UNAIR NEWS – Lecturer of Occupational Safety and Health (K3) Faculty of Public Health (FKM) Universitas Airlangga, Ir. Yustinus Denny Ardyanto Wahyudiono, MS conducted a research about the factor of personal protective equipment (PPE) in steel industry workers. According to him, human management and machine resources is a threat to the safety and health of workers.
This unbalanced condition can cause work scarcity. Based on ILO data in 2013, every 15 seconds, there is one worker in the world who dies due to an occupational accident, and 160 workers are suffering from occupational health problems. According to Indonesian Health Insurance (BPJS) 53,319 workers had work accidents in 2014, and 50,089 workers employed with work accidents in 2015.
“Compliance with the use of PPE can be influenced by individual factors of workers belonging to the characteristics of workers,” he said.
Denny explained that the individual characteristics referred to work duration, level of formal education, and knowledge about PPE (Personal Protective Equipment). The work duration that a person gets will also affect the worker’s behavior.
The dominant supervisory leadership style is transformational leadership in this industry. Supervisors carry the task of always making workers feel comfortable, always motivating, helping workers in difficult jobs, and supporting workers.
“When workers feel comfortable with supervisors, they can help the company or supervisor to carry out the vision and be able to reduce accident rates,” he said.
This factor is what Denny emphasized for steel industry companies in ensuring worker safety. The impact of the presence of a supervisor has a good effect on motivation to change workers’ attitudes in using PPE.
However, it does not affect them to always comply with the use of PPE. Workers’ knowledge in the finishing area is very good, but the majority of workers are not compliant to use PPE. It is because the knowledge possessed by workers is limited to basic knowledge.
Denny revealed the availability of PPE factors, and it does not guarantee the achievement of work safety in a company. The disciplinary attitude of workers in using PPE must also be emphasized in order to reduce the risk of accidents. (*)
Author: Aditya Novrian
Editor: Nuri Hermawan
Dedy Setiawan, Siwi Tristanti, Yustinus Denny Ardyanto Wahyudiono, Determinants of Compliance to Work Instructions among Forklift Operators in a Steel Industry, Malaysian Journal of Medicine and Health Sciences Vol.15 Supp 2, Aug 2019 (eISSN 2636-9346), hal 1-4.
