A STUDY ON OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH HAZARDS AND THE SAFETY MEASURES TAKEN BY THE TEA PLANTATION WORKERS OF KERALA

Occupational Health Hazards refer to the potential risks to health and safety of tea plantation workers in their workplaces. The stressfulness of manual activities of an occupational worker is evaluated by comparing job-demands to human-abilities or norms established in the scientific literature. If demands of a job exceed capabilities or published norms, it is perceived to be a severe job as it leads to risk of occupational health hazard.. Departures from the capabilities or the norms are not uncommon in a developing country like India wherein an occupational worker is available at lesser cost with limited job opportunities. Moreover, a worker, in general, aims at maximizing his earnings by subjecting himself to extreme work conditions due to economic reasons. Factors like long working hours, improper rest breaks etc. severely affect workers’ health. Tea plantation workers are facing a number of hazards in their workplaces due to physical, biological, mechanical, chemical and Socio-psychosocial factors. The present study tries to identify the various occupational health hazards faced and the safety measures taken by the tea plantation workers of Kerala. The tea plantation workers had to pass their livelihood in a hygienic and inhumane conditions and such livelihood pattern would inflict them with severe diseases frequently. Most of the tea plantation workers were migrated from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka and from various parts of India; they were not in a position to go against the orders and rule of the management. They are various factors such as income, educational levels of the workers, availability of medical facilities, Personal hygiene and sanitation, general awareness about the different occupational health hazards have been taken into account while arriving at the findings of the study. The study has been conducted mainly with the help of primary data collected with the help of a questionnaire. Altogether 225 workers, both male and female of Tea plantation workers have been surveyed by Random Sampling Method. In addition, secondary information has been collected from sources such as books, journals and the Internet