A Safe Work Australia study has shown that some manufacturing workers are going unprotected in the face of serious hazards.

Manufacturers are exposed to all sorts of occupational health hazards, and Safe Work says higher order hazard controls like substitution and elimination were not being fully utilised in the industry.

The study - Work Health and Safety Perceptions: Manufacturing Industry - was undertaken to draw up a summary of current knowledge about work health and safety in manufacturing.

The data came from existing Safe Work Australia Research and Evaluation sources.

The review found workers in the manufacturing industry were considerably more likely to be exposed to noise, vibration or airborne hazards than workers in other priority industries.

“While over 70 per cent of manufacturing workers who reported exposure to noise were provided with a combination of PPE [personal protective equipment] and other types of controls, 20 per cent reported that they were only provided with PPE,” the report stated.

“For vibration, over 30 per cent reported being provided with only PPE and no other control measure. Fourteen per cent of manufacturing workers who reported exposure to airborne hazards reported that they were not provided with nay control measure for this hazard.”

The authorities say that workers are either unaware of higher order controls available to them, or a significant number of manufacturing workplaces have no such controls in place.

A complete copy of the report can be found here.