Teknologi Indonesia © LIPI Press 2013
Teknologi Indonesia 36 (2) 2013: 80–86
TEXTILE INDUSTRY AWARENESS CONCERNING THE IMPLEMENTATION OF OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY: A CASE STUDY OF THREE TEXTILE PLANTS IN BANDUNG AREA Paulus Sukapto1) and Harjoto Djojosubroto2) Industrial Engineering Department Faculty of Industrial Technology, Parahyangan Catholic University Jln. Ciumbuleuit, No. 94, Bandung 40141 E-mail: 1)
[email protected];
[email protected], 2)
[email protected] Received: 24/06/2013
Revised: 23/10/2013
Accepted: 31/10/2013
ABSTRACT The present study explores awareness concerning the implementations of occupational safety of three textile plants in Bandung area. The study was supported by data from our visit to those respective textile plants, i.e. from discussions with the managers and employees, the observations towards the working conditions and the activities of the employees, and the response of questionnaires asked to the operators. It was found that the occupational safety procedures have to be improved. The lighting levels in most departments of these plants shall be higher than the present lighting level. The noise levels in two of the three plants have to be lowered. Out of the questionnaire it was learned that the adverse effects of the poor workplace conditions were experienced by the employees. The safety organization of these plants was not integrated to the organizational structure of the respective company. Among those three textile plants, only one plant provided data on accidents in 2011 and 2012. It seems that the number and the severity of the accidents were not significantly different. In 2012 there was an accident that led to permanent disability. The awareness and the concern of the managers to the occupational safety were poor. That is why it is proposed that the occupational safety solutions of these plants have to be performed by safety management approach based on macro-ergonomics principles. Keywords: Occupational safety, macro-ergonomics, safety management. ABSTRAK Pada penelitian ini dipelajari kepedulian terhadap implementasi keselamatan di tempat kerja pada tiga industri tekstil di Bandung. Untuk itu dilakukan kunjungan guna mengetahui kondisi tempat kerja dan bagaimana karyawan melaksanakan tugasnya. Kunjungan juga dilakukan guna mendiskusikan aspek keselamatan dengan berbagai pihak yang terkait. Persepsi mengenai keselamatan di tempat kerja juga dipelajari dari jawaban atas kuesioner yang dibagikan kepada para karyawan. Ditemukan bahwa aspek keselamatan di tempat kerja perlu ditingkatkan. Tingkat penerangan di tempat kerja untuk ketiga pabrik perlu ditingkatkan. Tingkat kebisingan pada dua dari tiga industri harus diturunkan. Jawaban kuesioner dari para karyawan mencerminkan bahwa mereka telah merasakan dampak yang merugikan kesehatan dari tempat kerja. Sebagaimana tersirat dari hasil diskusi dan kuesioner, persepsi dan kepedulian para karyawan terhadap keselamatan juga perlu ditingkatkan. Data mengenai jumlah kecelakaan dan keparahan cedera akibat kecelakaan yang terjadi pada tahun 2011 dan 2012 hanya dimiliki oleh satu pabrik. Data tersebut menunjukkan bahwa tingkat kecelakaan yang terjadi pada tahun 2011 tidak berbeda dengan yang terjadi pada tahun 2012. Satu kecelakaan tahun 2012 mengakibatkan cacat permanen. Disarankan agar solusi atas masalah keselamatan dilakukan berdasarkan Sistem Manajemen Keselamatan dan Kesehatan Kerja yang menganut pendekatan berdasarkan ergonomi makro. Kata kunci: Keselamatan kerja, ergonomi makro, sistem manajemen K3.
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Paulus Sukapto and Harjoto Djojosubroto | Textile Industry Awareness Concerning ...
