Female Construction Workforce: Safety and Health Issues Report

This report investigates the critical safety and health issues impacting the female construction workforce. It addresses key concerns such as sexual harassment, inadequate personal protective equipment (PPE), and the lack of appropriate sanitary facilities. The report highlights the current situation, issues, and associated hazards and risks, supported by Australian and international practices. It emphasizes the need for improved OSHA guidelines and employer responsibilities to ensure a safe and equitable work environment for women in construction. Recommendations include amendments to OSHA standards to address sexual harassment, mandate gender-specific sanitary facilities, and require PPE that fits female workers. The report underscores the importance of workplace health and safety bodies revising their standards to promote the wellbeing of women in the building industry.

Safety and Health issues among Female Construction Workforce 1
Protection and wellbeing issues among Female Building Workforce
Name:
Institution:
Course:
Tutor:
Date:

Safety and Health issues among Female Construction Workforce 2
Protection and wellbeing issues among Female Building Workforce
Introduction
The Australian building industry is facing an inadequately qualified workforce, forcing
numerous building companies to outsource and expand the effects of recruitments on previously
untapped labor sources, especially women (Zhao 2014, p.2697). Currently, the number of
women in the building workforce stands at about 4.7% in the global ranking and are always from
the age of 16 years. Unlike men in building sites, women tend to face more protection and
wellbeing hazards more than men due to their gender and feminine stature. Some of the
protection and wellbeing hazards include falls, electrocution, repetitive-motion, exposure to
hazardous wastes, among many others (Daniel 2015, p.10). Over the years, most the research
conducted on the protection and wellbeing issues in building focused on men with little focus on
women; therefore, there is significant need to explore the current situation and make
recommendations on protection and wellbeing issues on the women workforce in building jobs.
Sexual harassment
Sexual harassments remain one of the most issues affecting the health and safety of
women in the building workforce who recorded the highest incidents of sexual harassment after
work discriminations. Workplace sexual harassments s not only an equal employment issue but
are recognized as a protection and wellbeing issue in the current workplace. Sexual harassments
disrespect the law barring sex discernment in employment Act, that identifies issues such as
undesirable sensual moves, forced sexual favour and any other spoken or bodily conduct
perceived to be in sexual nature ( Wynen 2016,p.356). The sexual harassment is always
perceived to always to create intimidation and hostile working environment. In accordance with

Safety and Health issues among Female Construction Workforce 3
Federal Building and Contractors Compliance, employers are expected to provide a free
harassment environment since sexual harassment in the workplace can cause fear, danger and
assault.
Australian building industry language tends to be more masculine set values and
language, which mostly results in sexual harassment to female workers. In Australia, studies
indicate that more than 40% of surveyed female building workers at one point faced some sexual
harassment at the workplace such as sexual comments, staring, unwanted sexual suggestions and
male crew member exposing obscene body parts.
Sanitary facilities
Sanitary amenities are essential to any workplaces that consist of women. Inaccessibility
of the sanitary facilities has remained one of the key issues in the building sites. Most of the
temporary facilities are always unisex, thus reducing the privacy level and at times poorly
maintained enhancing the rate of infections. International labor judges have interpreted that the
absence of adequate female hygienic amenities are in contradiction to the workplace OSHA
standard since they pose threats to the wellbeing of the workers (Yuvaraj et al.,2015,p.317).
Women tend to have high chances of contracting infectious diseases than men, notably when the
sanitary facilities are missing and poorly maintained since most of the women will delay using
the facilities. According to the studies conducted on numerous worksites, especially building
sites, tend to have inappropriate sanitary facilities (Yuvaraj et al., 2015, p.317). For example, in
1987 the USA court found out that a female building worker; Eileen Lynch was fired after being
found to have used a clean and fully equipped restroom that was not meant for building workers.
Lynch always used the restroom since she had been diagnosed with a bladder infection and could

