Any activity of a human being, even the most useful, can be a source of serious negative influences. The harm caused by it can consist in injuries, illnesses (including disability) and even death. A person can harm himself during rest-leisure time, and getting an education, and even more so in the labor process.
That is, any, without exception, activity for you and me carries a potential threat to health. This statement is the axiom underlying the issue of ensuring human security. What conclusions follow from here? The main one: the absolute provision of safe working conditions at work is an unattainable ideal. In particular, there are no completely reliable work processes or types of production equipment in this regard.
Is safe working conditions a myth or not?
First, we answer the question - what is danger? This term refers to the totality of all phenomena, factors, processes and things that can affect human health and life negatively. There is such an organization - ILO (International Labor Organization). According to her, every year in our world, workers die in production, in the amount of about two million people.
Classification of harmful and dangerous factors of production can be done in different ways. In our country, it is customary to identify them, attesting jobs according to working conditions. Their influence on the body is divided, according to the relevant GOST, into several factors:
- physical;
- chemical;
- biological;
- psychophysiological.
That is, safe working conditions are those in which the actions of all the above groups are absent or minimized.
What specifically threatens us
The first of them (physical) includes everything that moves:
- mechanisms and machines;
- workshop equipment details;
- raw materials;
- blanks;
- working materials that can be moved during the manufacturing process;
- structures capable of collapsing or collapsing rocks.
Air of the working space with increased gas contamination or dustiness, too high or low temperature of materials and work surfaces, as well as insufficient or too hot air of the working area can also be attributed to this.
In addition, the list of physical factors includes too high or, conversely, low numbers of levels of vibration, noise, ultra- and infrasound, barometric pressure, humidity, air ionization, as well as excessively large numbers of voltage in electrical circuits and ionizing radiation.
And what else is harmful?
The same applies to the levels of static electricity, the increased intensity of various fields - magnetic and electric - the lack of natural light or its complete absence. Such a factor may be too strong the brightness of the light or its pulsation, reduced contrast, excessively high levels of radiation (infrared and ultraviolet), excessive brilliance, etc.
Sharp edges, burrs and all sorts of roughness present on the surfaces of equipment, tools, workpieces, as well as the removal of the workplace to a considerable height from the floor level are considered dangerous factors.
Not only mechanics
Another group - chemically dangerous and harmful factors - are those substances that have a bad effect on our body. Such an effect can be toxic, irritating, sensitizing, mutagenic or carcinogenic, as well as inhibiting reproductive function. They can penetrate the body in different ways - through the mucous membranes, skin, respiratory system or through the digestive tract.
Biological "harmful" means both pathogenic microorganisms (viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoa, etc.), together with products of their own vital functions, and macroorganisms, that is, very different plants and animals.
Psychophysiological factors take place in the form of physical overloads (can be static or dynamic) and neuropsychic warehouse (expressed in the form of mental overstrain, emotional "strains" or the usual monotony of labor).
It remains to add that safe working conditions are those in which the same factors are excluded from the composition of different subgroups.
Quality and quantity
Quantitative characteristics of the impact of a factor on an object is its probability and the extent of the damage it causes. A quantitative assessment includes the concept of an acceptable risk value, since the definition of safety adopted in domestic standards implies the absence of risks that are considered unacceptable.
And we are talking about those that are associated with damage to life or health of people, property of any persons (both physical and legal, municipal and state), as well as the environment.
Safe working conditions - definition
Thus, the safety of production activities means the state of all labor processes in such a way that the unacceptable risk of damage by all of the above factors is absent or minimal.
The term "safe working conditions" implies precisely such conditions under which the exposure of workers to dangerous and harmful factors of production is either completely eliminated or has a level not exceeding the established standard norm.
How to find out the level of danger?
To determine such conditions, there is a need for a comprehensive risk assessment. As information for such a study, statistics are used on the nature and frequency of manifestations of harmful factors and consequences (diseases, injuries) at various workplaces, in production units, etc. In addition, the standards for hygiene and labor protection adopted at state level.
For each type of economic activity, safe working conditions are those that correspond to officially developed indicators of occupational injuries, which are considered basic.
How is this data calculated in practice? Theoretically, the indicator of the relative frequency of injury is closest to the real number of injuries. This number is obtained by summing the number of all named cases for a certain period of working time. Such a period, for example, can serve as a year or a given number of hours of work. For events whose frequency is relatively rare, it is more convenient to take the time period longer - for example, equal to a decade.
Ensuring safe working conditions - how to do it
In our country, there is the concept of the severity coefficient and the frequency of accidents. Of course, each specific production has its own working conditions and circumstances. But at the same time, ensuring safe working conditions at the workplace is a fairly typical process.
Its essence is to identify harmful and dangerous factors of production, analyze and assess risks and manage the latter. Thus, the provision of such an important factor of production as labor safety is one of the fundamental and very difficult technical, scientific and organizational problems that are part of a complex of labor protection measures as an integral part .