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Brother Zaqy Mohamad, Senior Minister of State for Manpower and Defence,
Brothers and sisters on the NTUC central committee and from our WSH fraternity,
Good afternoon and welcome to our annual U Safe Forum and Awards! It has been a rough year keeping our workers and workplaces safe as we continue to navigate our way out of the pandemic. I'm glad that we can gather in person once again, to share best practices on workplace safety and health and to remind ourselves of the importance of placing safety as a topmost priority at our workplaces.
As we are all aware, our WSH performance in the first half of 2022 was not good. In fact, it was the worst since 2016, with 28 workplace fatalities recorded in the first half of 2022. As at 31st October yesterday, a total of 40 workplace fatalities had been recorded, exceeding the 37 fatalities recorded for the whole of 2021.
Brother and sisters, as union leaders, we know that a workplace fatality should never be viewed as a number or a statistic, because it has tremendous impact on the lives of those survived by the deceased worker, especially if he or she was a sole breadwinner.
In Singapore where we pride ourselves on being efficient and attentive in all that we do, we certainly need to do more and do better in workplace safety and health. The Labour Movement is deeply concerned with the continued rise in workplace accidents and rightfully so because every life loss is one too many. Injuries sustained because of a workplace accident can also have lifelong debilitating effects. The right to a safe workplace is fundamental, is sacred. And we must do all we can to uphold this.
This year, the organisers have adopted 'Strengthening the Fundamentals' as the theme for this forum. Because preliminary investigations into the recent workplace fatalities show that the loss of lives in many instances were avoidable if basic WSH measures have been put in place and adhered to.
Some examples include:
a. Worker not wearing appropriate footwear while working on a ladder.
b. Using the forklift as a working platform to lift workers to carry out a task Instead of using a proper working platform such as the scaffolding.
c. Failure to use fall arrest equipment while working at height.
d. Standing in a line of movement or impact when driving heavy machinery, and
e. A lack of basic site supervision to ensure safe practices.
These are fundamental WSH gaps that businesses should have considered during a risk management process. Unfortunately, in many of these cases, the risk controls were not put in place or implemented properly, resulting in the undue loss of lives.
Before I suggest how we can do better, let me acknowledge what the Ministry of Manpower has done in recent months to address the rise in workplace fatalities and injuries. It is important to acknowledge that MOM has:
a. One, increased the number of safety inspections, especially in the months just before this.
b. Two, doubled the maximum proposition fine for offences observed during inspections. I'm sure many of you have read the newspaper yesterday, think that the amount of fines have been unprecedented that has been imposed by MOM.
c. Three, required companies that have been issued stop work orders or have had workers sustained major injuries to engage external auditors to review their WSH practices. I think this is a very important measure.
d. Four, issued an Approved Code of Practice (ACOP) for company directors which spells out their WSH duties, and
e. Five, more recently, MOM imposed a six month Heightened Safety Period when the CEO himself or herself will need to account personally to MOM in the event of a workplace fatality or serious WSH lapses enacted.
While these are important measures, the government's action alone are not enough. The Labour Movement therefore had proposed five action areas to further improve WSH practices. They are:
a. One, established safe and easy to use reporting channels
b. Two, partner the unions to enhance safety inspections
c. Three, step up safety gearing of our workers
d. Four, mandate higher management's commitment to safety, and
e. Five, leverage technology to enhance workplace safety.
Together these five action areas make up the acronym R.I.G.H.T. I had spoken at length on the five action areas in parliament in August so I will not go into detail. This afternoon I'd like to focus on how NTUC and our affiliated unions should continue to play an important role to improve workplace safety and health.
Studies done overseas have shown that unions' efforts and better workplace safety outcomes are intrinsically linked. This could also be seen in our local contexts. Out of the 40 workplace fatalities recorded this year, majority of these incidents involve workers from non-unionised companies or sub-contractors at workplaces occupied by non-unionised companies. The studies attributed the better WSH outcomes in unionised companies to two factors. One, unionised workers were more willing to speak up on safety matters. And two, unions were better able to influence the employers to prioritise safety at the workplace.
Brothers and sisters, as union leaders, as workplace safety practitioners, and advocates, we can make a difference to minimise workplace accidents, organise ourselves to work with our companies to set up workplace safety committees, train ourselves in risk assessment to be better able to identify safety gaps at our workplace, monitor and track every accident and near miss reported at the workplace and work closely with the management to put in place measures to make sure that it does not happen again.
Since 2019, NTUC has been training our union leaders or WSH. Today, more than 1000 union leaders have completed the training courses. We have asked MOM to consider sharing the data received from their various feedback channels with NTUC so that our union leaders can partner MOM in stepping up safety inspections, at these companies. Having union leaders will add an element of moral suasion to MOM's inspections and help convince workers and supervisors to pay more attention to workplace safety.
Since May 2022, NTUC has also embarked on a new pilot programme to work with specific unionised companies to identify WSH gaps and recommend additional interventions to strengthen their safety management.
Specifically, we've also looked to introduce them WSH technology solutions to support these companies in incident detection and prevention. So far, more than 10 companies can embark on this programme, and will continue to reach out to more companies in the coming months. So if your company is keen to participate and partner with NTUC, please step forward. Very easy, just look for my colleagues in the red colour tee shirt, and then we will keep you connected to the right people.
So before I conclude, I'd like to take this opportunity to congratulate all our award winners today for your exemplary efforts in keeping our workers safe and healthy. I hope that we can continue to inspire more companies to do the same. I would also like to convey my appreciation to the presenters who will be sharing with us their insights later on What we can do better to prevent accidents from happening in our workplaces.
Brothers and sisters, our workers are an important pillar of our economy, and they are vital in the continued success of our Singapore Story. So let us work together and do what's right, R.I.G.H.T, so that we can achieve safer and healthier workplaces for every worker. Because as we all know, every worker matters every live matters.
Thank you very much.
