The Workplace Safety and Health (WSH) Council, in collaboration with the Ministry of Manpower, have launched 10-year plans to improve Construction and Marine WSH standards. The plans were initiated in mid 2009 to develop key strategies to reduce fatalities in the sectors¹ by half by 2013. They underwent extensive consultation with industry stakeholders before being finalised this month.

Overview of Construction sectoral plan

2. The construction sectoral plan was finalised following end of the public consultation in the middle of March 2010. It outlined four key strategies to address WSH issues in the sector. Several initiatives will be launched this year to improve the sector’s safety standards and enhance productivity. These will help, in part, to address the sector’s loss of almost 260,000 man-days due to serious incidents in 2009, a 20% increase from 2008. Please refer to Annex B1 for a summary of the plan and Annex B2 for the full construction plan.

6. WSH Council’s Marine Industries Committee Chairman Prof Poo Aun Neow reinforced his sector’s commitment to improve WSH standards. "Smaller and medium size shipyards that are not yet fully on board our WSH journey are a key focus area for our work ahead. We aim to get such yards to have better risk management in place to address key hazards. Bigger players must also continue to support their subcontractors and work closely with ship owners to manage work done in their yards. If we can close these gaps, we will be able to greatly improve marine safety and protect all our workers." Prof Poo said.

7. ASMI President Wong Weng Sun elaborated on how ASMI supports the plan, "The Association has launched an industry engagement programme called the Marine Industry Safety Engagement Team or MIndSET to adopt a more proactive approach towards enhancing WSH performance in the marine industry as well as to take greater ownership of WSH outcomes. MIndSET will provide the platform for ASMI members to share WSH ideas, implementations, best practises and experiences across the industry. WSH improvement has always been a key focus area of ASMI and we will continue to work closely with the WSH Council and the industry stakeholders in this priority area."

Comments from WSHC and MOM

8. WSH Council Chairman Lee Tzu Yang highlighted the Council’s role in the sectoral plans. "The Council's focus will be two-pronged. We will work hard to roll out the initiatives developed under the marine and construction sectoral plans as well as build our knowledge, outreach and capabilities in new sectors. Together, we can all play our respective roles to prevent the unnecessary loss of lives and up WSH standards." said Mr Lee.

9. MOM's Commissioner for WSH Ho Siong Hin welcomed the new sectoral plans. He said, "MOM has worked with the WSH Council and industry to develop a comprehensive suite of initiatives in the two sectoral plans. They will need the strong support of all parties, including the industry as a whole, individual companies, WSH Council and MOM. Companies should pay special attention to training their workforce to better manage WSH. Education will go a long way to help us prevent incidents at work."

10. Industry stakeholders can visit the WSH Council website for more information on the sectoral plans.

¹WSH Statistics Report 2009 (Annex A) shows construction and marine sectors accounting for 63% of fatalities.

²The courses on electrical works and plumbing and piping will be launched later this year.

³Please see more information about DFS HERE.

⁴These co-ordinators will help to implement and manage the entire DFS programme for construction worksites.

⁵“Struck by falling objects” is the second highest contributing cause of work fatalities after "Falls from height". It accounted for 21 fatalities in 2009 (or 30% of all fatalities), a 50% increase from 14 fatalities in 2008. The marine and construction sector accounts for 60% of these cases.

⁶WSH Council will work with key construction players to promote and expand participation of all contractors and subcontractors in bizSAFE programme to ensure basic competency in risk assessment and 100% implementation of risk management across sector.

⁷Please see more information about ConSASS HERE.

⁸Shipyards must ensure adequate oversight and coordination of the work of the ship crew, who are based in the shipyards on a short term basis and relatively unfamiliar with the shipyard environment.

⁹The marine sector has co-developed 13 marine trades with WSH Council and WDA to raise the safety training of marine workers while carrying out work in these trades such as scaffolding and electrical work. About 2,000 workers, mostly from the larger shipyards, have undergone these courses so far.