Raise the bar for workplace safety training

Following a series of deaths when the pace of work was cranked up to meet festive deadlines last year, Singapore’s Manpower Ministry operation uncovered 

violations at 90 per cent of the 214 worksites inspected. 

These included dangerous floorboards and missing scaffolding – omissions even laymen would baulk at but foreign workers might suffer in silence.

Globally, there is wider recognition that occupational safety can be implemented at earlier phases of economic development than has occurred historically. It wouldn’t do, therefore, for Singapore to lag behind others in creating safe working conditions for both its resident and migrant workforces. 

In construction, there has been some improvement in fatality rates since the workplace safety and health performance framework was enhanced in 2005. Still, the 60 deaths in 2014, compared to 73 fatalities in 2013, were tragic because many accidents were preventable.

The keys to preventing accidents and ill health at work remain employee awareness and effort – accentuated by proper training – and employer commitment. Especially pernicious are technical aspects of operation, which if glossed over can prove deadly, for example, when heavy equipment is not checked and maintained rigorously. 

Just last month, an excavator bucket became dislodged and fell on a Bangladeshi construction worker guiding the machine operator at the Great World MRT station worksite. One might wonder if this death could have been averted had the crew been better trained.

A universal difficulty is a lack of uniform standards associated with safety knowledge and practices in different sectors. There is even no agreement over what a “health and safety professional” really means, as a Canadian safety consultant observed. 

Consequently, certification of training comes in many forms – hundreds, in some countries. Here, the training industry has been asked for views on a proposal to raise firms’ paid-up capital to S$1 million (Bt25.6 million) and to have at least one full-time safety trainer with a diploma in adult continuing education, under the Workforce Skills Qualifications framework. 

Aiming for higher quality of instruction and consistency of content in related areas would be in the interest of industry’s professionals, businesses and workers alike. 

Such steps will help promote a culture of prevention that could over time be extended to contract and temporary workers, especially in areas like hazard communication and critical record-keeping.