Worker perception of health and safety at three construction sites

Abstract

In striving to reduce accidents on three construction sites in Malta, this long essay tries to understand the problems that the worker encounters everyday at his place of work through his perspective of health and safety conditions. A random sample of one hundred and one construction workers from different sized organisations was interviewed by a questionnaire. Two experienced Health and Safety Professionals were also interviewed to provide a report of their views and perceptions of the current conditions of health and Safety on constructions sites. Results showed that workers employed on today's construction sites, both local and foreign were of a higher education level than was first reported J. Aguis (1999) Problems at the Construction Industry in Implementation of OHS legislation. The findings also show that today's worker have sufficient Health and Safety information, knowledge and Keywords training to support the present means needed to reduce current levels of morbidity while constructing high rise buildings in Malta. An important finding was that where a Health and Safety consultant is engaged on every project, the same consultant was not always retained for the new project of the same contractor. Even though that the main core of the workers are retained, thus depriving the organisation of employees- consultant relationship of health and safety that was built over the lifetime of the previous project.