Keeping our Workers and Workplaces Safe

ADJOURNMENT MOTION

The Deputy Leader of the House (Mr Zaqy Mohamad): Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, I beg to move, "That Parliament do now adjourn."

Question proposed.

Keeping our Workers and Workplaces Safe

Mr Deputy Speaker: Mr Melvin Yong.

7.36 pm

Mr Melvin Yong Yik Chye (Radin Mas): Mr Deputy Speaker, let me start by saying that it pains me to have to speak today on prioritising the safety of every worker.

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, or WSH.

Sir, it is alarming how the COVID-19 pandemic has seem to set our WSH practices back. Pre-COVID-19, we were witnessing a downward trend for workplace fatalities, where the workplace fatality rate had dropped from 1.9 per 100,000 workers in 2016, to 1.1 per 100,000 workers in 2019.

But COVID-19 seems to have undone all the hard work and strides that we have made. In 2021, we saw a spike in workplace accidents, injuries and fatalities, as companies rushed to clear the backlog of work caused by the pandemic.

Workers, who were quarantined for varying periods, returned to new worksite layouts, unfamiliar team members and constantly changing safe management measures at their worksites. Measures meant to keep them safe from the COVID-19 virus might have unwittingly raised the risk of an accident happening.

The tripartite partners recognised this and encouraged employers to conduct Safety Time-outs four times in the past 18 months – in December 2020, February and June 2021, and most recently in May this year.

While I am sure that the numerous Safety Time-outs have helped companies to re-evaluate their WSH practices and prevented an even sharper rise in workplace fatalities, the unfortunate truth is that workplace accidents, injuries and fatalities are still occurring at an alarming rate.

The Labour Movement is deeply concerned – and rightfully so. Every life lost 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, sacred and we must do all we can to uphold this.

Before I suggest how we can do better, let me first acknowledge what MOM has done in recent months to address the rise in workplace fatalities and injuries.

It is important to acknowledge that MOM has: one, increased the number of safety inspections; two, doubled the maximum composition fine for offences observed during inspections; 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; and four, is developing an Approved Code of Practice for Company Directors' WSH Duties.

While these are indeed important measures, the Government's actions alone are not enough. The Labour Movement, therefore, proposes five action areas to further improve WSH practices: one, establish safe and easy-to-use Reporting channels; two, partner the unions to enhance safety Inspections; three, step up safety Gearing of our workers; four, mandate Higher management's commitment to safety; and five, leverage Technology to enhance workplace safety.

Together, they make up the acronym RIGHT, R-I-G-H-T. Let me elaborate.

First, we must establish safe and easy-to-use reporting channels for anyone to report unsafe workplace practices. MOM's investigations into workplace fatalities often find that unsafe, unsupervised practices had been ongoing for a period of time. Those at the workplace would sometimes even say that is "normal practice".

In some cases, workers would tell us that the unsafe practices had been escalated to their supervisors, but nothing was done. Tragically, the inaction can lead to someone dying from a preventable accident.

We must therefore provide a better whistle-blowing channel – one that ensures the anonymity of whistle-blowers. We should make near-miss reporting more prevalent in the industry, as these are early warning signs of accidents to come.

We must also allow anyone, including members of public, to report unsafe workplace practices when they see them. In 2016, The New Paper reported how Mr Gusharen Singh snapped pictures of safety lapses at worksites and public spaces and alerted MOM through the Snap@MOM crowdsourcing app. How can we revive such practices? Could we consider leveraging the OneService mobile application to allow anyone to report unsafe work practices? After all, everyone has a part to play when it comes to safer workplaces.

Next, I hope that MOM can partner the unions to supplement their routine inspections. Since 2019, NTUC has been training our union leaders on WSH. Today, more than 1,000 union leaders have completed the courses. MOM could consider sharing the data received from feedback channels with NTUC and 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 alike to pay more attention to workplace safety.

In the public transport sector, the National Transport Workers' Union initiated the Rail Industry Safety and Health Community of Practice to enhance safety for our rail workers. Earlier this year, the union, together with LTA and the public transport operators, launched the Safety Champions initiative to empower frontline transport workers to proactively surface feedback and areas for improvement to enhance safety at the workplace. We should strive to replicate this model of tripartite collaboration in other industries.

Beyond doing one-off safety inspections, I hope that MOM will also regularly reinspect companies with poor WSH performance to ensure that sufficient safety measures have been implemented and prevent these companies from "relapsing" into poor WSH practices.

Third, workers should be properly geared at the workplace so that their safety is not compromised. This means companies must ensure that the work environment is safe and their workers are equipped with the proper safety equipment and be trained and certified to perform the work activity. I therefore urge MOM to make WSH training mandatory for all workers in high-risk sectors. NTUC LearningHub stands ready to offer training courses to all workers so that they can continually refresh their WSH knowledge.

Safety is a collective mindset. Beyond ensuring workers are well trained, we need also to ensure that supervisors and management are geared with the right WSH mindset. We can train someone to be the best lifting supervisor, but if his management does not appreciate the dangers involved, his hands could be tied if critical resources are not deployed for his safety needs.

