Improving occupational health and safety among micro, small and medium wood processing enterprises
Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) is a multidisciplinary field concerned with the safety, health and welfare of people at work. Occupational Safety refers to working without danger, risk, injuries, and physical and spiritual loss. Occupational Health means having good hygiene at the workplace without negative impact on the physical and spiritual health of the employees.
The goal of OHS is to foster a safe and healthy working environment. OHS also protects the general public affected by business operations. This is important in the context of the wood processing as it can cause pollution, including from dust, noise and chemicals.
OHS is an important topic for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) because it is an area where capacity is generally low, in particular among micro enterprises. Business owners are seldom trained on OHS, and non-compliance with the relevant laws and regulations are commonly observed throughout the Mekong region.
Poor OHS practices can also have a negative impact on the welfare of workers, resulting in poor performance and low productivity. On the other hand, improving OHS drives good business practices, ensures continuous operations, and reduces pollution. This brief introduces OHS in the context of the wood-processing industry, describes challenges faced by MSMEs and shares training recommendations based on the experience of our Forest Smallholder Project in the Mekong region.
Somporn Khongthanakrittakorn
