Health and Safety at Work Research Paper 2022

HEALTH AND SAFETY AT WORK 1
Health and Safety at Work
Student’s Name
Healthcare
Professor’s Name
University Name
City, State
Date

HEALTH AND SAFETY AT WORK 2
Abstract
Health and safety has been found to be a major challenge that migrating employees face
in sites of construction. Notably, research has shown that sites of construction are the most
hazardous workplaces with regards to safety and health issues. Also, construction management
has, in the past, attempted to find a remedy for the recurring healthy and safety challenges and
attained minimal results that were rather not satisfactory. Despite that, the management's efforts
accidents continue to increase in the construction industry every year. Besides, the government
has since come up with programs and measures to curb construction accidents, but the challenges
are still evident.
Moreover, the construction industry lacks safety rules, and even those that exist are merely
implemented effectively. For instance, the United Kingdom (UK) is one of the developed nations
with the most significant number of migrant workers, where the construction industry is
currently booming. Furthermore, existing structures of health and occupation conditions are
poorly enacted, thus resulting in dangerous construction sites. In addition, significant regulations
that have been put to cater for occupational safety and health problems are either irrelevant or
outdated. To this effect, the paper seeks to explore the various occupational safety and health
problems incurred by migrant employees, their impact on construction projects, and how to
manage them.

HEALTH AND SAFETY AT WORK 3
Table of Contents
Abstract.........................................................................................................2
HEALTH AND SAFETY CHALLENGES MIGRANT WORKERS POSE ON
CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS...................................................................................................5
HEALTH AND SAFETY CHALLENGES.................................................................................5
IMPACT OF HEALTH AND SAFETY CHALLENGES OF MIGRANT WORKERS ON CONSTRUCTION
PROJECTS......................................................................................................................................8
SKILLS SHORTAGES......................................................................................................................8
LABOUR SHORTAGE......................................................................................................................9
POOR LABOUR PRODUCTION......................................................................................................10
WASTAGE OF CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS................................................................................11
LACK OF EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION.............................................................................................12
Measures Taken To Manage Safety and Health Challenges on Projects of Construction....13
Avocations and Policy Development......................................................................................13
Create Awareness...................................................................................................................13
Evaluation, Research and Information Communication........................................................13
Building Capacity...................................................................................................................13
Monitoring the Working Conditions.......................................................................................14
Risk Assessment......................................................................................................................14
Literacy Assessment...............................................................................................................14
Payment of Overtime..............................................................................................................16
Favourable Recruitment Laws...............................................................................................16
Conclusion..........................................................................................................................17
References.......................................................................................................................18

HEALTH AND SAFETY AT WORK 4
Health and Safety Challenges Migrant Workers Pose on Construction Projects
Health and Safety Challenges
According to research conducted about the United Kingdom in 2013, migrant workers
that sought employment in the country added up to 560,000. What is more, this figure included
81,000 people from Britain while 214,000 people were coming from various parts of the
European Union. With the country's boom in the construction industry, the employers opted for
cheap labor that is provided by migrant workers (Caxaj and Cohen, 2019). However, the hiring
of international employees in sites of construction has led to multiple safety and health problems
to the extent of affecting the projects of construction negatively (Ahmed, Pasquire and Manu,
2019). In the United Kingdom, migrant workers consist of migrants from A8 countries including
Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. Also,
majority of the migrant workers are itinerant and enter the UK for a short period to earn money
then go back to their host countries.
Safety and health of international employees is very important in the construction trade.
This is because the construction sector is more exposed to occupational fatalities and injuries. As
a result, construction management focuses on adherence to set regulations pertaining to the well-
being of the workforce (Leppink, 2018). Notably, migrant workers in the UK are given similar
treatment with other employees and are given occupational health and safety protection
applicable to indigenous employees. markedly, workers from foreign countries are also given
some worker protection which entails, equal rights to refuse unfair dismissal and right to
redundancy payments all of which are determined by the time a worker has been in that
company. However, the rights only apply to employees thus migrant workers are deprived of the
rights with employers claiming that they are categorised as workers (Stathoulopoulos and
Mateos-Garcia, 2017).
Moreover, despite efforts to follow set regulations, occupational fatalities and injuries
still continue to increase in construction sites. Thus, migrant workers go through health and
safety problems, including high rates of injuries, no rest days, unpaid overtime hours, poor
sanitation, withholding of payment, language barriers, lack of awareness, and lack of immediate
citizenship documentation (Gledson and Greenwood, 2017). Notably, workers are exposed to a
hazardous work environment where they work in hostile weather conditions without any health
security in case of an accident. In addition, most of these construction companies are private,
thus not liable to public inspection. This results in many cases of migrant workers injuries and
deaths that go unreported; thus, no compensation is done (Armenta and Alvarez, 2017). Most of
these migrant workers are also illiterate; hence they cannot communicate with their employers a
problem that makes them continue to endure harsh working conditions in silence. For instance, in
the UK, the laws that have been enacted to report workplace fatalities and injuries are unreliable.
Thus, workers continue to suffer in silence without a reliable place to report the abuse cases
(Alwan, Jones and Holgate, 2017).