From 1 September 2011 this year, the Workplace Safety and Health (WSH) Act will be extended to cover all places with a growing emphasis on workplace safety and health as the current Act only covers workplaces like factories, construction sites, shipyards, healthcare, hotels and restaurants.
Both employees and employers have the responsibility to practise WSH as employees who are well-learned in these areas will protect themselves as well as their working partners; at the same time, employers with good WSH records are likely to enjoy higher productivity.
In this light, the Labour Movement’s WSH secretariat aims to facilitate all Social Enterprises and unionised companies to be WSH-ready by collaborating with NTUC LearningHub Private Limited to roll out a series of workshops which, upon completion, will certify the workplaces to be WSH-ready. This initiative named - USafe@Work - was officially launched on 18 May 2011.
Also on the same day, NTUC was appointed as a Risk Management Assistance Fund agent to help qualified small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) apply for such funds when they engage Approved Risks Consultants to develop risk management in their enterprises.
NTUC Director of Quality Workforce and All Nationalities Yeo Guat Kwang was Guest-of-Honour at the event. Mr Yeo said that with this appointment, NTUC hopes to help more of our unionised companies and enterprises to build their risk management and WSH management systems.
“Since the WSH Act was enacted in March 2006 to replace the old Factories Act, it has been progressively expanded in scope to cover workplaces beyond the high-risk industries that are traditionally regarded as factories.
“With the passing of the amendment Bill on 11 April 2011, the final expansion of this Act will come into effect from 1 September 2011, when the Act will cover all workplaces including new sectors such as retail, education, entertainment, finance and insurance activities, public administration and services sectors. These diverse sectors employ about 46 per cent of our workforce. I am concerned that a majority of these businesses and workforce may be ill prepared,” he added.
The USafe@Work programme is thus an effort by the Labour Movement to guide both employers and employees towards building a safe work environment. The programme will first target the Social Enterprises and unionised companies; it offers several courses targeted at various levels within the organisation. It also offers courses such as occupational first aider course, fire warden course, and ergonomics
courses for WSH.
USafe also aims to build up WSH capability of the union leaders and members. The participants can enroll to attend courses and be certified with Workforce Skills Qualifications (WSQ) Certificate in WSH, WSQ Advanced Certificate in WSH or WSQ Specialist Diploma in WSH.
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USafe@Work Targets
The USafe@Work programme targets to achieve these goals:
• Outreach to at least 400 new sector unionised companies
• Train 100 WSQ WSH professionals
• Reach out to 650 unionised companies and all Social Enterprises to achieve bizSAFE 3
