|
Information about IIOSH |
Engineering and computerization
division
GENERAL
INFORMATION
Background
Israel Institute for Occupational Safety and Hygiene
(IIOSH) is Israel's national public institution concerned with the workplace
safety and health. It was established in the 50s on the basis of organizations
and laws that came into existence during the period of the British Mandate,
prior to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1947. These regulations
reinforced the activity of organizations founded earlier (at the beginning of
the thirties) that dealt with occupational safety, such as: the General Trade
Union, the Manufacturers' Association, and the Jewish Agency. However, the
field of occupational safety obtained its formal and mandatory status,
acknowledged by the Mandate authorities and the Jewish leaders, only in 1946.
Following the establishment of the State of Israel, this
field of activity received its semi-governmental status in 1950, with a special
secretary appointed to coordinate the activity in the field of the occupational
safety under supervision by one of the departments of the Ministry of Labour.
IIOSH was founded as a statutory tripartite non-profit institution in
accordance with the "Labour Inspection (Organization) Law - 1954".
Objectives
As determined by the law, the main objective of IIOSH is to
promote safety and hygiene at the workplace.
This mission includes:
Safety training and promotion;
Assistance in selecting safety representatives, organizing
safety committees and guiding their activities;
Assisting the Labour Inspectorate in its activity;
Advising the Minister of Labour and Welfare on the matters
concerning occupational safety and hygiene.
STRUCTURE AND ORGANIZATION
Public representatives
The public interests are represented in the Institute's
governing bodies:
The council
The Institute's supreme governing body chaired by the
Minister of Labour and Welfare or by a chairperson appointed by the Minister.
Ten out of the Council's forty members are appointed by the trade unions,
another ten, by the employers, and the remaining twenty members represent
government offices, universities, and public institutions.
The board of directors
The Council appoints some of its members on the Board of
Directors, so that half of the latter's members represent the government, while
the remaining seats are halved between the trade unions and the employers
associations.
Working committees
The Council appoints the following permanent working
committees and determines the scope of their responsibilities and authority:
|
l |
Construction Safety Committee; |
|
l |
Industrial Safety Committee; |
|
l |
Agricultural Safety Committee; |
|
l |
Finance Committee. |
Organizational structure
IIOSH is comprised of ten departments, located at the IIOSH
headquarters in Tel Aviv, and four regional branches.
Management
The Institute management consists of Director, Deputy
Director, and Administrative Assistant.
Staff
IIOSH employs a staff of 113,
distributed as follows with regard to their educational and professional
status:
|
l |
Engineers and other holders of
academic degrees - 44%; |
|
l |
Practical engineers and technicians
- 24%; |
|
l |
Administrative and clerical staff -
32%. |
Budget
The sources of the IIOSH budget are the National Insurance
Institute and its Manof Foundation, the Ministry of Labour and Welfare
and its Workplace Health and Accident Prevention and Research Fund, and
the IIOSH priced services.
REGIONAL BRANCHES
Most of the regional branches' activities take place at the workplaces. The branches are located in four Israel's biggest cities: Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Beer Sheva and Haifa, and also cover the surrounding areas. This geographic distribution of the branches allows them to maintain close links between the Institute and the workplaces across Israel.
The branches receive professional and administrative backup from the IIOSH headquarters departments.
A wide range of services is provided to various industries,
including:
|
l |
Advice and support in eliminating
safety and health hazards at the workplaces; |
|
l |
Hazard surveys, including hygiene
surveys; |
|
l |
Guidance to safety committees and
help in setting-up new committees; |
|
l |
Preparation of safety plans for
plants and institutions; |
|
l |
Safety training at SMEs, including
distribution of explanatory literature; |
|
l |
In-plant training tailored to
specific requirements; |
|
l |
Safety and health promotion in the
agricultural sector. |
|
l |
Operation of mobile training units
to industrial plants and construction sites and safety advice to site
supervisors. |
Through its branches, IIOSH maintains continuous and efficient links with about 2,800 safety committees and approximately 5,000 SMEs nationwide.
