Ensuring the safety of Israeli workers is still a largely neglected field, with lethal consequences.
By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICHgarage service 88 224(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
Workers and their loved ones take it for granted that they will come home safely at the end of the day. Yet last year, 250 workers died and an additional 45,000 were injured at work. Most most of these tragedies could have been prevented.
Israelis are not known for abiding by the rules and putting safety first. Too many drive with a cellphone in one hand and/or a cigarette in the other, and regard people who follow regulations and norms as suckers.
This is unfortunate, as safety is a major theme in the Torah: Families that build a new home are commanded to construct a fence on the roof to prevent people from falling off, and the verse in Deuteronomy - "You shall guard yourselves exceedingly" - is understood to forbid any unnecessary risk to life and limb, from smoking to overeating.
Thus the Israel Institute for Occupational Safety and Hygiene (IIOSH, whose Web site is at www.osh.org.il) has an almost Sisyphean battle reducing deaths and injuries in the workplace. Established in the 1950s on the basis of laws that came into existence during the British Mandate, IIOSH is Israel's national institution promoting workplace safety and health. Previously, responsibility had been shared by the Histadrut General Labor Federation, the Manufacturers' Association and the Jewish Agency. IIOSH, with its 113 employees and today headed by Haim Eliahu, functions under the aegis of the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Employment with the aim of promoting safety and hygiene in the workplace. Two-fifths of them are engineers or other academics, with an additional 24% practical engineers and technicians, and the rest administrative and technical staff.
They provide advice and support to workplaces on eliminating hazards and conducting hazard and hygiene surveys; prepare safety plans for plants and institutions; distribute safety literature and train safety officials; and operate mobile training units that visit industrial plants and construction sites. Nearly 100,000 workers received job safety training from IIOSH in the past year. The institute also operates a center that annually answers over 5,000 written and verbal requests for information.
During a full day in late September, IIOSH made a splash by attracting over 1,200 people to its 13th national conference, which was held at Jerusalem's International Convention Center. The participants included safety officials at factories, construction sites, farms and other places, along with representatives of the Israel Defense Forces, government ministries and other employers. No one slipped on the huge staircase leading to Ussishkin Hall where the plenary sessions were held.
WORKERS CAN be hurt by falling (accidents at construction sites constitute almost half of all occupational casualties in Israel), slipping on oily or wet surfaces, being hit by falling objects, especially when the employee forgets to wear a protective helmet; touching live wires or hot surfaces, getting hair or a limb caught in a moving object, being splashed by strong acids or other chemicals, exposure to gases, asbestos, ultraviolet light or loud noises.
Eliahu noted in the opening session that in 2007, a total of NIS 2.754 billion were given to work accident victims and their heirs. Just one person's involvement in a work accident costs the National Insurance Institute an average of NIS 45,000 in support and compensation. In addition to accidents, there are also occupational diseases from cancer to cardiovascular disorders that kill three times as many people as actual accidents. Thus preventing accidents on the job by insisting that workers wear helmets, gloves, protective glasses and other equipment and are taught how to avoid being harmed saves many lives and much money, said Eliahu.
Labor court judge Nili Arad, who headed the IIOSH committee to choose the 17 winners of the Josephthal Prize for Occupational Safety, said she knew personally of many tragic cases of workers who were killed or severely injured and whose families were destroyed overnight. "Employers have a joint interest with workers in keeping them safe. Employees must alert their boss on safety risks they see, and safety officers must be active," she declared.
Varda Edwards, the ministry's deputy supervisor, said it is often difficult to persuade the Treasury and other organizations to invest money for prevention of work accidents, as they tend to deal with "putting out fires" rather than long-term avoidance of problems. Occupational safety, she said, is a multidisciplinary team effort. You have to educate employers and employees for years, and need a national effort to give the subject high priority. A leader in safety needs to identify personally with these aims, have patience and the ability to motivate people to change and improve beyond what is required by law."
