Mr Speaker, in August 2022, I filed an adjournment motion and spoke about the need for us to prioritise the safety of every worker. The Labour Movement was concerned that the COVID-19 pandemic had seemingly undone all the good workplace safety and health (WSH) practices nurtured over many years. The rush that many companies embarked on to clear the backlog of work had resulted in a spike in workplace accidents, injuries, and fatalities.
In my speech then, I had proposed five action areas to further improve WSH practices:
Establish safe and easy-to-use Reporting channels;
Partner the unions to enhance safety Inspections;
Step up safety Gearing of our workers;
Mandate Higher Management’s commitment to safety; and
Leverage Technology to enhance workplace safety.
These five areas make up the acronym: RIGHT.
In response, MOM instituted the Heightened Safety Period (HSP) in September 2022. I think we can all agree that the measures imposed under the HSP were unprecedented, tough, but effective.
Effects of the HSP
In his speech at the annual WSH Awards last month, SMS Zaqy provided an update on the workplace fatality rate. For the first half of 2023, the annualised fatality rate per 100,000 workers was about 0.8. This was a significant improvement from a rate of 1.3 in the second half of 2022, and about 1.6 in the first half of 2022.
Clearly, the additional WSH obligations and increased penalties against errant companies imposed by MOM as part of the HSP had undoubtedly worked well in driving down workplace fatalities. Notable features of the HSP included increased penalties for safety breaches, senior management having to account personally for serious safety lapses and barring errant companies from hiring foreign workers for up to 3 months.
Towards the end of the HSP, the Labour Movement was concerned that workplace fatalities could rise if we were to exit the HSP prematurely. In May this year, I filed a Parliamentary Question asking if the MOM could extend the HSP. I was concerned that the strong safety culture imposed by company management during HSP did not have the necessary lead time to sink in and take root. Sir, it takes years to build a collective and strong WSH culture. Lifting the HSP after just 8 months could undo all our hard work.
MOM eventually decided to lift the HSP from 1 June 2023, while retaining some of the HSP features, such as the enhanced penalties and requiring senior management to account personally for serious safety lapses. Unfortunately, my fears seem to become true.
Based on NTUC’s internal tracking, within just three months of exiting the HSP, 13 workers tragically lost their lives between June and August 2023. I must caveat that this is not an official figure, as the cases are a collation of inputs from our unions and associations.
Subject to MOM’s confirmation of the statistics, this would mean that the fatality rate had gone up from about 2.3 cases per month during the Heightened Safety Period to an alarming 4.3 cases per month in the three months post-HSP.
Sir, these fatalities are not just statistics. Every worker is a father or mother, a son or daughter, a brother or sister. They leave behind loved ones who mourn their passing – loved ones who have to deal with the sudden and unexpected loss of a key breadwinner of the family. Closure will be hard to find.
This is why I have filed my second Adjournment Motion today, on keeping our workplaces safe beyond the Heightened Safety Period.
Keeping workplaces SAFE beyond the HSP
Mr Speaker, I have four suggestions on how the Government and the industry can work together to do so. In my first adjournment motion last year, I used the acronym “RIGHT” to encapsulate my five recommendations. My acronym today is “SAFE”, which stands for:
Safety by design;
All workplaces to have a dedicated WSH professional;
Financial penalties to augment composition fines and Stop Work Orders; and
Enforcement checks of unsafe workplace practices.
Safety by design
First, safety by design. This is a set of principles that prioritises the safety of workers when designing the worksite. Today, MOM has in place the WSH (Design for Safety) Regulations that specifies the duties of developers, contractors, and designers.
This should be reviewed and expanded. The scope of obligations should cover risks beyond just the construction phase. All workplaces, from blue-collar to white-collar jobs, should have a continued obligation to design and provide a workplace that prioritises the safety of the workers.
“Safety by design” considerations could include simple things, such as proper lighting to prevent eye strain and even adopting anti-slip flooring materials to avoid slips, trips, and falls. Under our current law, the Workplace Safety and Health (Risk Management) Regulations state that employers are responsible for identifying safety and health hazards at workplaces and taking measures to eliminate or reduce the risks.