Various activities are routinely conducted at industrial
plants (average annual figures):
|
l |
6,500 visits aimed at helping the
safety committees; |
|
l |
800 training events; |
|
l |
130 safety plans and hazard surveys; |
|
l |
10,000 visits at SMEs; |
|
l |
400 hygienic surveys (performed by
the branches and the Hygiene Dept.). |
ENGINEERING
AND COMPUTERIZATION DIVISION
Background
The Engineering and Computerization Div. serves as a
professional authority, guiding and advising various IIOSH departments in
different fields of safety engineering.
Its primary activities include:
|
l |
Professional backup of IIOSH
branches and departments; |
|
l |
Advice in preparing safety plans and
hazard surveys; |
|
l |
Participation in development and
implementation of training and safety promotion events; |
|
l |
Preparation of professional
publications in Hebrew; |
|
l |
Implementation of the IS 18001
Safety Management Standard at the workplaces; |
|
l |
Advice and expert opinions for the
workplaces at their request; |
|
l |
Participation in professional
committees within various frameworks - IIOSH, the Standards Institute, etc.; |
|
l |
Guidance and control over the IIOSH
branches' activities at the workplaces; |
|
l |
Management and development of the
IIOSH computer network. |
HYGIENE DEPARTMENT
The Hygiene Dept. serves as the IIOSH professional authority in the field of occupational
hygiene. It provides professional guidance and advice for various activities
undertaken in this area within the Institute's framework.
Primary activities of the Hygiene Dept. include:
Conduct of hazard surveys
Hazard surveys are conducted at the workplaces for the
identification and mapping of possible occupational hygienic hazards - chemical
exposures, physical, biological and ergonomic factors.
Hygienic measurements
The IIOSH occupational hygienists perform comprehensive measurements
of different hazardous factors potentially present at the workplaces,
including:
|
l |
Identification of chemical
substances - solvents, metals, acids, particles, dusts etc. - by means of
personal and area sampling; |
|
l |
Measurement of occupational and
environmental exposure to asbestos (RTM1 - RTM2); |
|
l |
Identification of physical risk
factors, such as noise and heat (WBGT); |
|
l |
Quantitative and qualitative
examination of laboratory hoods; |
|
l |
Measurement of air quality and
detection of the Sick Building Syndrome; |
|
|
Direct-reading measurements of UV,
ammonium, ozone, NO, CO2, and more. |
Preparation of training kits
The department prepares training kits used by the IIOSH
instructors in their field operations.
Participation in professional committees
The department is actively participating in the proceedings
of professional committees and organizations, such as an inter-ministerial
committee on asbestos, various committees at the Ministry of Labour and
Welfare, the Israeli Association of Industrial Hygienists, etc.
Instrumentation and methodology
The IIOSH hygienists take a deciding part in all matters
concerning acquisition, upgrading and maintenance of the relevant instruments
and equipment. They constantly follow the latest developments in measurement techniques
and approaches.
INFORMATION
CENTER
The IIOSH Information Center is the Israel's primary source
of OSH information. It supplies the public, particularly safety officers and
other interested people at industrial plants, with reliable up-to-date
information according to their requests. Every answer is being tailored to the
inquirer's needs and educational level. The center’s information scientists use
an extensive network of OSH information resources that includes numerous
international and local databases, a library, personal expertise of the whole
IIOSH staff and, when necessary, authoritative sources elsewhere. For this
purpose the Information Center maintains working contacts with many relevant
organizations in Israel and abroad, including CIS-ILO.
The center’s main activities include:
|
l |
Provision of up-to-date information,
usually free of charge, in response to written or verbal requests from
workers, managers, OSH professionals, or members of the public, submitted by
mail, fax, telephone, e-mail or via the Internet; |
|
l |
Maintenance of constant ties with
recognized suppliers of OSH information worldwide; |
|
l |
Acquisition, processing,
translation, cataloguing and systematization of information within the whole
area of safety and health at work, using databases, professional literature,
other printed and electronic sources; |
|
l |
Development and maintenance of
specialized local databases; |
|
l |
Maintenance and constant updating of
the service library containing thousands of books and periodicals; |
|
l |
Preparation and production of
professional publications on selected topics, intended for a countrywide
circulation, including information sheets and FAQs; |
|
l |
Maintenance and constant updating of
the Israeli OSH-related legislation and standards register; |
|
l |
Participation in surveys and applied
research in the field of OSH. |
Every year the Center answers over 5000 written and verbal
information requests
The center’s establishment and current operation have been
facilitated by financial support provided by the Workplace Health and
Accident Prevention and Research Fund of the Ministry of Labour and Welfare
and the Manof Foundation of the National Insurance Institute.
