A study on the role of occupational health and safety training in preventing work-related accidents: The case of construction sector

This study deals with the causes of occupational accidents in the construction industry. The reasons why workers experience occupational accidents are centred around two theoretical approaches. The first one is the individualist approach to the issue, the foundations of which were explained by Herbert William Heinrich in 1931 with the Domino Theory. The second is the approach that explains the issue in political economic terms and deals with it critically. A review of the literature shows that the first approach is widely accepted. According to this approach, 88 percent of occupational accidents are caused by workers' physical inadequacies or culpable behaviours such as absent-mindedness and carelessness, and therefore, if occupational accidents are to be prevented, it is argued that workers should not exhibit behaviours that will cause accidents. The idea is that this can only be possible by creating occupational health and safety awareness. This is mainly made possible by training workers. When the literature is examined, there are many examples based on this approach, arguing that training workers is a priority in preventing occupational accidents. On the other hand, this study approaches the issue from a critical perspective and therefore takes the second approach as a basis. The root cause of occupational accidents is often explained in terms of the events at the time of the accident. However, there are many factors that can lead to an accident before the accident occurs and even cause the worker's absent-mindedness or carelessness. Contrary to the prevailing view that occupational accidents are the fault of the worker, this study is aware that there are reasons that lead the worker to act negligently and argues that the main causes of occupational accidents occur not at the time of the accident but before the accident and have a multidimensional structure. In order to examine the reality of the argument, occupational health and safety is discussed conceptually, then quantitative data on occupational accidents and occupational diseases and quantitative data on the total number of employees are examined. A fieldwork is also carried out by using the semi-structured interview technique covering the construction sector.