P-1470 - Organizational stresses of women manufacturing workers

Abstract

In the light of global industrialization, much attention has been focused on occupational factors and their influence on the health and welfare of workers. This was a cross sectional study using stratified sampling technique based on industry sizes. The study sampled 24 industries, 6 were small scale industries and 9 each for medium and large scale industries. Among the 500 respondents, majority were female (88.8%), single (69.6%) and worked in the production or assembly-line station (87.4%). For females, the most prevalent hazards were exertion involving back (76.2%), excessive work (69.3%), heat (66.9%), poor ventilation (56.6%), and chemical exposure (52.4%). Sickness absenteeism was relative high among the workers in this study accounting for almost 54% among females and 48% among males. Many of the workers also reported of poor performance at work, boredom, tardiness and absenteeism. From the data generated, important issues that must be dealt with in work organizations include the quality of work life, and health and safety issues. Based on these findings, we can conclude that there are still issues on occupational health and safety (OHS) in the target site of export processing zones in the Philippines. There must be an active campaign for OHS in industries that are produce for the global market such as the target industries in this study.