When discussing death and serious injury, statistics can only make it more painful and provoke more anger.
The Occupational Health and Safety Authority (OHSA) may take credit for the general decline in the workplace death rate since it was set up 20 years ago. However, what really matters to many, especially those directly affected, is why accidents at workplaces, especially construction sites, continue to happen practically in the same pattern.
The number of ‘cowboys’ engaged in the lucrative construction and building industry skyrocketed over the past two decades. Quality is of concern even to architects worth their salt. Precarious work is widespread. Safety officers take on more than they can chew. Haste is an imperative. All this as structures grow higher and tools and equipment become more dangerous to use unless proper training in handling is given.
In a candid interview with Times of Malta recently, Mark Gauci, chief executive at the health and safety regulator, made some worrying revelations. Revelations, that is, to ordinary people, not those involved in the industry who know exactly what is going on but persist as more lives and limbs are lost.
He pointed out that “almost all” workplace accidents are caused by human error, which needs explaining to distinguish between a genuine mistake and a wrong or rushed decision.
He is rightly worried about project supervisors, who are legally required to safeguard health and safety on construction projects, having too much on their plate.
A construction worker was found using a toy safety helmet and another punched slits in the side of his hard hat as he was feeling too hot, obviously weakening its protective capability.
Gauci recounted the sad story of a man who purchased a safety harness of inferior quality, which could not take his weight and he fell to his death.
These are just a token of inanities that, in such dangerous industries as construction, are unforgiving and, too often, have tragic results.
In Gauci’s view, workers are taking more precautions and there is more awareness about safety. Given the almost daily reports about serious, including fatal, workplace accidents, that statement sounds as bad as when a Transport Malta official had said traffic jams were just a perception.
Gauci was right when he insisted the health and safety watchdog cannot provide round-the-clock supervision. Its resources certainly need to be beefed up substantially if it is expected to fulfil to the letter the functions laid out in the Occupational Health and Safety Authority Act. That decision is for our elected policymakers: they have the power to prioritise the sector and save lives.
By law, the OHSA must monitor compliance with relevant occupational health and safety legislation and take enforcement action. However, among other functions, the OHSA is also bound “to promote and carry out scientific research aimed at better methods of preventing occupational ill health, injury or death”.
If this is happening, society is not aware of it and the dissemination of such data and findings could prove crucial in exposing bad practice.
It is for that same reason too that the conclusions of magisterial inquiries into accidents at work ought to be published. That should go a long way in strengthening prevention.
Prevention will also be greatly boosted if enforcement is what it should be. Administrative fines can be imposed without delay, but it is disconcerting to know that a staggering 600 cases indicated by the regulator have yet to make it to the magistrates’ court.
As the workplace becomes deadlier, there needs to be thorough enforcement and punishment, raised to suit the crime and the ever-rising profits.