Importance of safety management re-affirmed

The Commissioner for Labour, Mrs Pamela Tan Kam Mi-wah, today (December 6) re-affirmed the importance of adopting and implementing a safety management approach to the work safety and health in the construction industry. 

The Commissioner delivered a speech on the "Safety Management in the Construction Industry - the Asian Experience" at the Joint Safety Conference of Hong Kong Construction Association and the Safety Specialist Group of the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers today.

"Through a proper safety management system, we have not only saved a great many lives and limbs, but also achieved enormous cost savings through reduction in the costs of insurance premia, employees' compensation claims and various hidden costs, " Mrs Tan said.

"Any construction accident, however minor in nature, will incur a series of costs.  These include employees' compensation claims, fines and penalties from the Government, productive time loss of the injured worker and other members of the workforce. 

"A serious accident amid a chain sequence of construction work may even delay the project completion time which could have serious financial implications for contractors, " she explained.

In Hong Kong, 67,000 employee compensation cases were reported in 1998, and, amongst them, 62,000 non-fatal cases with sick leave exceeding three days and 130 fatal cases were settled as at the end of 1999.  A sum of $1.1 billion was payable as compensation to the injured employees or dependants of deceased employees.  The number of work days lost totalled 1.69 million. 

"There are, in addition, other hidden costs that are hard to quantify, but nonetheless real," Mrs Tan said, adding that they included suffering and pains to the injured workers and their families, loss of ability to earn a living, depression of staff morale, the need to re-schedule work and the adverse company image caused by a fatal accident. A civil suit resulting from serious injuries can cost millions of dollars to employers, she said.

Many regions in Asia were already aware of the values of a safety management system, she said, noting that China, Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong have all had made a lot of effort in promoting such systems in the construction sector. 

On the safety performance in Hong Kong, Mrs Tan said the accident figure of the construction industry had not been satisfactory.  During 1990 to 1999, the number of construction accidents recorded an annual average of 18,400, which is approximately 41 per cent of all accidents in the industrial sectors. 

However, Mrs Tan said, "I am pleased to report that the number of accidents for the construction industry fell from 19,600 in 1998 to 14,100 in 1999, representing a notable decrease of 28 per cent.  The accident rate per thousand workers in 1999 also dropped by 20 per cent."

The number of work injuries and the accident rate in the first half of this year have also come down by 17 per cent and 23 per cent respectively when compared with the same period of 1999, she noted. 

"The significant improvement in safety records shows that the concerted efforts of the Government, the industry, the employers and employees at large are beginning to bear fruits, and I am very pleased about this," she said.

"However, I must, at the same time, emphasize that we must not be complacent nor relax our efforts in promoting occupational safety and health in Hong Kong.  If anything, we must continue to step up our efforts to bring the accident toll to a minimum," She continued.

On the safety and health at work worldwide, Mrs Tan said, according to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the economic losses of occupational accidents are equivalent to 4 per cent of the world's gross national product.

According to the ILO, over one million work-related deaths occur annually.  In other words, 3,000 people are killed at work every day, or 2 every minute.  Deaths in the workplace exceed the average annual deaths from road accidents (999,000 deaths a year), from war (502,000 deaths a year), from violence (563,000 deaths a year) or from HIV/AIDS (312,000 deaths a year).

In addition, workers suffer an estimated 250 million occupational accidents and 160 million occupational diseases each year.  This means that there are, on average, 685,000 accidents every day, or 475 every minute, or 8 every second.

"I need not stress that the ILO figures are alarming.  It is, therefore, all the more important that we continue to take concrete action with all our efforts to fight the battle," Mrs Tan said.

The themes of today's Joint Safety Conference are safety management, safe work cycle, safety audit, hazardous identification activity and Construction (Design and Management) Regulation.

"The conference helps enhance the safety and health awareness of the construction industry and also provides a forum for mutual learning and experience sharing among project managers, consultants, safety professionals and personnel in the industry to upgrade the safety and health performance. 

"With the concerted efforts of all the professions, I firmly believe that the safety scene in the construction industry will be further improved," Mrs Tan said.