EVALUATING THE WORK ENVIRONMENT IN TURKISH FURNITURE INDUSTRY FROM THE POINT OF OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

Abstract

Preparing a healthy and safe working environment for the employee is an important issue for enterprises. Especially for SMEs, this is a major issue in our country. Small businesses often ignore this problem because of not having sufficient knowledge of the subject or, financial inadequacies. Legal sanctions and audits cannot be fully implemented due to the lack of physical and financial structures despite the legal infrastructure. The work environments of SMEs in the furniture sector were examined in this study. Thermal comfort (temperature, humidity, and air flow velocity), noise and ambient lighting parameters were investigated in 255 enterprises. In addition, wood dust parameter was studied in 40 enterprises. When the data obtained are examined; it is seen that about 60% of the enterprises were below the ideal temperature, 30% were airless and 40% were too draughty. From the point of wood dust parameter, wood dust exposure of the work environment is above the limit value of 5 mg/m3 at 90% of enterprises. It is observed that the limit value of 5 mg/m3 is doubled at the 35% of these enterprises, tripled at the 40% of them and quadrupled at the 15% of them. The results obtained in this study have been examined in detail and suggestions have been made to develop for the sector enterprises, chambers, and governments.