The legislations that govern issues pertaining to occupational safety and health at

the workplace in Malaysia are (Saad Mohd Said, Zairihan Abdul Halim and Fatimah
Said 2012):

1. Factories and Machinery Act 1967;

2. Employees Social Security Act 1969;

3. Occupational Safety and Health Act 1994;

4. Occupational Safety and Health (Employer’s Safety and Health General Policy
Statements) (Exception)

Regulations 1995;

5. Occupational Safety and Health (Control of Industrial Major Accident Hazards)

Regulations 1996;

6. Occupational Safety and Health (Safety and Health Committee) Regulations 1996;

7. Occupational Safety and Health (Classification, Packaging and Labeling of

Hazardous Chemicals)

Regulations 1997;

8. Occupational Safety and Health (Use and Standards of Exposure of Chemicals

Hazardous to Health)

Regulations 2000;

9. Occupational Safety and Health (Notification of Accident, Dangerous Occurrence,

Occupational Poisoning

and Occupational Disease) Regulations 2004-NADOOPOD.

It is possible to reduce the incidence and severity of back pain by initially examining
what situations could cause harm to people and deciding if you can take preventative
action as part of your risk assessment policy. You should then try to eliminate or, at
least, reduce the risks that could cause back pain. This could mean changing the way
the work is organised or by introducing lifting equipment. It might be possible to
redesign the specific task and/or the workplace to take into account the risks and
review the situation with the workforce so that you can ensure whether or not any
changes have been effective.

There are numerous sources of risk that can induce the injuries from lifiting objects
manually. These sources may be due to the characteristics of the load itself, the task in
hand, the organization of work and the working envinronment. This will develop
musculoskeletal disroders in workers of not handled properly.

The characteristics of the load, which may be:

1. Too large and is not possible to follow the basic rules for lifting or carrying.
Hence the activity becomes awkward to conduct as the general idea is to
keep the load as close to his body as possible. Because of this not only will
the muscles get more tired sooner but it disrupts the worker’s view which
may cause tripping or falling.

2. Too heavy can causes the muscles to get fatigue sooner thus reducing
productivity dan inducing musculoskeletal dirorders.

3. Unstable or imbalanced load due to bad center of gravity. This will cause
uneven stress of muscles and sudden jerking or movements of the load
(liquid) may cause the worker to lose their balance and drop the load and trip
themselves.

The task of the work, which needs:

1. Awkward postures or movements, e.g. a bent and/or twisted trunk, raised

arms, bent wrists, over-reaching.

2. A high frequency of repetition with insufficient recover period.

3. Unstable loads handled with an unstable posture.

The workers who:

1. Have various stature and physical dimension such as height weight and
strength.

2. Have different working experience,training and expertise in the job in hand.

3. May have a history of muscoskeletal disorders, particularly back disorders.