DETERMINATION OF CHEMICAL AND PHYSICAL RISK FACTORS IN LEATHER INDUSTRY IN TERMS OF OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

TOLGA KARAKUZU¹ , Hülya ELMALI GÜLBA޲

Occupational health and safety in work life has still alarming statistics around the world. Despite the fact that leather business seems being affected by mechanization, human power has important role for it. Workers in tanning processes frequently encounter physical and chemical risks. Therefore, the determination of employee consciousness and the arrangement of trainings for it are important for this sector which is included in the category 'Very risky work'. In our study, the population has been determined as active firms in Uşak Mixed-Organized Leather Industry, the awareness level of physical and chemical risks of 220 employees in 10 firms that accepted to take part in the survey has been examined and observed. Frequency, percentage and factor analysis and correlation tests were applied on the data in SPSS 22.0 programme. The Cronbach alpha values of the dimensions were found to be 0.681 in the physical risk dimension and 0.822 in the chemical risk dimension. According to the research of it can be said that the reliability of chemical risk factors is high and that the physical risk factors are medium reliability. The physical risk and chemical risk perceptions of workers in the survey are moderate/high.

Keywords
Leather Operations, Physical Risks, Chemical Risk, Factor Analysis, Kruskal Wallis Test ,