SAFETY PRACTICES NEEDED BY EMPLOYEES OF PAINTING OCCUPATION FOR SUSTAINABILITY OF BUILDING INDUSTRY IN ABIA STATE

Abstract

This study determined the safety practices needed by employees of painting occupation for sustainability of building industry in Abia State. This is with a view to the prevention of accidents in painting occupations in Abia State. The collected data was analyzed with mean and standard deviation. Research question and hypothesis guided the study. The area of the study was Umuahia capital territory Abia State with concentrations on the building industry in Umuahia urban capital city. The population of the study was 78 respondents which consisted of 40 employees of painting and 38 registered builders of the Nigerian Institute of Building Abia state Chapter. Since the population of the study is of manageable size, the seventy eight respondents were used for the study. Therefore, consensus sampling was used. The instrument for data collection was a structured questionnaire comprised of 27 items with five response options rating scale. The validation of the instrument was done by three experts who are building technology lecturers in Imo state University, Owerri. The reliability of the instrument was obtained by single administration of the instrument to 12 registered builders of the Nigerian Institute of Building Imo state Chapter Owerri and 16 employees of painting occupations in Owerri, Imo State. Cronbach Alpha was used to calculate the reliability coefficient of the study. This yielded internal consistency value of .82. The tested hypothesis at P< 0.05 level of significance showed that there was no significant differences on the mean rating of the respondents therefore the null hypothesis was up held. Recommendations among others was that painting employees should be exposed to safety practices through training and retraining aimed at prevention of accidents in the building industry.