Labor Relations: Ozyegin University has a human resources policy promoting employee satisfaction and loyalty through protective human resources applications and professional development, reflecting the University’s multidimensional vision as an egalitarian approach free from any discrimination based on language, religion, race or gender. Employees work through individual contracts although freedom of association is not prohibited or discouraged. The University management reported that there is an open door policy and the staff are free to raise issues also through the employee satisfaction surveys. Ozyegin University will review its internal Human Resources procedures to include formally a structured internal grievance redress mechanisms for its staff as well as its contractors and will ensure that all IFC Performance Standard 2 (PS2) requirements are formalized within the policy and procedures.
The total number administrative and academic staff is currently 425. By September 2014, it is expected to be approximately 578. Operational services including maintenance, catering, cleaning, communication, transportation, security, copy and printing are supplied by contractors with a total number of employees amounting to 160. The contractor activities at operational buildings are supervised by the Manager of Administrative Services. No retrenchment is anticipated by the project since Ozyegin University is at expansion phase
At the time of the IFC’s visit, on-going Phase II construction at Cekmekoy Campus was undertaken by two main contractor companies with the size of the workforce amounting to 500 workers. 40% of the contractors’ workforce was coming from their own accommodation. The rest were housed at the temporary accommodation units in nearby land, provided by the contractors for their workers.
Occupational Health and Safety: Ozyegin University has in place several programs to ensure occupational health and safety for the employees in its operational campus buildings.
Ozyegin University is targeting OHSAS 18001 certification of its operations. In this context, formal health and safety risk assessments will be conducted and reviewed regularly. Electromagnetic exposure survey will be part of the risk assessment program and will be conducted by agreed experts, as high voltage transmission lines transit the location of the new campus buildings. The expansion project includes operation of a power center and medium-voltage distribution system within the campus area.
The University has already in place good hygiene monitoring programs which will be equally implemented in the new buildings. In addition to the existing potable water and food safety programs, pool water safety programs will be developed prior to the operation of the Phase II buildings.
Cekmekoy Campus buildings of the Ozyegin University have been designed targeting the provision of high level indoor air quality. In this context, natural ventilation or more than 30% inc
rease of fresh air rates compared to ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers) 62.1 standard will be provided. Measures to maintain high level indoor quality and comfort include; dedicated air handling units (AHUs) with high efficiency F7 (MERV13) filtration media at mechanically ventilated areas, thermal comfort levels compliant with ASHRAE 55, acoustical measures throughout the facility, no smoking inside the buildings, low VOC emitting materials throughout the building, implementation of a legionella control program.
Robust preventive maintenance programs are already in place in the operational buildings of the University. The programs will be equally implemented in the new buildings. The university management will ensure that at all campuses, safety critical equipment such as pressurized vessels including boilers are operated by certified operators as required by the regulations.
Ozyegin University employs full time doctors in its HR department for staff and students for whom medical emergency services are available day and night.
For the one year period ending September 1, 2012, the construction contractor had a lost time incident frequency rate (‘LTIFR’ = lost time incidents per million hours worked) of 8.4, which is below the 11.0 benchmark for the United States construction industry (
http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/osh/os/ostb2813.pdf). In the months from September 2012 to June 2013, the LTIFR went down to 7.4. The incidence rate (incidence rate = total lost workdays x 200,000/ total hours worked), which incorporates the number of days lost into the measure went down from 26.2 for the one year period ending September 1, 2012 to 11.2 for the 10 month period ending June 2013. This latter figure is still above the US benchmark of 2.7 for the construction industry. Ozyegin University will ensure that strong occupational health and safety practices are extended to the contractor work, particularly at construction sites where the use of personal protective equipment needs to be improved. The contractors will control access to their construction sites so that only properly attired and trained workers are present during working hours. Labor camps and occupational health unit will be operated in line with the regulations. First aid and other emergency response teams will be established both for construction and operational phase after provision of certified trainings to the staff.
Ozyegin University will include in all contractor agreements the rules on occupational health and safety and other working conditions, in accordance with the IFC’s Performance Standard 2 requirements and will establish regular inspection mechanisms to ensure full compliance to the contract requirements for construction and operational phase contractors.