The comparative analysis of the applications before and after the law no. 6331 on work health and safety in textile industry

By the invention of the steam engine production techniques have entered an irrevocable period. Owing to increasing of mechanization in production, reaching a monotone and insane tempo of production like in the movie Modern Times directed by Charles Chaplin, and increasing in working hours in order to compensate growing demands, led to occupational accidents. Increasing in wounding and deaths by these accidents and occupational deseases, has drawn attentions to actions to be taken against these. Therefore, work health and safety notion that could be defined as systematic and scientific studies to prevent health problems and occupational risks of employees has been brought to the agenda. During 150 years after Dilaver Paşa Ordinance in 1865 which was known as the first regulation of our country about work health and safety, many laws, legislations and regulations were enacted. However, also increasing in the number of deadly occupational accidents, rising of awereness about the situation and by the adjusment laws of EU, it gaves acccelariton to studies about this issue in our country. Eventually the first self-contained Law No.6331 on Work Heatlh and Safety enacted in June 30th, 2012. According to the theory of Hierarchy of Needs by the American psyschologist Abraham Maslow, casual needs of a human body come after its basic life-sustainig needs such as eating, drinking and sleeping. It's so natural that a person who spend most of its out-of-sleeping-time in a workplace wants to feel safe likewise in workplace. From this point of view it is to be said that work health or workplace safety is a basic need of a human body. Textile and apparel industry which once depends on raw materials and an labour intensive sector, have gotten it's share form the improvements of technology and became a capital and technology intensive sector. In Turkey, this industry plays an important role in economic development process by reason of the fact that it provides great employment opportunities, creates added-value in production process and its weigh in international trade. Besides, due to its high proportion inside the export revenue, it sustains its characteristic of irreplaceable sector of our country.Therefore, work health and safety practices have became more important in this sector. In this reasearch, changes that occured after the enforcement of the Law no. 6331 on Work Health and Safety, were aimed to analysed in a textile factory which operates in apparel sector. Also, unchanged work health practices in spite of change expectations, and the alteration of employees' attitudes about work health enforcements were tried to be analysed. Additionally, liabilities of employees and employers by enactment of the current Law no.6331 were systematically considered. The effects of the law to employees, deficits that noticed by them and difficulities to employers comes from implementations of the law were estimated and suggestions were made. Site investigation was implemented on an apparel factory that located in Umraniye district of Istanbul, which has 300 employees and which operates under the activity code(NACE) of 1413-04. In this context, a questionary was also carried out with the 60 blue-collars of this factory. Answers of the employees were evaluated and their thougths about the practices before and after the law no. 6331 were tried to be determined. Both the outcomes of this study and statistics of occupational accidents indicates that work heath and safety regulations have not reached to the desired level. Work safety is not a matter that only employees have to be awared; but all segments have to became counscious about it. The matter has not to be solved without being stand on a concrete base.