IN THE specialized session on occupational medicine, Dr. Yair Barak of the IDF's Medical Corps noted that there is keen awareness of on-the-job injuries in the military. Occupational medicine specialists perform examinations on soldiers to see if they are physically able to complete a specific task, and to identify disabilities, limitations and occupational disorders.
Equipment used in military training or actual warfare, he said, can expose soldiers to awkward postures, vibration, repetitive motion or damage to the skeleton. They can get anything from fractures, "frozen shoulders," "trigger finger" (without using a gun), carpal tunnel syndrome and even "tennis elbow" or "golf elbow."
Ari Uriel of the Tidhar Construction Company said there is much in common between safety management in the IDF and on building sites; both involve ongoing risks. But there is one major difference - many foreign workers who don't understand Hebrew work on construction sites. Thus IIOSH is very aware of the need to communicate with construction workers who were not born here, even though teaching them safety rules is very difficult.
Work clothes can be harmful to an employees' family if they are brought home contaminated by lead, asbestos, pesticides, metals and other toxic substances, said Dr. Alon Peretz of Clalit Health Services. Such "take-home exposures" have been proven to cause respiratory and lung diseases, neurological disorders, sickness in children and even harm to fetuses. Many factories, farms and other workplaces thus prohibit workers from bringing their work clothes home. Peretz described a tragedy over half a century ago in Minamata, Japan in which the burning of waste products such as acetylene, acetaldehyde, acetic acid and vinyl chloride in a chemical factory resulted in the release of these toxins into anearby bay. Over 3,000 people whose drinking water was piped in from the bay suffered disfigurement, disability, disease or death. It took three years to discover and investigate the cause.
OCCUPATIONAL medicine also deals with drivers. The Health Ministry's Medical Institute for Road Safety, which provides services to the Transport Ministry, examines applicants for bus driver licenses, older drivers who may be physically or mentally debilitated and drivers who have been caught committing numerous traffic violations or with driving "under the influence."
Digging tunnels can be a very dangerous job, said Arnon Rosen, who heads an engineering company. Planners must use scientific data on topography, geology and hydrology to reduce the risk of accidents, as different types of rock and soil behave differently. Working with air hammers, for example, is especially risky, as inhaled dust can be a major health risk, repetitive movement disorders are common with such equipment, and tunnels can collapse. Subterranean fires, electrical shorts, noise and vibrations can also cause injury and death.
Lab workers in hospitals, health funds, universities and research institutes work daily with potentially dangerous chemicals, pathogens, gases, radiation and mechanical devices, and therefore need to be very highly trained and supervised. Lecturers from a public health lab in Tel Aviv said safety in such work environments must be turned into a "culture" so that no one ignores the rules.
There are no official statistics, but skin diseases incurred at the workplace are regarded as common in Israel, said Prof. Arieh Ingber, chief of dermatology at Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem. In Denmark and Germany, however, workers are very careful to avoid such problems. The most common occupational skin disease, he said, is contact dermatitis - an inflammation or rash caused by contact with metals, allergens or chemicals. The use of protective gloves, visors and other equipment is vital in reducing the prevalence of skin problems incurred on the job.
Agricultural work presents unique occupational problems, not only danger from mechanical harvesters but also from tons of animal excrement, both from direct exposure and from breathing it in, said Dr. Shlomo Kefua of the Environmental Quality Ministry's agro-ecology branch. The odor is not only unpleasant, he said; it can cause headaches, loss of appetite, nausea and worsen asthma attacks. Workers in poultry farms are exposed to possible danger from the spraying of formaldehyde for disinfection.
Speakers at the IIOSH conference were unanimous in calling for increased education of workers and supervision of employers to bring down the horrific rate of death and injury in the workplace. And that toll does not include the invisible effects of stress, lack of physical activity and improper diet that over the years bring chronic disease to hundreds of thousands.
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