INTRODUCTION Occupational health and safety refers to a combination of good technical design, qualified operation and organization.[1] A safe and healthy workplace is the responsibility of employers and employees. To ensure the safety, traditional safety management favors to apply command and control so that the worker’s behaviour complies with the company safety rules and safety regulations. The traditional safety management is based on the believe that workers are the main cause of accidents. The accidents are caused by unsafe actions of the workers.[2] The notion on unsafe acts of the workers was originated from the theory of Heinrich in 1950. There was no solid scientific evidence or challenge to support the theory. That is why, based on unsafe acts of the workers, in case of accidents, emphasis put was on blaming on the workers. Recently it was found that the number of accident rate, especially in developing countries such as Indonesia, is considerably high. The command and control method fails to reduce the number of accidents. Besnard and Hollnagel suggested that compliance with procedure and safety regulation do not always guarantee safety in the workplace.[3] The procedure and safety regulation may not cover all possible situations that will be faced by the workers. Ministry of Labor and Transmigration when conducting research in East Java and Riau Islands found that most accidents were due to two causes: the poor awareness of employees to wear personal protective equipment and the poor supervision and guidance in work safety and health aspects. Fact showed that only 50% companies made efforts to prevent repeated occupational accidents. Awareness of companies in performing the obligation to report of occupational accident was poor.[4] Many companies did not obey employment norms.[5] It was indicated that management system have been allowing substandard actions and conditions happen in workplaces. Safe workplaces, without any tolerance to substandard actions and conditions in workplaces, are highly necessary to create strong competitiveness which characterizes the global era. A safe workplace may lead to employees (operators) paying full
attention to their job. Therefore, more productive and efficient workplace development may be achieved.[6] One industry that needs to develop more productive and efficient workplace development is textile industry. Lately, Indonesian textile products have been in difficult conditions as they have competed with imported products. During the end of twentieth century, more than five decades, Bandung had been the center of Indonesian textile industry. Support from modern machinery looms and the development of various dyes and finishing available have made textile’s and textile product’s quality sharply increase. However, such development also causes increased hazard in workplaces, so occupational accidents tend to increase. As a result, management system of occupational system in textile industry must be reflected in its capacity to prevent accidents in workplaces. News in mass media showed that somewhere at second semester of 2011, four textile plants in Bandung were burned in fire.[7,8] Meanwhile, in the end of 2011, there was an accident that killed a working woman of textile plant in Cirebon. [9] Two weeks later, an accident happened in the same plant and due to the same cause. The second accident caused a heavy injury so the casualty needed to be intensively treated in a hospital.[10] Many accidents indicated that safety assurance in workplaces should be improved. Based on such phenomenon and the findings of the research conducted by Ministry of Labor and Transmigration[4,5] this study focuses on two following issues: 1) A case study of awareness and perception in implementing Occupational Health and Safety in three textile plants of Bandung. 2) Efforts to be taken to improve safety in workplaces of the three plants using a system approach. The first issue was incurred since the efforts made by textile plant had no significant effectiveness on improving safety in workplaces. Perceived from the system approach, this phenomenon indicates that the root cause of such accident was poor management that allowing substandard conditions and actions in work-
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places.[11] The applied management was highly associated with perception and awareness from management or employer in implementing safety aspects in workplaces. In investigating the cause of accident, the management commonly took a shortcut based on traditional safety patterns, i.e. finding facts of the breaches of the occupational safety procedures from operators/employees only. Therefore, the one who can be blamed on as the trigger of the accident was usually the operator breaching occupational safety regulations. Corrective action was only focused on the event of accident, and management or employers blamed on those involved in it. Such investigation only comes to a conclusion that the accident resulted from subsystem failure. It means that all safety aspects depend on reliability of each subsystem. Meanwhile, in fact, one subsystem is dependent and interacts with other subsystems. The interaction may be physical and sociological, resulting to interfered safety system.[12] The reliability of one subsystem influences the reliability of another subsystem. Thus, solution to accident must be based on system approach.
METHODOLOGY In this research, three textile plants were selected. The numbers of employees are 150, approximately 270, and more than 1000, respectively. The selection was based on reasonable assumption that these plants were expected to be able to, due to both their financial and managerial aspects, follow occupational health and safety terms as mentioned in prevailing regulations. That is why, if found, incompliance with occupational safety principles should be the result of less awareness and understanding of safety aspects in workplaces by many parties of the textile plants. In next discussion, the textile plants are divided into three references: plant (I) with 150 employees, plant (II) with 270 employees, and plant (III) with 1000 employees. Solution to occupational safety issues discussed here was based on data collected from observation and survey to the workplaces aforementioned, discussions with relevant parties, and answers to questionnaires sent to personnel, particularly operators, in the textile plants.
