Safety in Developing Countries: Professional and Bureaucratic Problems

In the United States, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) was created to enhance safety in the workplace. Employers are subject to OSHA site inspections and must conform to a set of comprehensive rules and regulations. In contrast, in a developing country such as India, comprehensive and universal safety regulations have not been developed. Workers are generally unskilled or semiskilled, poorly paid, temporarily employed, exhibit low production (productivity) rates, and often migrate in a group from one place to another in search of work. Typically, laborers are not trained in safe work practices, and there tends to be a lack of management commitment to safety programs and various safety procedures. In contrast, in a newly developed country such as Taiwan, the owner and the contractor are assigned joint responsibility for claims resulting from occupational accidents. A basic safety-control system, emphasizing the establishment of a safety committee and self inspection, has been developed to control project safety. This system may be universally applicable to both developed and developing regions.