CHALLENGES ON OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH MANAGEMENT INMETALWORK FACTORIES BASED ON THE ETHIOPIANLABOR LAW: THE CASE OF NIFAS SILK LAFTO SUB CITY, ADDIS ABABA

Abstract

Occupational safety and health is one of the issues of concern in metal work factories. This study covers eleven metal work factories out of seventeen in the Nifas Silk Lafto Sub-city, Addis Ababa. The management in all the eleven metal work factories was interviewed and the workers in the metal workshops responded to questionnaires with regard to the current situations in safety and health standards and their possible reasons for those occupational hazards. The study and the findings are mainly based on data collected on accident record keeping, fire hazards, ergonomics and workplace design, occupational health. These factors are studied along with the level of compensation and benefit of workers show that there are some organizations that are not working in safe conditions. The factors that were found to contribute for the hazards include poor fire controlling mechanisms and first aid treatment, poorly operating machineries and personal protective equipments, poorly trained machine operators and also dangerous working conditions in the manufacturing warehouse. To overcome these hazards, organizations should take a lot of attention to the issue of occupational safety and health and implement all the necessary safety controlling mechanisms in the workplace so as to create a safer and healthier working environment and also better employee-employer relation in the sector.