Comparative investigation and assessment of occupational HEALTH and safety legislation in the mining

In the 18th century, with the industrial revolution, working conditions in the mines became more severe and number of occupational accidents increased. This issue, which was not taken into consideration initially, has caused productivity to decrease in the industrialized countries over time. Occupational health and safety gained importance and developed after some major occupational disasters that caused decrease in productivity, production, whereas increase in material losses. In Turkey, there has been a radical change in occupational health and safety and many new legislations were introduced in the recent years. Law No. 6331 has been in effect since 2012 and is the most comprehensive legislation on occupational safety historically in Turkey. Although this law, which was prepared for the European Union Access, came into effect and provided a positive impact, it could not provide the expected improvement in the number of occupational accidents. In this thesis, the occupational health and safety regulations in the mining sector of the United States, Australia and Turkey will be studied multi-dimensionally and then statistical information on mining occupational accidents will be compared. Finally, the impact of legal legislation on occupational safety in mining will be discussed and its positive and negative aspects will be discussed.