Safety and Health issues among Female Construction Workforce 4
not use the portable toilet. The portable toilets are always dirty in most cases since they are not
equipped with running water that is essential to women during the restroom sessions. The court
found the suspension of Lynch as discrimination and violation of protection and wellbeing issues
of the workers.
Personal protective equipment
Personal protective equipment is essential to all workers, especially in building sites who
face different heavy and sharp objects. According to (Onyebeke et al., 2016, p 238) most of the
female building workforce faces challenges with the personal protective equipment’s and
clothing, that are either oversize or does not fit properly. According to the OSHA guidelines,
poor fit garments are perceived as appropriate protective wear; this can results into severe
protection and wellbeing risks for female workers. For example when a hand glove does not fit
appropriately on a female building worker, then there is high probability of coming out during
the work, thus exposing the hand to sharp objects or makes it difficult for the hand to pick
anything (Mamin Dey & Das 2019,p.10). According to the Australian female building
workforce, 0.3% per cent indicated that they fail to get appropriate protective and clothing
equipment’s thus exposing them to high health risks such as scratches and pricks.
Recommendations
The following are recommendations for female building workers co the Australian and
international health and safety guidelines (Abbasianjahromi & Talebian 2018,p.10).
1. Sexual harassment-OSHA, along with other women bodies and Federal Contract
Compliance, should identify the sexual harassment in the building sites and take

Safety and Health issues among Female Construction Workforce 5
appropriate remedial action such as a memorandum of understanding and other
disciplinary actions.
2. Sanitary facilities-The OSHA law, CFR Section 1926.51 that encompasses on the toilet
at building sites should be amended to be more specific on gender issues. These will
enable the building sites to have bathrooms that are fully equipped with the sanitary
amenities for the female usage, the sanitary facilities to be always clean and in good
condition and the toilets should be gender-sensitive.
3. Personal protective equipment and clothing -The OSHA act on individual shielding
gear for the building workers; CFR 1926, E should be amended to force employers to
provide PPE that suits and fit the female workers (Boschman, Frings & van der Molen
2016,p.256). Additionally, OSHA should have a resource guide that will help contractors
in identifying the best PPE for women.
Conclusion
As the building workforce gets diversified, female workers face numerous protection and
wellbeing issues such as sexual harassment, inadequate or poor personal protective equipment,
and poor sanitary facilities, among many others. Therefore, it is for the appropriate workplace
health and safety bodies such as OSHA to revise their standards to ensure the safety of women in
the building and any other workplace.

Safety and Health issues among Female Construction Workforce 6
List of References
Abbasianjahromi, H. and Talebian, R., 2018. Identifying the most important occupational
diseases in the building industry: case study of building industry in Iran. International Journal of
Building Management, pp.1-11.
Boschman, J., Frings-Dresen, M. and van der Molen, H., 2016. Response to “Ergonomic
Intervention For Musculoskeletal Disorders in Building Workers”. Protection and wellbeing at
Work, 7(3), p.256.
Daniel, L., 2015. Safety Leadership Defined within the Australian Building Industry. Building
Economics and Building, 15(4), pp.1-15.
Mamin, F., Dey, G. and Das, S., 2019. Health and safety issues among building workers in
Bangladesh. International Journal of Occupational Protection and wellbeing, 9(1), pp.13-18.
Onyebeke, L., Papazaharias, D., Freund, A., Dropkin, J., McCann, M., Sanchez, S., Hashim, D.,
Meyer, J., Lucchini, R. and Zuckerman, N., 2016. Access to properly fitting personal protective
equipment for female building workers. American Journal of Industrial Medicine, 59(11),
pp.1032-1040.
Wynen, J., 2016. Sexual Harassment: The Nexus Between Gender and Workplace Authority:
Evidence from the Australian Public Service. Australian Journal of Public Administration, 75(3),
pp.345-358.

Safety and Health issues among Female Construction Workforce 7
Yuvaraj, S., Kanoor, P., Nikhade, A., Panda, R. and Soneji, J., 2015. Impact of Provision of
Portable Sanitary Facilities on Labour Productivity at Building Sites during Different Phases of
Building. International Journal of Technology, 5(2), p.317.
Zhao, X., 2014. The Occupational Health and Safety Management of Workers in Building
Building Site. Applied Mechanics and Materials, 501-504, pp.2695-2699.