Safety Measures at Construction Sites Given Recent Spate of Accidents

Assoc Prof Tan Kheng Boon Eugene asked the Acting Minister for Manpower (a) whether there is a general malaise towards workplace safety and health among key stakeholders; and (b) what plans does the Ministry have to enhance workplace safety and health standards, norms and values among stakeholders beyond increasing penalties.

Thank you. My Ministry shares the concern of the House over the recent spate of accidents in construction sites. Let me first briefly give an update on the state of safety in the construction industry.

We have made steady improvements since we overhauled the national Workplace Safety and Health (WSH) framework in 2005. Injury rates in the construction industry fell from over 1,200 per 100,000 workers in 2005 to around 480 per 100,000 employees in 2012. Similarly, the fatality rates dropped from 11.9 per 100,000 employees in 2005 to 5.9 per 100,000 employees in 2012.

However, starting from around the second half of 2013, we began to see a decline in WSH performance. In those six months, there were 22 construction workplace fatalities. This was twice as many fatalities compared to the first half of the year, and five more compared to the same period in 2012. This worrying

Page: 21

trend continued into 2014, with eight out of the nine workplace fatalities in January coming from the construction industry alone. MOM stepped up its inspections over the last two weeks of January and uncovered 114 contraventions of the WSH Act at 89 construction worksites. A total of seven Stop Work Orders, 45 Composition Fines and 69 Notices of Non-Compliance were issued.

Feedback from industry indicates that the recent spate in construction accidents could be due to two contributing factors. First, companies are rushing to complete construction projects on time, as the demand for construction activities continue to rise. Second, a tighter labour market could have contributed to companies overstretching their workers.

However, regardless of the constraints faced by the industry, there should not be any compromises where safety and lives are concerned.

Many of these accidents are preventable if rules and safety procedures provided in the law are followed. For example, legal obligations are imposed on contractors to engage Professional Engineers (PEs) to design and supervise the erection of formwork systems for concrete structures with higher risk. This includes concrete structures that are more than 300 mm thick or more than 9 metres high. The risk of formwork collapses can be avoided if PEs design the formwork adequately, ensures that the formwork structures built are inspected and certify that they are safe for use before any concreting commences.

I note that Ms Mary Liew had asked a related question for written answer* for which I would like to address here because it is related to the two Parliamentary Questions (PQs) asked by our two Members.

**Question subsequently withdrawn – Ms Mary Liew: to ask the Acting Minister for Manpower in view of the recent spate of construction site accidents, whether the Ministry will (i) review the role and obligations of professional engineers in the design and construction processes; and (ii) implement measures for accountability if professional engineers are culpable for negligence resulting in construction site accidents." for sitting on or after 20 February 2014.*

In response to the series of formwork related accidents in January this year, my Ministry had issued an advisory to PEs to remind them of their obligations. My Ministry takes a firm stance to any contraventions by PEs, and will not hesitate to take them to task if they are found to have violated their duties under the WSH Act. We will also refer them to the PE Board for any possible

Page: 22

contravention under the Professional Engineers Act.

To ensure that companies do not undertake work at the expense of the safety of their workers, my Ministry will adopt a multi-prong strategy on both the enforcement and regulatory fronts.

First, to provide adequate deterrence, my Ministry will continue to apply for stronger penalties for cases where there are serious breaches of the law. We have in severe cases obtained fines of up to $200,000 against employers who have failed in their duties. We will also ask for custodial sentences on individuals who have blatantly disregarded the law and press for maximum sentencing as allowed under the WSH Act for egregious cases.

Second, MOM will tighten the conditions for lifting of a Stop Work Order (SWO). This is to ensure that companies resolve specific as well as systemic lapses through the effective implementation of their WSH management system. New conditions for lifting the SWO may include the conduct of refresher training on any areas of weaknesses as well as re-audit of the WSH management system.

Third, we will expand the scope of the Business Under Surveillance (BUS) Programme to more companies that require assistance to address serious systemic weaknesses in their WSH Management Systems. The BUS Programme is a strategic enforcement programme that targets poor performing companies for close monitoring and supervision. Companies in the programme will be required to thoroughly review their WSH system and processes, with their WSH performance closely monitored by my Ministry. Companies can exit from BUS only upon fulfilment of the action plan and demonstrate improvements in its WSH performance and management. To help these companies sustain their WSH improvements, MOM will start them on a WSH culture building journey, leveraging on the WSH Council's CultureSAFE programme.

Fourth, we will review and strengthen the Demerit Points System. The Demerit Points System was first introduced in Year 2000 to identify contractors with poor work practices and restrict their access to foreign manpower if there is no improvement in their safety records. Demerit points are issued to contractors or sub-contractors for breaches under the WSH Act and relevant subsidiary legislation. Information on the changes will be released after the review is completed by the middle of this year.

Page: 23

As we step up our enforcement actions, we will continue to extend support to smaller construction worksites through assistance programmes such as the Safety Compliance Assistance Visits (SCAV). The SCAV involves appointed WSH professionals visiting and providing onsite practical guidance at worksites. Last year, 800 SCAV visits were conducted and the industry has requested for more, and we are happy to work with them. My Ministry recognises the value and need for these services and will be doubling the number to 1,600 SCAV visits this year.