PROJECTS
DEPARTMENT
The Projects Dept. initiates, oversees and coordinates
projects in the field of occupational safety and hygiene.
The department's main activities include:
|
l |
Preparation, evaluation and
presentation of proposals for research and good practice projects, to be
submitted to the appropriate foundations: the Workplace Health and Accident
Prevention and Research Fund of the Ministry of Labour and Welfare and
the Manof Foundation of the National Insurance Institute; |
|
l |
Management and coordination of
projects and surveys; |
|
l |
Organization of nationwide OSH
conferences. |
TRAINING DEPARTMENT
The Training Dept. develops, initiates and organizes
various training activities for workers employed in the industrial,
agricultural, and construction sectors, in accordance with the ISO 9002
requirements.
The department performs the following functions:
|
l |
Planning and implementation of OSH
training events according to the changing needs of the economy; |
|
l |
Development and production of OSH
training kits and electronic products; |
|
l |
Operation and maintenance of
computerized training facilities: |
|
l |
Mobile training units that deliver
on-site workers training in seven languages to industrial plants and
construction sites all over Israel; |
|
l |
Computer-aided training classes in
Tel Aviv and Haifa; |
|
l |
Noise and hearing protection hand-on
experience lab. |
|
l |
Guidance and methodological support
to the Institute's branches in their local training activities. |
The main types of training events organized by the Training
Dept. are courses (3 to 30 days long), one-day seminars, workshops, and
lectures. They are conducted either at the IIOSH own training facilities or
elsewhere, including large workplaces.
Every year the Training Dept. and the IIOSH branches
conduct about 800 training events lasting at least one full day each,
comprising the total of 1,750 days, with about 18,000 participants. The mobile
training units serve additional 50,000 workers a year, while another 18,000
workers take part in short on-site safety training activities.
Altogether, IIOSH delivers the workplace safety and health
training to 87,000 workers annually.
PUBLISHING
DEPARTMENT
The Publishing Dept. publishes books, brochures, posters
and periodicals in the field of safety and health at work, as well as safety
signs, prospects and other printed matter used by the IIOSH staff and OSH professionals
across the country. While most of the IIOSH publications are in Hebrew, a
number of brochures have been published in Arabic, Russian, Amharic, Chinese,
Thai and other languages.
The department's flagship is the Safety illustrated
bimonthly in Hebrew, printed in 10,000 copies. Another periodical, the
wall-format poster Safety and Health at Work which is intended at a wide
distribution at plants and construction sites, is published monthly in Hebrew,
half-yearly in Arabic, and quarterly in Russian - 10,000 copies at all.
Altogether, the Publishing Dept. produces about 500,000
copies of various publications a year.
INTERNET UNIT
The Internet Unit develops and supports the IIOSH website www.osh.org.il, which is in fact the Israel's main national
web resource in the field of safety and health at work. Besides of serving as
an electronic gate to the whole scope of IIOSH units and activities, the site
comprises a range of sections and functions:
|
l |
Virtual library containing full
texts of IIOSH technical publications and links to laws, regulations and
standards; |
|
l |
The Safety Online electronic
magazine; |
|
l |
Daily updated OSH-related news from
Israel and abroad; |
|
l |
Professional Forum operated
primarily in the interests of a national community of safety officers; |
|
l |
Weekly updated FAQ's and
safety-related images; |
|
l |
Schedules and summaries of all
training activities conducted by IIOSH; |
|
l |
Annotated directory of OSH-related
websites in Israel and internationally, and other useful materials. |
While a predominant part of the contents are in Hebrew,
there are also a number of items in English (including OSH Headlines from
Israel) and other languages. All information is available free of charge,
including electronic copies of priced IIOSH publications.