Occupational health and safety trainings in the textile industry and an example practice

Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) has gained importance due to the rapidly developing and diversifying industry. With the development and change of industry, technology and production methods, there has been an increase in work accidents and occupational diseases in workplaces. In order to protect the health of the employees and to provide a safe working environment, work systems should be established in such a way as to bring the hazards under control at the source and to minimize the risks. In addition to these measures, one of the most important preventive approaches is to provide behavioral awareness in the working environment by informing the employees through OHS trainings. The density of occupational accidents is quite high in the textile sector, which provides significant employment in Turkey and especially Gaziantep industry, and has a large share in production and exports. For this reason, in this study, the importance of OHS trainings and informing the employee about OHS was tried to be revealed by considering the textile sector. In the study, a total of 149 textile industry employees were given OHS training, and it was aimed to determine the efficiency of the training by applying the same test before and after the training. In this way, it has been tried to reveal the importance of the awareness and sensitivity of the employees as a result of the training they receive in providing a safe and healthy working environment. While the rate of correct answers to the questions asked in the study was 46.5 in the pre-tests, this rate increased to 98.6 in the post-tests. In addition, in the education level evaluation, it was determined that the secondary school graduates showed an improvement by 60%. As a result, it was determined that the OHS training provided significantly increased the knowledge of the employees on OHS. Keywords: Occupational Health and Safety, Textile Sector, OHS Training, OHS Awareness