Mdm Speaker, these measures, while necessary, will not be effective without the involvement of all stakeholders in the construction value chain taking proactive ownership for workplace safety. These include the developers, designers, professional engineers, contractors, sub-contractors, project managers, supervisors as well as workers. The WSH Council, through its Construction and Landscape Committee, is proactively engaging all these stakeholders through various programmes to address this challenge together. One such initiative is Design for Safety, which involves the developers, designers and other project stakeholders working together from the start of the project to ensure that construction, maintenance and even demolition safety have been taken into consideration at the design stage, before construction even starts.

The Singapore Contractors Association Ltd (SCAL) has also implemented a SCAL Safety Site Visits programme where the more established contractors help educate the less established ones on how to manage safety at the worksites. This is done through briefings and site visits hosted by the more established contractors' worksites. Such an initiative bodes well for the industry and I encourage more contractors to participate in this programme.

Indeed, the involvement of the Developer is key to good WSH performance in a construction project. A good example can be seen in the construction projects for the London 2012 Olympics. From the onset of the projects, the developer, Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) set a goal of achieving "Zero Harm" and put in place several initiatives to align all project stakeholders towards the goal. As a result of the strong WSH commitment by ODA and collaborations with other stakeholders, the project achieved zero workplace fatality. This was the first Olympic construction programme to have achieved this and was not easy considering that an estimated 75,000 companies were involved in this mega project.

Madam, allow me to conclude by reiterating that Workplace Safety and Health is everyone's responsibility. MOM will continue to work closely with the

Page: 24

industry to raise WSH standards but we will take stern action against errant stakeholders.

Thank you, Madam. I have two supplementary questions for the Senior Parliamentary Secretary. The first question is whether MOM sees a link between workers' health and workplace safety, and whether it will establish requirements for companies to check that workers are indeed fit before they start work, because unfit ones can pose a danger to themselves and others. The second question is whether the Government will consider using record of workplace safety as a factor for approving building projects and also tenders for Government projects.

Madam, the short answer to both questions is yes. I think many companies are involved in the health programmes initiated by MOH and HPB, and MOM and HPB are working very closely on this matter. I would take it that most companies would not allow their workers to work if they are not fit, because they can be a danger to themselves and to other fellow workers. On whether the Government is using WSH record, yes, all Government agencies take the safety records of all contractors bidding for Government projects into consideration and they all know this.

Mdm Speaker, I have two supplementary questions for the Senior Parliamentary Secretary. The first question is whether the current approach of promoting WSH is working. It would seem as though when it comes to the crunch of tight deadlines and a tight labour market, the current methods do not seem to work as well. The Senior Parliamentary Secretary has gone through what I call the "bold strokes" – enhanced penalties, stop work orders and all – but how do you encourage all the stakeholders to go on the "long march" of imbibing the norm of safety at the workplace? I think that is important. My second question is how do you get the stakeholders to recognise that safety is actually a key productivity driver.

Madam, if we take a look at the safety records in the last seven or eight years, I think we can establish that we have done quite well. Since we revamped our regulations and the law, as well as the approach towards improving safety at workplaces, we have made much improvement. We had seen a plateau in safety performance and we are addressing it. We saw a huge increase in the number of fatalities in the construction industry in the second half of last year, and we are now addressing it. I think the approach, in general, in getting the industry involved through the WSH Council and for industry

Page: 25

associations to take a lead role in reaching out to their fellow members as well as the regulations are working. But what we need to do is to ensure that the errant ones, the repeated violaters, will understand that they cannot get away with it, and that will send a very strong signal to the others to ensure that the workers will continue to work in a safe environment.

As to whether we can improve further the approach in deepening the culture of safety, the answer is yes. I have mentioned earlier in my reply that we have a programme called CultureSAFE. This will require a lot of learning and a lot of teaching of the workers. It has to start right from the top to bottom and it has also to be initiated bottom up. It is not easy but we recognise that if it can work elsewhere, it can work here as, indeed, it has shown some improvement in all the industries in Singapore. We have seen some decline in performance, and I think we can work with the industry to address it.

Whether companies will take WSH record as a key productivity driver, I think it will take some time for this to sink in. But, certainly, as in my reply to Ms Foo earlier, contractors know that both safety performance and safety record are taken into consideration when they bid for Government-linked projects. And I think they know the cost of not maintaining a good safety environment for their workers.

Madam, many of the accidents actually involved foreign workers. I would like to ask the Ministry whether it will do a more focused review and whether it has plans to help this group of workers to understand, identify and, if need be, blow the whistle on any WSH risk at work, so that they can avoid compromising on their safety just for the deadline or the work target required by their employers.

Thank you. I think this is a good question. We recognise that a large number of workers in the construction industry, in particular, are foreigners. Indeed, the employers normally engage workers from the same country, who speak the same language as the supervisors, and when they conduct toolbox meeting before the workers start working, it is always conducted in the languages of the workers. I think we will encourage workers to blow the whistle. In fact, the workers have the right to not work if they find that the environment they work in is not safe. They can report it to the management and they can actively work with management to ensure that the unsafe environment is removed before they start work.

Page: 26