Quarry Workers' Hazard Identification, Severity Interpretation, and Prevention Strategies

The surface-mining worker fatalities are unacceptably high as compared to other private industries in United States such as construction, manufacturing, agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting. Although many studies about generating a safe work environment and developing safety training through intervention modules have tried to reduce the number of worker fatalities by utilizing an administrative approach to the development of safety controls, a rigorous study about understanding craftworkers' perceptions of a safe work environment is lacking. This study particularly investigated quarry workers' safety behaviors regarding work hazards by adapting findings from construction safety research because construction and mining industries have similarities in work hazards and environment. Despite their similarities, the work fatality rate in the mining industry is greater than in the construction industry (BLS, 2018). To gain a greater understanding of how quarry workers identify and interpret work hazards and employ strategies to prevent accidents, this study explored quarry workers' perceptions of work hazards (i.e., hazard identification, severity interpretation) and their preventive strategies to develop a safer working environment at the workplace. To accomplish this, a single descriptive case study was conducted with multiple sources of data such as interviews with photo elicitation, field notes, site photographs, and precursory meeting with safety managers. These sources of data were used to investigate quarry workers' identification and interpretation skills and utilization of preventive strategies. This study will contribute to improve safety of workers by incorporating workers' perceptions of work hazards and by exploring their experience to the development of safety training.