Workplace Well-being: How to Build Psychologically Healthy Workplaces

4 Occupational Health and Safety

Peter Y. Chen and Yiqiong Li

School of Business, University of South Australia, Adelaide, SA, Australia

It has been estimated that more than two million workers lose their lives at work each year, with approximately 5,500 lives per day, and 4% of the world’s GDP loss attribute to illness and accidents at work (International Labour Standards, 2012). Granted, efforts to address occupational health and safety (OHS) in research and practice have shown visible progress since the turn of the last century of workplace disasters, such as the Triangle Shirtwaist factory in New York City in 1911 when 146 workers perished from fire because exits were locked by managers.

Almost a century after this disaster, however, there have been similar tragedies, including a fire in Kader Industrial in Thailand that killed 189 workers in June 1993 and a collapse of a Bangladeshi factory that killed more than 1,000 workers on April 24, 2013. Recent incidents such as Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 and Costa Concordia disaster in 2012 further highlight the scale of impacts (emotional, financial, and environmental tolls, in addition to loss of human lives) when OHS receives insufficient attention. These tragedies all resulted from poor OHS practices and management in both developing countries and developed countries. No one seems to be immune from injuries and illness if OHS is not adequately managed.

The purpose of this chapter is to provide a comprehensive review ...