In a recent interview with The Straits Times on 29 July, Minister Tan See Leng said that most workers who died at the workplace in the last few months were experienced staff and a factor driving up workplace fatalities involved employers pushing staff to catch up on the backlog of work. This just goes to show that even the most experienced of workers can fall victim if tiredness seeps in and causes a momentary lapse in concentration.

I would like to call for minimum rest hours for workers working in high-risk sectors to be legislated. If employers are pushing our workers to quite literally work towards their deaths, then we must surely act to stop this.

Next, buy-in from higher management is vital if we truly want WSH to be pervasive at the workplace. The culture at the top shapes practices on the ground.

In Australia, it is a legal requirement for company directors and business owners to ensure employees’ safety at the workplace. Company directors have been held liable for fatalities, such as a recent case in June 2020, where two directors of the Brisbane Auto Recycling Proprietary Limited were sentenced to jail when a worker was killed by a forklift operated by an unlicensed operator.

MOM is developing the Approved Code of Practice for Company Director’s WSH Duties. I would like to ask the Minister for an update – when will the Code be ready? Like Australia, we should seriously consider legislating the Code so that it will have legislative “teeth”. The bottom line is that company directors must not only be aware, but also act on their WSH roles and responsibilities.

Lastly, we should leverage technology, a key enabler to detect and prevent workplace accidents. Today, workplace safety technology has matured to a level that is possible to predict the risk of workplace accidents.

For example, sensors and wearables can alert management when a worker deviates into a restricted area, or when a worker slips, trips, or falls, allowing medical help to be dispatched quickly. Big data and predictive analytics provide the potential of predicting accidents before they even happen.

Some companies have already started to trial body-worn cameras for their workers. This is something that we should pursue especially in high-risk worksites. Body-worn cameras not only facilitates near-miss reporting and aids in post-incident investigations, but they also allow workers to be more conscious of their actions and behaviour at the worksite.

The cost of such technologies, however, can be prohibitive and it takes an enlightened management, usually large multinationals, to invest in them. We should help our SMEs adopt such technologies to improve their WSH outcomes.

MOM currently has the Workplace Safety and Health Institute (WSHI), a department that focuses on WSH trends and partners with stakeholders in the technology ecosystem to improve WSH outcomes. I hope MOM can elevate the WSH Institute into a national WSH Centre of Excellence.

The new centre should focus on lowering the adoption cost of new workplace safety technologies through demand aggregation and facilitate the deployment of such technologies in our SMEs. It is imperative that we do so as smaller companies cannot possibly hope to emulate the strong WSH practices of large companies without proper support. Government procurement can also lead by example and favour companies that adopt WSH technology as part of the tender bid.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I would like to conclude by reiterating my numerous calls over the years for every company to have a WSH representative, regardless of size and industry. This is already practised in Sweden today and we should implement this in Singapore too. Like the internal audit functions that many companies have, having a dedicated WSH representative will ensure that sufficient attention is dedicated to WSH issues, no matter how big or small. I therefore, sincerely hope that the MOM will consider my numerous proposals on this issue: make every company have a mandatory WSH representative.

Sir, our workers are an important pillar of our economy and they are vital to the continued success of our Singapore story. Every Worker Matters. Every Life Matters. Let us do what is RIGHT and ensure that our workers can go home safely at the end of every workday. [Applause.]

Mr Deputy Speaker: Senior Minister of State Zaqy Mohamad.

7.50 pm

The Senior Minister of State for Manpower (Mr Zaqy Mohamad): Mr Deputy Speaker, I thank the Member for his suggestions and I agree that we need to do what is right.

MOM is extremely concerned about the recent spate of workplace fatalities. We saw 31 fatalities since the start of 2022, compared to 37 for the whole of 2021 and 39 in 2019 pre-COVID-19.

Singapore has reached a stage of development where we can and we should be held to higher WSH standards. We made good progress to reduce workplace fatal injury rates from 2.1 per 100,000 workers in 2012, to 1.1 per 100,000 workers last year. Our goal remains to reduce workplace fatalities to less than 1 per 100,000 workers by 2028 on a sustainable basis and join just four countries that have achieved this. We have set high workplace safety standards in Singapore because we want all our workers to return home safely to their loved ones. This is not just an aspiration, but a shared mission with our tripartite partners and industry stakeholders

Since the higher fatality trend surfaced in April this year, MOM has ramped up inspections, imposed stiffer penalties and conducted Safety Time-outs.

In my response, I will share further measures to strengthen companies’ WSH ownership, step up inspections and enforcement, and raise awareness and promote WSH, so that more companies will want and will be equipped to do well by WSH.

The inculcation of a safety culture, which underpins safe workplaces must start with the top management. Managements set the tone, the culture and they also allocate resources within their organisations, which ultimately shape WSH practices on the ground.

To strengthen management commitment to WSH, we will be gazetting the Approved Code of Practice (ACOP) for Company Directors’ WSH Duties later this year. The law today already places WSH responsibilities on company leadership. With the ACOP, corporate leaders and Boards of Directors will be guided on their WSH responsibilities, including conducting ground engagements and communicating the need to prioritise WSH.