But, Sir, we must move away from this mental model of looking at risks and hazards as things to be managed away. Instead, companies need to actively put safety at the forefront of designing their worksites and offices. Companies that design workplaces for employees’ safety will send a strong message to their employees that they care as an employer, and will be rewarded with a healthier and more productive workforce.
In the United States, the Occupational Safety and Health Law does place a continuing obligation on employers to provide a safe workplace, regardless of whether the sector is deemed to be high-risk. I hope that the MOM could study relevant overseas jurisdictions and expand regulations to impose safety by design on all employers.
All workplaces need a dedicated WSH professional
Next, all workplaces need a dedicated WSH professional.
Mr Speaker, I have spoken for years about the need to impose an obligation for all workplaces to hire dedicated WSH officers, beyond the limited settings today. I am confident that mandating a WSH officer to review all aspects of safety in a company will help move the needle in making workplaces that much safer.
Even if we cannot immediately move to mandate all workplaces to hire a dedicated WSH professional, we can, and we should, start by expanding the list of companies that are required to employ one.
Take for example, our logistics and transportation sector, which accounted for four fatalities in 2021, one fatality in 2022, and five thus far this year. Although classified as a high-risk sector, logistics companies are not required to appoint a WSH officer. This is inconsistent with other high-risk sectors.
Financial penalties
Next, I propose that we should increase the financial penalties faced by companies in the event of a workplace fatality. Currently, penalties for errant companies mostly involve composition fines and Stop Work Orders. I argue that this is insufficient.
I propose for all Government agencies to include a WSH clause in every condition of their respective licenses. Take for example, the construction sector. A construction company is at risk of being debarred under the Demerit Point System (DPS) should the company have frequent safety infringements. The DPS concept should be expanded to all companies that are licensed in some shape or form by any Government agency. This can be done by inserting WSH-related clauses into licensing conditions.
Sir, today many large-scale construction projects in Singapore are carried out by joint venture companies – several individual firms pulling resources to establish a new legal entity. In line with this trend, workplace accidents at such worksites are also becoming commonplace. Can MOM confirm if penalties imposed on workplace safety breaches accrue to the joint venture or to the individual companies that form that joint venture? Does MOM have a disqualification framework to disqualify a company director, and any associates that he may use as a proxy, from setting up a new company after one company had been debarred for safety breaches by MOM?
Enforcement of unsafe work practices
Lastly, I urge the MOM to further tighten enforcement of unsafe work practices. Whenever there is a workplace accident or fatality, it is very common to hear anecdotally that the particular unsafe work practice had been happening regularly, sometimes for months and years in some cases.
While I note that MOM has been stepping up its enforcement operations, there is always scope to do more because lives and limbs are at stake. We must step up enforcement checks more frequently to deter companies from cutting corners in WSH practices. And, as I have mentioned numerous times in this House, we must make it easier for workers and members of the public to whistle blow and flag unsafe workplace practices. It should take no more than a snap of a picture and a short description of the egregious activity on a mobile application, for anyone to flag out a potentially life-threatening and unsafe workplace practice.
Conclusion
Mr Speaker, the suggestions that I have laid out are simple to follow. By doing what is SAFE and RIGHT, we can make our workplaces much safer.
The Labour Movement stands ready to partner all our tripartite partners to keep our workplaces safe beyond the HSP. To complement this year’s national WSH campaign, NTUC will be launching our own WSH campaign later this week on Friday, with a focus on reporting without reprisal, on reporting without retribution. Workers must feel safe to report any workplace safety concerns to the management. Workers can escalate any WSH matters to their unions if the company management fails to act on any safety reports.
A safe workplace must be a basic right for every worker!
Sir, I hope that this will be my last adjournment motion related to workplace safety. I urge the Government and the industry to take workplace safety and health seriously, work closely with the NTUC and do what is SAFE and RIGHT.
Together, we can help every worker return home from work safe and sound, every day.
Thank you.
