Workplace Fatalities Among Sub-contractors

93 Mr Melvin Yong Yik Chye asked the Minister for Manpower (a) whether there is a trend of workplace fatalities happening among sub-contractors; and (b) what else can be done to help companies strengthen their workplace safety practices other than conducting a voluntary safety time-out exercise.

Mrs Josephine Teo: To stem workplace fatalities, it is important that all parties, including sub-contractors, remain vigilant and pay close attention to safety at work. Ministry of Manpower data shows that smaller construction firms, or firms with 50 or fewer employees, many of which are sub-contractors, do have a higher fatal injury rate than larger firms. Nonetheless, the overall construction fatal injury rate has declined steadily from 5.4 per 100,000 workers in 2015, to 2.9 in 2019. In 2020, the fatal injury rate declined further to 2.1, although this was in part due to Covid-19 work stoppages.

To ensure safety messages are filtered down to smaller construction firms, including the sub-contractors, the WSH Council, together with industry associations such as the Singapore Contractors Association Limited (SCAL) and Specialist Trade Alliance of Singapore (STAS), have organised regular mass engagement sessions including forums, dialogues and site visits as well as one-on-one outreach efforts to promulgate the importance of safe work practices. Frequent Safety Time Outs are conducted with support from SCAL and developers to ensure that WSH practices remain robust.

The WSH 2028 Tripartite Strategies Committee had recommended a holistic set of measures to help companies improve their workplace safety practices. One of the recommendations was to publish more details of construction firms’ safety track record, including that of sub-contractors. MOM will be doing so early this year. This will allow developers to make more informed contracting decisions, and motivate main contractors and sub-contractors to step up their workplace safety practices.