Health and Safety

Chapter 1: Introduction

1.1 Introduction

‘Osha: The devil’s in the details’ ‘Get protected with Osha’   ‘The Osha Authority’ Occupational Safety and Health Authority (Part 2)   ‘Warnings from the workplace’   ‘Companies charged under Osha appear in court’ .   If one were to peruse the newspapers over the past year one would observe some of the aforementioned headlines in the local newspapers in Trinidad & Tobago, which indicate that OSH is in the air and it is imperative that companies get on the compliance bandwagon or face the consequences as outlined in the law.

The Occupational and Safety Health legislation is not only relevant to all branches of industry and commerce but it is also affects all aspects of work.   In essence, if forms the foundation on which appropriate health and safety systems must be built. The OSH Act as it pertains to Trinidad and Tobago, initially enacted in 2004, was amended and assented to by the President in early 2006.   However there appears to be many obstacles to the achievement of good standards as proposed by the Act.   Indeed, the pressure of production or performance targets, financial constraints and the complexity of the organization are typical examples of such obstacles.   The existence of various obstacles makes it imperative that top personnel be effectively guided in the management and implementation of a H&S policy and programme, in order to ensure OSH compliance and commitment.

1.2 The elements of an effective Health and Safety policy

1.21 Defining a Health and Safety policy

According to the Occupational Health and Safety Administration in the United States a policy based on the definition provided by the Gage dictionary refers to ‘a plan of action’ or a deliberate course of action which is chosen in order to guide or influence future decisions.   The articles goes on to state that both an effective policy statement and one can safely infer an effective policy as a whole must fulfill four main criteria which... [continues]

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