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During visits to workplaces, attention was paid to safety procedures and employees (operators) actions in performing their tasks in workplaces. It was conducted in order to get the entire pictures on the role of organizational, technical and human elements in workplaces. In addition, the number of accidents during a certain period of time (e.g. one or more years), and the corrective actions performed by the respective plant were noted. Questionnaire included perceptions from operators about health and safety procedures in their workplaces. In order to comprehend such perception, what author studied in the first time was organizational structure, related with execution of Article 87 of Law No 13 Year 2003. [13] The roles, functions and procedures between lines in performing daily activities were studied from viewpoints of safety. The main attention was to review efforts made by management to optimally guarantee employees occupational safety, easiness of investigation process in case of accidents, clear standard procedures in case of emergency and actions in maintaining safe conditions in workplaces. Discussions with managers and employees in textile plants were made in order to get the entire picture of awareness and perceptions from all parties to occupational health and safety implementation. In addition, efforts were made in order to get the picture reflecting employers’ compliance with prevailing legislations.
RESULT AND DISCUSSION Results of observation, discussions and questionnaire collection as the result of visiting the three textile plants are briefly shown on Table 1. Temperature at workplaces generally was no lower than 300C. For workload like in the textile plant, room temperature should be around 250C. From the questionnaire answers, it is concluded that employees actually perceived that the temperature at workplaces was too high. They realized that the temperature at workplaces was so high resulting in their performance lower than before. Although not significantly by lowering the temperature, it is suggested that workplace condition will be improved by adding more ventilation. By better ventilation, the air in
Paulus Sukapto and Harjoto Djojosubroto | Textile Industry Awareness Concerning ...
workplaces would circulate fresh. This condition may minimize fatigue due to relatively high temperature and humidity. Levels of noise in workplaces of (I) and (II) were under 85 dB, but above 80 dB. Obviously, negative impact due to noise levels was perceived by employees. Some workplaces in (III) even had noise level more than 85 dB. Noise levels in departments of weaving and spinning are usually above 92 dB. Answers to questionnaire show that more than 25% respondents of (III) perceived decreased ability to hear. To avoid such impact on health, the company provided earplugs; however most employees did not use them. They said that using earplugs only made their communication more difficult since the voice intensity arriving on their ears quietly reduced. In normal condition, this kind of situation is not a big deal, whereas, in that of emergency, the emergency warning from sound alarm may not be heard and, as a consequence, may threaten lives as well. It is advised that workplaces with high noise levels be equipped with red lights with high brightness and can blink in case of emergency. By being equipped with those, employees working in noise places may immediately realize that there is an emergency situation by getting warned with warning signs though they are using earplugs. And although decreased hearing ability is irrecoverable, it is suggested that the best way to minimize this health-adverse impact is by lowering noise level in workplaces. Light intensity in workplaces of plants (I) and (III) was generally about 100 lux. In (II), though generally above 200 lux, few workplaces have
it below 200 lux. According to the Minister of Health Decree No. 1405 of 2002, 200-lux light intensity is the minimum standard lighting level having to be applied in workplaces for cobbles and non-stop operations such as those of for ones working with machines and rough assemblies. For color selection and soft processing in textile plants, it is necessary to provide rooms with higher lighting level.[10] In (II) lighting intensity of finishing department was quietly high, ranging between 200-360 lux. Too low lighting intensity was also perceived by employees and caused decreased performance. It is revealed from the answers to questionnaire sent. Survey to workplace conditions and answers of questionnaire indicated that employees actually were aware that their workplace conditions were substandard and caused their performance low. Unfortunately, management did not pay attention to such situation. Yet, if lighting intensity in workplaces according to the Minister of Health Decree No. 1405 of 2002[14] were increased, employees would be more easily in observing objects they worked on, so the tasks would be accomplished sooner. With adequate lighting intensity, they would be able to perform their tasks more thoroughly. Since nowadays many energy-efficient lamps with efficient conversion are found, increasing lighting intensity in workplaces apparently does not need too much high electricity. Therefore, improved workplace conditions, as well as occupational safety level, may be made without adding much financial burdens.
