OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM AS A TOOL FOR ENSURING SAFETY OF WORKS IN CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY

Construction as a branch of material production is among the industries most dangerous in the field of health protection and safety of works. The major features, which characterize the construction industry, are: high-altitude work, temporary nature of works, working with heavy cargo and irregular working hours. Large volumes and unique design of construction facilities, machines and equipment determine the risk of dangerous and harmful production factors. Neglect of safety rules and technological regulations, lack of supervision lead to accidents, injuries, loss of professional work capacity, chronic diseases and, as a consequence, the reduce of economic efficiency of the organizations of construction industry. Today specialists in the field of labour protection should solve the issues on improvement of technologies, increase of reliability of technical systems (equipment, machines, mechanisms, etc.), safety of life activity of workers, etc. A significant place in this complex of questions take solutions on protection of labours, environment protection, prevention and elimination of the consequences of emergency situations. The solution to these problems consists in providing the high quality elaborating projects of manufacture of works, including technological maps, projects of construction organization, which is achieved through the creation and effective functioning of the management system of occupational health and safety of labour. Particularly evident advantages of establishing occupational health and safety management system are: improvement of working conditions through establishing of management system of production risks; reduction of injuries, accidents, deaths in workplace; expansion of the market through the acquisition of competitive advantages due to the presence of the certificate on conformity to the international requirements OHSAS 18001 or ILO-OSH; achievement of positive economic effect due to reduction of costs associated with the occurrence of risk cases (occupational diseases, injuries, etc.).