Awareness of occupational health and safety legislation amongst employers in Malta

Abstract

This research tries to analyse through close ended questions and person to person interviews whether or not my hypothesis, that employers and managers are not properly trained on the Occupational Health and Safety Legislation in Malta, is correct. I intend to prove that, although the legislation has been in-vigore for a number of years, although a substantial number of employers and managers are aware of the existence of the legislation, most of them still lack adequate knowledge of its effects and consequences. The research project involved contacting a pool of 75 employers, with a distribution of persons both from the managerial levels as well as company directors, out of whom 49 accepted my invitation. Chapter One gives a brief background of the research problem whilst studying the nature and implications of the OHSA's operations in relation to the employers. This study is engaged in investigating how the OHSA's legislation is being adopted by employers. Chapter Two focuses on the review of available literature. Local research in this field was found to be very limited. Hence, two similar foreign researches were identified; one conducted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in the UK and another survey done in 1997 in Taiwan, as found in the Oxford Journals. Chapter Three explains the methodology used in this research and also identifies the motivators of the respondents. Chapter Four, incorporates the findings and analysis of the research. It deals with all the questions individually and cross-analyses the answers collectively to evaluate the findings. Chapter Five concludes the study by giving an in depth interpretation of the findings whilst proposing the notion that the Occupational Health and Safety Authority must redirect training efforts towards employers' awareness.