Table 1. Summary of results of observation, discussions, and questionnaires on visiting textile plants. No. 1
2
3
Parameter Workplace condiƟons Temperature (too high /low, normal) Noise LighƟng intensity Impact of workplace condiƟons on health OccupaƟonal safety Special organizaƟon managing K3 Employee’s compliance with K3 regulaƟons Machinery readiness at emergency OccupaƟonal accident Data CorrecƟve acƟon in case of accident
I
Plant II
III
High High Low ?
High Low Low No
High High Low Yes
No Rather No
No Rather Ready
No Rather No
No No
Yes Yes
No No
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High concentration of dust in workplace was also perceived by employees in plant (III). It is supported by questionnaire showing that more than 70% respondents frequently felt cotton dust flying around. Result of survey also shows that many workplaces in (III) contained dust with concentration above threshold. Result of questionnaire also reveals that some employees (~40% respondents) perceived that they suffer from lower back or muscle joint pains. The lower back or muscle joint pains, also known as musculoskeletal disorders, are not caused by accidents, but as a result of manually heavy lifting. In fact, this disorder is common in industrial countries, and potentially causes serious disability. One way to avoid it is through either macro- or micro-ergonomic approach.[15,16] From the discussions with management, it was revealed that organizations of K3 (Occupational Health and Safety) in these three textile plants were not integrated with their management system. In (I), its K3 body was not included in its organizational structure, though this 150-employee plant had a large organizational structure. In (II), a plant with more than 270 employees, K3 issue was one of personnel’s responsibilities. In (III), a textile plant with more than 1000 employees, K3 was applied by staff from division level. Under the Article 87 Act No. 13 of 2003, K3 body shall be integrated with company’s organization.[13] K3 body being integrated in management system means that the company is the one responsible for employees’ safety. Therefore, the case of accident will not be closed only with compensation cost, hospital cost and report to authorized agency; that is, the company must reevaluate and improve prevailing safety procedures in workplace. It is found that in textile plant (II) evaluation in terms of finding the cause of accidents had been made by personnel department. The result was then submitted to Managing Director. Corrective action highly relied on Managing Director’s decision. In this case, evaluation to find the cause of accidents reflected the commitment of management and the efforts of all relevant parties to obey regulations on K3. However, in efforts to guarantee and improve safety in workplace,
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the effectiveness of Managing Director’s crucial decision was doubted. Meanwhile, although categorized into large-size companies due to having more than 100 employees, plants (I) and (III) had no data of accidents. Data of occupational accidents of both plants were also not recorded by nearest public health centers. According to information, public health center only recorded all “injuries” treated without differing whether they are due to accident or not. The fact indicated less awareness and false perception by employers (management) of K3 implementation. In addition, whether it is realized or not, companies obviously did not carry out their obligations to report the occupational accidents. Such facts may damage their images because they gave impression that they intentionally covered the accidents. If the impression meets its truth, it might be valid that the companies (I) and (III) were considered as not following employment norms/terms. It might be the main cause of the accidents in both textile plants. Different from the plants (I) and (III), plant (II) gave data of the accidents in 2011 and 2012. The accidents range from light to heavy injuries. Total numbers of accidents in 2011 and 2013 are 32 and 34, respectively. Total numbers of heavy injuries, causing employees absent more than 5 days, are 18 in 2011 and 21 in 2012. One of accidents causing heavy injuries is padded-rolled hands the process of recovery of which took 75 working days. Numbers of accidents causing moderate injuries such as breathless because of snuffing poisoned liquid in 2011 and 2012 are 8 and 9, respectively. The numbers of accidents causing light injuries such as blister from being chipped by cutter machine (employees may normally perform their tasks after getting aid), are, respectively, 6 and 4 in 2011 and 2012. Number of accidents in 2011 and 2012 shows no improved occupational safety. Even in 2012, one accident caused an employee get hardly injured and disabled for the rest of life. Finally, the employee was “resigned” (termination of employment) and fully given a 2-year take-home pay after the accident.
Paulus Sukapto and Harjoto Djojosubroto | Textile Industry Awareness Concerning ...