The Member asked about the legislative “teeth” of ACOP. In the event of a WSH Act offence, the Courts will consider the ACOP when assessing the culpability of a company, its leaders and its Board. They can and will be prosecuted if found to be culpable for safety lapses.

MOM has completed the first round of industry consultation and will commence public consultation this month. We are putting Managements and Boards on notice, that the ACOP is coming.

To further strengthen management commitment, MOM will harmonise the criteria for disqualifying contractors with poor workplace safety practices from public sector’s construction contracts. We are also reviewing the Demerit Point System to ensure errant contractors are sufficiently penalised. This includes debarring them from employing foreign employees for a period of time.

To provide transparency on companies’ safety records, CheckSafe on MOM’s website allows anyone, particularly developers and service buyers, to check safety track records before engaging contractors and vendors.

Inspections and enforcements form a key part of MOM’s efforts to uphold WSH. We conduct targeted inspections of companies in higher risk sectors such as construction, manufacturing, transportation and storage. Those with poor WSH performance are inspected more frequently.

Mr Deputy Speaker, our analysis of recent fatal accidents showed that many companies did not conduct their risk assessments or follow safe work procedures. This is disturbing. Simple and totally avoidable mistakes that resulted in loss of lives. I urge companies and workers to take these safety requirements seriously.

Our efforts go beyond enforcement. Our inspectors also spend time to advise companies on the WSH rectifications that are needed, so that they can learn and sustain improvements over a period of time.

I thank the Member for his kind offer to do more in support and I look forward to partnering NTUC to supplement MOM’s inspection and engagement efforts.

Sir, it is heartening to hear union leaders’ efforts to empower rail workers to surface WSH feedback. I encourage union leaders to rally company management to do more walkabouts and join them too, in this effort to strengthen WSH commitment.

Today, the MOM hotline and e-feedback are easily accessible to everyone. Information on these channels is prominently displayed on signboards at construction worksites. To raise awareness among migrant workers, MOM has also shared these channels via WSH Alerts on the FWMOMCare app and through our partners.

On Member’s OneService app suggestion, MOM is already exploring adding the MOM e-feedback function into another whole-of-Government app – we will let you know once that is ready.

Anyone, including members of the public, who witnesses safety lapses or poor safety practices should not be afraid to inform their management or to report them to MOM. MOM takes every report seriously. Out of 2,300 reports received in the past 12 months, around 62% of the follow-up inspections resulted in enforcements taken.

I wish to assure anyone who comes forward that there are existing safeguards to protect them. Their identities are kept confidential. Inspectors maintain this confidentiality strictly when they follow up with the companies. Under the WSH Act, employers cannot dismiss or threaten to dismiss workers who have reported WSH contraventions. MOM will not hesitate to take enforcement actions against those that do.

The Member spoke about requiring a WSH representative in every company beyond the higher risk companies. MOM is reviewing the coverage of the existing WSH personnel and will update the industry once we complete our review. For workplaces not already covered, we strongly encourage companies to identify employees or perhaps, even NTUC can recommend union leaders to take on these tasks.

I thank the Member for his suggestion to beef up WSH training for management and supervisors. Today, they are required to attend training on risk management as part of the bizSAFE programme. So, that requirement already exists for those on the bizSAFE programme. The WSH Council is already working with NTUC to develop micro-learning modules for worker refresher training. We plan to expand this to include relevant programmes for supervisors and management, so that they can lead their company’s safety culture more effectively.

The Member spoke about workplace fatigue. I agree that it can be a contributory factor of workplace accidents. The Member would be aware that there are existing protections under the Employment Act on the maximum number of hours that employees can work per day and per week, as well as the maximum number of overtime hours per month. I would encourage the unions and workers to keep MOM informed if there are contraventions to the Employment Act.

I also agree with the Member that WSH technology is a key enabler to detect and prevent workplace accidents. We are heartened to know that more companies are adopting WSH technology.

Members will be pleased to note that WSH technology solutions are incorporated in the Industry Digital Plans (IDPs) developed by Infocomm Media Development Authority and sector lead agencies. These are available to firms, including small and medium enterprises (SMEs). SMEs can tap on the Productivity Solutions Grant to adopt pre-approved solutions with up to 70% funding for qualifying costs, such as the e-Permit-to-Work which allows full visibility of high-risk work activities. To drive greater adoption, MOM will continue to work with the Government Procurement Entities to include suitable WSH technology into public sector tender specifications.

Mr Deputy Speaker, we have made good progress on WSH from a decade ago. The recent spate of accidents has been a setback, but I urge all Members in this House, boards, company leaders, industry associations, union leaders and our workers to continue to play our part in keeping up workplace safety and health.

We have made significant progress and we must take important lessons from this episode to build a safety culture that will endure for years to come. [Applause.]

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved, "That Parliament do now adjourn."

Adjourned accordingly at 8.01 pm.