Workplace Safety Standards and Chemical Hazard Management

Article 166: Employer Safety Obligations

Article 166

The employer undertakes to provide the measures of occupational safety and health at the workplaces in such a way as to ensure prevention from work hazards. These hazards include:

• Mechanical hazards: These can arise as a result of a collision or contact between the worker’s body and a solid object, such as construction, building, and excavation hazards, collapse and fall hazards, and hazards arising from devices, machines, and transportation and handling means.
• Chemical hazards: Risks arising from handling solid, liquid, or gas chemical substances that can arise from the leakage of any substances into the working environment.
• Natural hazards: Factors affecting the worker’s safety and health or causing damage, such as heat, humidity, cold, noise, dangerous and harmful radiations, earthquakes, or high or low atmospheric pressure in the workplace.
• Fire and electrical hazards: Risks arising from electricity, lighting, and fire.

Article 167: Emergency Planning and Risk Analysis

Article 167

The establishments determined by virtue of the Minister’s decision, in coordination with the Minister in charge of industrial affairs, shall access and analyze the expected industrial and natural hazards and disasters. They shall draft an emergency plan to protect these establishments and the workers therein upon the occurrence of any disaster.

Article 174: Inspection and Medical Testing

Article 174

The Authority of occupational safety and health inspection shall:

• Subject the workers at the establishments to the necessary medical and laboratory tests for verifying the adequacy of the working conditions and their effect on the worker’s health and prevention level.
• Take samples from the substances used or handled in industrial operations which may have a harmful effect on the workers’ safety and health or on the working environment. These are for analysis in order to determine the extent of the hazards arising from the use of said substances, provided the establishment is notified in this respect.

Chemical Hazards and Substance Safety

CHEMICAL HAZARDS

The hazard associated with a chemical depends on what the specific chemical is, what chemical(s) it is mixed with, if any, and the relative proportion of the chemical if it is in a mixture or solution. Chemical hazards are substances that can cause harm or damage to the body, property, or the environment. Chemical hazards can be of either natural or human-made origin. Examples include heavy metals like lead and mercury, pesticides, and organic solvents.