Abstract:
The tea industry is the largest employer in the private sector, with over 80,000
working in the estate and 3 million earning their livelihoods from the sector (KTDA
annual report, 2003) The main risks posed to workers at tea factories are from
unguarded machinery, chemical and biological agents as well as unfavourable
working conditions like high temperatures. The study aimed at assessing
compliance of tea factories to selected sections of OSHA 2007 and subsidiary
legislation at Kenya Tea Development Agency factories at Region Five. The study
sites were Kapkoros Tea factory, Tirgaga Tea factory, Mogogosiek Tea factory,
Kapset Tea factory, Litein Tea factory, Momul Tea factory and Toror Tea factory in
Bomet and Kericho counties. The study employed a descriptive design which used
probability sampling methods to select 260 participants. Respondents were the
factory staff in withering, boiler, billeting, cut, tear, curl (CTC) workshop, sorting,
packaging and management. Structured questionnaires were used to collect
qualitative data which was analyzed using statistic package for social science. The
respondents 121(46.7%) had secondary school education and below, while the
remaining 133(51.2%) had college education and above. Dust, injuries, poor
housekeeping and Noise were the major hazards in the factories. The management
admitted that there were less first aid kits in their respective factories as it was less
than the recommended 5 first aid kits for a work force of 200 (Victorian OSH Act,
2004). Most of the staff in the seven tea factories reported to have been exposed
to hazards such as dust, injuries and high noise levels. In terms of compliance on
selected OSHA 2007 sections and other subsidiary legislation, all the seven
factories were partially compliant in that they had not done noise surveys
audiometric test and fire audits by the time the study was done.
