NTUC News 25 Mar 2005

THE Minister for Manpower (MOM) has just announced that there will be a new regulatory framework on health and safety. A new Workplace Safety and Health Act will replace the existing Factories Act. Dr Ng Eng Hen stressed on the need for a “quantum leap” in our safety standards which have “stagnated”.

In the first 21/2 months of this year alone, 12 workers died in workplace accidents. This is a terrible waste of human lives but which may not even give us the complete picture of the total number of failures, as we have not yet factored in the number of deaths due to occupational health and diseases over the years.

So, we need a fundamental rethink in our approach to health and safety. What is the key difference? Under the new framework a total systems approach is proposed in dealing with health and safety at work, whereas the existing law primarily seeks to regulate behaviour through sanctions. This does not mean that laws and sanctions are no longer necessary. On the contrary, under the proposed framework penalties for offences will increase.

Indeed in countries that have adopted such a framework, such as the UK, compliance with the law is the absolute minimum but not the be all and end all. This requirement for compliance is also supported by a strong inspection system although health and safety inspectors play an expanded role and, other than just ensuring compliance with the law, they would also ensure that there is a workplace health and safety system designed, for instance, and complied with.

Hence, although the Ministerial statement mentioned three times about self-regulation by industry, what this really means is that industry is required to put in place a system to identify risks along the whole chain from design to production, and work out effective steps to minimise them including ensuring compliance with the law.

Self-regulation in this context does not mean that industry will now come out with its own rules and regulate itself much like a voluntary code of practice, although it would have been less confusing if the word self-regulate is not used as it does conjure different meanings in people’s minds.

So, what else is new under the proposed framework? In addition to the need for a safety system at the workplace, a new Workplace Health and Safety Council will be set up. This Council will act as the overarching policy body where the key stakeholders, i.e. government, companies, unions, manufacturers, engineers, OHS experts, academics etc, identify priorities on health and safety and develop time bound programmes to achieve the desired outcomes. Our national priority defined by MOM recently is to reduce deaths at workplaces by a third in five years, and by half within a decade or sooner.
 
Other examples in other countries where such a framework exists include Australia, which in May 2002 declared a strategy to reduce work-related fatalities by 20% by 2012 (long-term) and by 10% by 2007(mid-term). One of the goals under the Japanese five-year plan (2003-2007) is to reduce cases of serious occupational diseases such as pneumoconiosis and occupational cancers, and eradicate anoxia and carbon monoxide poisoning, which often result in fatal accidents. One of the UK government’s priorities identified in 1999 was to reduce the number of working days lost per 100,000 workers from work-related injury and ill health by 30% by 2010.

What is the advantage of having a Workplace Safety and Health Council? A key benefit, as I see it, is that it raises the profile of health and safety and places it as a top priority at the workplace and on the national agenda. In this way it also ensures a buy in from all the stakeholders, as everyone is committed to do their part in keeping the workplace safe. The Council will also provide a forum for a regular review of our OHS situation and identify concerns as well as develop strategies before they become major problems.

Apart from the total systems approach that is adopted, what is the real change that we hope to see under the new framework? We hope to see a mindset change about OHS, that is, safety is everyone’s business. In other words, we hope to see a new health and safety culture developing.

What does a health and safety culture mean? At the 2003 International Labour Conference, this was defined as:

“A national preventative safety and health culture is one in which the right to a safe and healthy working environment is respected at all levels, where governments, employers and workers actively participate in securing a safe and healthy working environment through a system of defined rights, responsibilities and duties, and where the principle of prevention is accorded the highest priority.”

So, is the new regulatory framework on health and safety the panacea of all ills? Not really, as health and safety issues are evolving all the time in line with technological change, use of new substances at work and even the impact of competitive pressures on production and work.

Even the UK – which adopted the Health and Safety at Work Act in 1974 and is considered as holding among the world’s best safety records – deemed it necessary to launch a fresh initiative to promote OHS in 1999, entitled Revitalising Health and Safety. This arose because of their concern over the high death rates due to cancer caused by exposure to harmful substances, and the continued loss of 40 million working days in 2001-2002 and 18 billion pounds annually due to failures.

Indeed this points to the need for continued vigilance even after the new regulatory framework is introduced. Nevertheless, the new law will be a new beginning and a new springboard for us to achieve better health and safety standards in Singapore. We owe that to our workers.