Safety and Health in Workplace

Providers treating low back pain must be confident and knowledgeable in evidence-based practice (EBP) to provide the best outcomes. An online education course was created in an effort to increase knowledge and confidence in EBP and clinical practice guidelines specific to low back pain in an occupational setting. There were 80 participants who completed the pre-test and post-test. The results showed a statistically significant improvement in knowledge and confidence scores after completion of the course. An online education course was shown to be a cost-effective, accessible tool to increase knowledge and confidence of EBP for different health care providers.

The recent pandemic has definitively challenged the organisational models orchestrated by Management Science for tertiary work and, consequently, the spatial typologies in which it was carried out. From the pyramidal hierarchy that prevailed throughout most of the 20th century (Fontana 1981), we have moved on to matrix-type management, and then to network-based management (Allen and Henn 2007). Since the end of the 19th century, offices all over the world have seen a succession of organisations of environments such as the cellular office, the open space, the Büroladschaft, the combi-office and the networking office (Forino 2001): Each of these has proved revolutionary in its way compared to the one immediately preceding it, but none has become overriding; rather, they have often coexisted in the same professional environment, showing how work's interiors can be fluid and variously adaptable according to the needs of companies, managers and employees. The most recent transformations of the workplace, then accelerated by the pandemic, can be traced back to the global financial crisis of 2008 as well as to the almost total use of information technology (Forino 2013). The reduction and/or rotation of desks - not only understood as 'workplaces', but also as physical locations where work is performed -, preconized by Gaetano Pesce in a well-known office project (Chiat/Day TWBA, New York 1994-95), has been invariably adopted in many companies, while in 2012 the Italian government compressed the availability of individual spaces in new buildings for the tertiary sector with a special regulation (L.135/2012, art. 3, Spending Review 2) (Forino 2012). On the other hand, the improved quality and speed of online connections have enabled valid forms of telework (Butera 1995), but they have also guaranteed ubiquitous workers and freelance professionals to operate in places other than offices, such as bars, libraries, hotel rooms, airport and railway station waiting rooms, or by temporarily renting themselves in the co-working offices that now dot every city (Forino 2016). Finally, if the relationship between the latter and the workplace had in the past clear boundaries regulated by a synchronic temporality (h 9-17), it has gradually dissolved not only in reciprocal spatial and formal influences (Forino 2019), but also according to an agitated elasticity of time and place (Duffy 2008). The pandemic seems to have accelerated the processes of crisis and change already structural to the world of work over the last twenty years, opening up new scenarios densely permeated by spatial and digital delocalisation. The nomadism of many knowledge workers (Drucker 1993) has suffered a setback, due to the interruption of connections between one country and another, or between one city and another, during the forced lockdowns, while for others the only possible relocation has been their own homes, often inadequate to sustain the daily rhythms of their commitments, both because of restricted or inefficient spaces and because of the daily intrusion of the family, which is also forced to be stationary. Despite this, the productive flow of knowledge workers has not only not stopped but has increased in the hybrid panorama of work that personal resistance to Covid-19 has progressively nurtured, notwithstanding the psychological stress and physical fatigue of each (Dahik, Lovich et al. 2020). From the inconsistencies brought to light by the pandemic reality, however, interesting stimuli emerge for a new managerial culture - until recently substantially disinclined to smart working due to control issues -; for the adoption of different organisational models such as, for example, the flipped workplace which, borrowed from today's educational systems (Bergmann and Aaron 2012), develops a different relationship between individual and collective work (Bennett, Spencer et al. 2011; Nedervel and Berge 2015); for the study of new proxemics due to physical distancing and such that one can imagine low-density operational backdrops; for the permanent adoption of signs and health devices to safeguard those who will also attend the office. In this perspective, another worksphere (Antonelli 2001) already seems to be taking shape, no longer defined only by the physical place where work was and is experienced, but expressed by the set of social, psychological and economic conditions surrounding it, by the increasingly advanced technological tools, and by the other places where people work. From the more interconnected confines of a remodelled home environment, it will not lock the human being into a mobile, transparent individual bubble as imagined by Hans Hollein in his Mobiles Büro (1969). Instead, it will seek to maximise relationships of reciprocity and collaboration between colleagues - where and when they can meet in person - and to enhance the workplace within, "the workplace that is inside people: their training, their work and personal histories, their aspirations and potential" (Butera 2020, 83), in line with a cultural movement that will accompany the fourth industrial revolution. Architects and office designers are tasked with creating inclusive frames for the post-pandemic workplace.

