”; Indian Journal of Industrial Relation, vol.35; No.2, October 1999 P.175-183.

16. DR. J.Venkatachalam and DR. A.Velayudhan, (1999) “Impact of Advanced Technology on Quality of work life”; “Management & Labour Studies”, vol.24; No.4; October 1999.

TABLE No. 1

EMPLOYEES’ FEELING ON THE WORKING CONDITIONS

PARTICULARS

LEVEL OF SATISFACTION

TOTAL

Very Good

Good

Satisfactory

Unsatisfactory

Can’t Say

1. Illumination

10 (8.70)

19 (16.52)

68 (59.13)

13 (11.30)

5 (04.35)

115 (100)

2. Ventilation & Temperature

6 (05.22)

27 (23.48)

54 (46.96)

18 (15.65)

10 (08.69)

115 (100)

3. Dust Fumes & Cleanliness

8 (06.96)

5 (04.34)

51 (44.35)

33 (28.70)

18 (15.65)

115 (100)

4. House Keeping

13 (11.30)

18 (15.66)

34 (29.56)

42 (36.52)

8 (06.96)

115 (100)

5. Sanitation

9 (07.83)

22 (19.13)

53 (46.08)

31 (26.96)

–

115 (100)

6. Machine Finishing Guard

7 (06.09)

18 (15.65)

57 (49.56)

28 (24.35)

5 (04.35)

115 (100)

7. Drinking Water

47 (40.87)

59 (51.30)

9 (07.83)

–

115 (100)

TABLE No. 2

QUALITY OF SAFETY APPLIANCES PROVIDED BY SAFETY SEPARTMENT

PARTICULARS

LEVEL OF SATISFACTION

TOTAL

Very Good

Good

Satisfactory

Unsatisfactory

Can’t Say

1. Safety Shoe

5 (4.35)

10(8.70)

34 (29.56)

46 (40.00)

20 (17.39)

115 (100)

2. Goggles

29 (25.22)

27 (23.48)

41 (35.65)

12 (10.43)

6 (5.22)

115 (100)

3. Helmets

11 (9.56)

29 (25.22)

57 (49.57)

7 (6.09)

11 (9.56)

115 (100)

4. Gloves

47 (40.87)

32 (27.83)

8 (6.96)

18 (15.65)

10 (8.69)

115 (100)

5. Safety Belt

10 (10.10)

47 (47.48)

23 (23.23)

4 (4.04)

15 (15.15)

99 (100)

6. Other Safety Equipment

27 (23.48)

33 (28.70)

34 (29.56)

21 (18.26)

–

115 (100)

TABLE No. 3

NUMBER OF ACCIDENTS IN HZL, VISAKHAPATNAM

YEAR

Fatal

Serious

Reportable

TOTAL

1999

–

2000

–

2001

–

2002

–

2003

–

2004

–

2005

2006

–

2007

–

TABLE NO.4

TOTAL LOSS DUE TO A SMALL REPORTABLE ACCIDENT- CATEGORY-WISE (Amount in Rupees)

SL.NO

CATEGORY OF EMPLOYEES

III

VII

VIII

Half day work loss due to accident

144

149

155

160

165

169

177

200

214

Ambulance charges for 15 K.M. @Rs.10/- per K.M.

150

Loss of work due to Two workers assisting the person involved in accident*.

330

Loss of man-hours due to discussion about Accident in the same dept. 2 Hrs X 20 workers*

1,645

Workers discussion on accident on that day by other than the concerned department. 15 Min X 707=177 Hrs*

7,269

Expenses on investigation for causes of accident

200

One week work loss of person involved in accident.

2,009

2,086

2,163

2,240

2,303

2,359

2,478

2,793

2,989

Loss of 7 days O.T.due to accident

4,018

4,172

4,326

4,480

4,606

4,718

4,956

5,586

5,978

Expenses of Telephone, Telegram due to accident

10.

Loss of work due to answering the Government Officers on accident

500

11.

Safety manager and other managers expenses due to visit to the Hospital

500

12.

Hospitality and Medical charges

5,000

13.

Attending the duty but not fully recovered for 15days(1/2 of work loss)

2,153

2,235

2,318

2400

2,468

2,528

2,655

2,993

3,203

TOTAL

23,968

24,286

24,606

24,924

25,186

25,418

25,910

27,216

28,028

* Based on category V employees salary.

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Source by NVS Suryanarayana G Himabindu

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