Review of Related Literature

This chapter presents a review of related literature and studies to determine the benefits
of a comprehensive safety and health program in the construction industry particularly
in Region XIII. This chapter will also cover its significance as the action arm (how things
actually work) of a plan or policy created by an organization to encourage the
conservation of a safe workplace. The researchers would also include laws and relevant
studies and its role in determining the goals of a health and safety program to improve
overall workplace health and safety within the organization.

According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, the total cases of occupational diseases
in workplaces reached over 125,000 in 2015. Back pain is the most common type of
occupational disease, making up 32.8% of the reported cases. This is followed by
essential hypertension (11.5%) and neck and shoulder pain (11.4%). Meanwhile, the
most risky industry for workers was found to be in administrative and support service
activities (34.3%) and manufacturing industry (31.1%), jointly comprising almost two
thirds of the total cases of occupational diseases in 2015 (WHO Malaysia, 2018).

With the RA 11058, employers are now required to comply with occupational safety and
health standards including informing workers on all types of hazards in the workplace
and having the right to refuse unsafe work, as well as providing facilities and personal
protective equipment for the workers, among others. Through the enactment, Filipino
workers are given better protection in the workplace. The law ensures safer workplaces
by requiring employers to provide complete safe work procedures, information
dissemination about work-related hazards, safety and health training, and protective
equipment. Workers are also encouraged to have a better understanding of the risks that
come with their occupations, to know that they have the right to refuse unsafe work, to
report accidents, and to participate in the safety and health program of their employers.
(Disini & Disini, 2020). By means of increase in legislation and drive for ever-greater
efficiency and accountability, health and safety in construction is becoming an
increasingly important subject. A health and safety policy could prove to be a valuable
tool, in fact the importance of work related policies and procedures cannot be over
emphasized. In a home there are usually rules that the family abides by which brings
order to the home. The same applies to the workplace; rules and regulations bring order
to the workplace.

In most countries, the building and construction industry has a high rate of occupational
accidents. In the EU15, the rate of construction injuries leading to over three days'
absence from work exceeded 6,000 per 100,000 employees in 2005 (Arbetsmiljöverket,
2008). Although this is approximately three times the rate in the Swedish construction
industry, Sweden's rate still places building and construction among the top 10
occupational sectors for occupational accidents in the country. Much effort has been
made to reduce the rate of industrial accidents, mainly through technical solutions,
rules, and regulation. In an interview study of the Australian construction industry,
Holmes, Lingard, Yesilyurt, and De Munk (1999) found that risk was largely attributed
to the nature of the work, poor individual work practices, ignorance, and work pressure
due to budgetary and time constraints. To successfully approach these sources of risk
there is a need to understand not only underlying structural and organizational
conditions, but also psychological and social factors. Such a broadened and deepened
perspective on safety should supplement rather than replace the engineering approach.
The concepts of safety culture and safety climate are important contributions from the
behavioral and social sciences to our understanding of occupational safety. Denison
(1996) stated that the concepts of organizational culture and climate both suggest the
existence of a shared, holistic, and collectively defined social context that emerges over
time. The two concepts share many features, though organizational culture places
greater emphasis on creating the social environment whereas organizational climate
corresponds to how this social environment is experienced by the actors and thus is
more external (Denison). Zohar (1980) defined organizational climate as "a summary of
molar perceptions that employees share about their work environments." Neal and
Griffin (2006) defined perceived safety climate as "individual perceptions of policies,
procedures and practices relating to safety in the workplace" and suggested that group
safety climate refers to perceptions shared within the group. According to organizational
climate theory (Schneider, 1975), such shared perceptions will result in normative
conclusions as to the correct way to behave in relation to safety in the organization.
Climate serves to guide one's own behavior and contributes to the predictability of the
behavior of others (Guldenmund, 2000). Pidgeon (1991) suggested that organizational
culture represents a shared meaning system (i.e., a system of symbols, ideas, rules, and
cognitions, with certain observable behavioral consequences); furthermore, he
defined safety culture as "the set of beliefs, norms, attitudes, roles, and social and
technical practices which are concerned with minimizing the exposure of employees,
managers, customers, and members of the public to conditions considered dangerous or
injurious." Pidgeon stated that such construed meaning systems specify what is
important and legitimate to the group, and that this culture is created and recreated as
members of the group repeatedly behave in a way that seems natural and
unquestionable to them, thus constructing a particular version of risk and safety.
Pidgeon also suggested that it is misleading to consider only organizational or corporate
culture, as the cultures of workgroups, departments, divisions, and organizations, as
well as cultures at an even broader macro level (e.g., nations) are nested within one
another as well as overlapping. Both safety climate and safety culture are socially
construed phenomena and the importance of these concepts to occupational safety is
generally accepted (e.g., Zohar, 1980, Zohar, 2002, Donald and Canter, 1994, Pidgeon,
1998, Guldenmund, 2000, Lee and Harrison, 2000, Cooper and Phillips, 2004, Mearns
et al., 2003, Neal and Griffin, 2006, Clarke, 2006b, Pousette et al., 2008). The
complexity of construction work demands good and comprehensive safety management,
and emphasizes the need for collective norms favoring safety, guiding the employees in
the large number of decisions they need to make in their work, and for individual
commitment to safety. Safety norms defined by the safety climate concern the shared
perceptions of policies, procedures, and practice in relation to safety in the organization
and are thus "owned" by the workers, though the antecedents.

Every year, an average of 50,000 work-related accidents occur due to poor

Looking and reviewing the literature leads back to the question: What are the benefits of

a comprehensive safety and health program in the construction industry particularly in

Region XIII? The researchers would like to know the benefits from the perspective of an

organization and the workers considering the implications brought about by the

implementation and non-implementation of the programs.