It was then discovered that management (II) also received suggestions from its employees on how to improve the occupational safety. The suggestions were submitted by Department of Human Resources to Managing Director who would consider whether the suggestions were acceptable. It might be one of participation (commitment) forms of employees in giving solution to the issue of occupational safety. Their involvement showed that the company (II) had made efforts to implement the Government Regulation No. 50 of 2012 on Management System of Occupational Health and Safety (SMK3), which must be implemented by all companies with more than 100 employees.[17] The problem is whether such involvement in implementing the Government Regulation may be indirect, i.e. in the form of suggestions from employees as done by (II), or must be direct, meaning that there are several consultations either between individuals/groups or between an individual representative and group’s representative in formal meeting of safety organization. Finding of this research showed that impact of direct participation improved safety in workplace. The indicators used to evaluate the level of occupational safety are:[18] 1) Number of accidents in workplace (number of accidents/1000 employees). 2) Number of absent days of employees due to accidents. 3) Number of absent days of employees due to illness. 4) Number of employees working in dangerous workplace (per 1000 employees). Higher level of safety is marked with a value of fourth indicators. Impact of direct involvement on occupational safety may be different from the result of indirect involvement of employees. If further reviewed, the Government Regulation No. 50 of 2012 Article 9 clause 4 states that “[E] mployers in arranging K3 plan must involve an Expert of K3, Development Committee of K3, labor representative, and other relevant parties of company”. It means that such involvement is a direct one due to the presence of the representative of employees. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct further research whether impact of direct involvement on occupational safety will be the
same with that of indirect involvement. Solution to this problem may be created by comparing impacts of both involvements on improved safety based on the evaluation with four indicators above-mentioned. A number of accidents occurred in plant (II), leading to both heavy and light injuries in 2011, may be considered as not different with the accidents in 2012 (total 32 and 34 accidents, respectively). In 2011, employees not working due to suffering from injuries because of accidents reached 467-people days, while in 2012 the number was 416-people days. The number of absence shows that occupational safety in 2012 was better than in 2011. However, in 2012, there was one accident lead to permanent total disability. The employee is no longer able to work after medical and rehabilitative treatment. It is concluded that indirect participation as implemented by plant (II) was not effective for improving occupational safety. Out of the research conducted on 192 companies, Bazyl and Makuch suggested that impact of direct participation might be already seen after it had been applied for more than two years.[18] Impact on occupational safety level may be valued after the involvement of employees has been going on a longer term. In terms of involving employees, solution to safety issue shall be made by a K3 body consisting of experts of K3, employees and management. Occupational safety issue does not only become the responsibility of Managing Director, as practiced in plant (II), but also by K3 body in a position that can represent the company’s decision. Therefore, decision of occupational safety is not merely based on Managing Director’s consideration but also that of management system as a whole. The presence of management system of occupational safety is one thing mandated by Government Regulation No. 50 of 2012. [17] Role of employees in creating solution to safety issue is crucial, since employees are the ones recognizing the condition of a place where they work well. Under such mechanism, the solution to this issue is not only perceived from subsystem failure but also based on entire system approach.
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Result of observation during research showed that the condition for workplace safety in the textile plants should be improved, especially that of in (I) and (III). Meanwhile, unlike other two plants aforementioned, level of attention by (II) to safety condition was higher. It is indicated, for example, by its efforts to lower dust concentration with wet scrubber and installation of emergency stop in every machine unit and total emergency stop in every department.
CONCLUSION The conditions of workplaces in the three textile plants, especially in (I) and (III), need to be improved. There is an assumption that textile plants (I) and (III) intentionally did not report the accidents in their companies. Both companies seemed to pay less attention to health and safety conditions in their workplaces. Formally, three textile companies as the objects of this research are not organizations which especially managed occupational safety issues. Therefore, they had not really applied SMK3 at all. With SMK3, occupational safety improvement is made based on system approach.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT In this opportunity, we would like to say thanks to LPPM Unpar that has given financial aid for this research.
REFERENCES [1] Fleet, E. L. V. 2004. “Use of an industrial safety management accident causation model (ISMAC) for controlling operational practices”. J. SH&E Res. 1 (2), 1–11. [2] Smith T, A. 2012 “Why safety needs a new paradigm”. [3]