Until recently, academic institutions and Principal Investigators maintained a de-facto immunity from criminal prosecution for worker injuries and deaths attributed to unsafe laboratory practices.  This status quo changed in 2011 when a state prosecutor filed felony charges for statutory and regulatory safety violations against the Regents of a state university system and a tenured professor.  This unprecedented action was the first time a University Board of Regents and a professor at a university were jointly charged with felony violations associated with laboratory procedures that resulted in the death of a laboratory worker.  This article presents sentinel factors associated with the prosecution, with a discussion of resulting implications for academic institutions/institutes and Principal Investigators.

This Report represents the outcome of one component of
the Fair Work Commission’s Family and Domestic Violence
Leave Review. It presents the findings of a project undertaken
to examine employees’ experiences of DFV by exploring
their access to family violence leave and other workplace
supports. In doing so, it draws on the expertise of 302 DFV
victim-survivors who participated in a national survey and 42
victim-survivors who also shared in-depth insight into their
experiences through their participation in an interview with the
research team.

Özet Türkiye'de mobilya sektörünün önemli bir bölümü küçük ve orta büyüklükte işletmelerden (KOBİ) oluşmaktadır. Bu işletmelerin iş sağlığı ve güvenliği (İSG) karnesinin zayıf olduğu ve bunun eğitim/bilgi eksikliği, yüksek maliyet algısı, kurum içinden ve dışından İSG hizmetlerine erişim yetersizliği vb. birçok nedenin olduğu bilinmektedir. Özellikle bu işletmelerin işveren ve yöneticilerinde güvenlik maliyet getirir algısı diğer nedenler arasında ciddi bir sorun olarak karşımıza çıkmaktadır. Bu araştırmada, bir mobilya işletmesindeki İSG uygulamalarının yıllık maliyeti ortaya konulmuştur. İş güvenliği konusu, insan kaynağının en değerli kaynak olduğu perspektifinden değerlendirildiğinde sektör ve ülkemiz için son derece büyük önem taşımaktadır. Mobilya sektöründe olumlu uygulama örneklerinin yaygınlaştırılması ve bilgi eksikliklerinin biran önce giderilmesi gerekmektedir. Bu amaçla masif mobilya üreten örnek bir işletmede kişisel koruyucu donanımları satın alma, güvenliğe yönelik bakım ve yasal iş güvenliği eğitimlerinin yıllık maliyetleri tartışılacaktır. Abstract In Turkey the important part of furniture sector consists of small scale and medium sized enterprises (KOBİ). It is known that the occupational health and safety (İSG) report of these enterprises are low and there are many reasons such as lack of knowledge/education, high cost, inefficient access to İSG services within or out of enterprise etc. for that. Especially the perception of safety brings cost in employers and a manager of these enterprises confronts us as a serious problem among other reasons.

O presente trabalho propõe comparar a classificação do grupo de riscos ocupacionais com os fatores que contribuem para a ocorrência de acidentes aeronáuticos. Para isso o trabalho apresenta uma pesquisa qualitativa sobre os riscos ocupacionais voltados para a atividade de pilotagem aplicada ao gerenciamento dos riscos físicos e ergonômicos. Durante a análise dos resultados observasse a importância do uso do Modelo SHELL para mitigação dos riscos ocupacionais. A interface Liveware, representada pelo o piloto de aeronave, se mostrou com maior peso em causa de acidentes aeronáuticos, seguido pela interface Software. Observou-se a necessidade de uma formação continuada e de otimização da produção de manuais para os pilotos, além da aplicação de mapas de riscos e outras ferramentas de análise de risco para as várias etapas de um voo. Abstract This work proposes to compare the classification of occupational risk group with the factors that contribute to the occurrence of aircraft accidents. For this, the paper presents a qualitative research on the occupational hazards facing the pilot activity applied to the management of physical and ergonomic risks. During the analysis of the results observed the importance of using the shell model for mitigating occupational hazards. The Liveware interface, represented by the aircraft pilot, was more weight on cause of aircraft accidents, followed by Software interface. There was a need for continued training and manual production optimization for pilots, besides the application of risk maps and other risk analysis tools to the various stages of a flight.

As one of the oldest human endeavors in all corners of our planet, mining for metals and energy has a legacy of risk, danger and death. It is generally regarded as one of the most dangerous occupations in the world, and recent explosions in coal mines in Turkey, China, New Zealand, the United States and Colombia reinforce society’s perception of mining as dangerous.