One in 10 airport workers injured
FURTHER confirmation of Hong Kong's appalling industrial safety record came to light yesterday when it was revealed that one in 10 of the 7,000 workers employed on the new airport and its associated projects had sustained injuries.
Of the 700 people hurt since the start of the first contract in August 1990 until September this year, eight had been killed, union members were told during a tour of principal airport sites.
The news follows warnings from safety experts that Hong Kong is heading for a record number of building site fatalities this year, more than double the number for 1992.
The latest figures show that an accident is occurring on airport sites more than every other day and has prompted union members to disseminate safety advice to Airport Core Project workers.
On the Chek Lap Kok site alone there were 67 accidents reported since August 1990, according to a spokesman for the Provisional Airport Authority, with workers stumbling and falling, or being hit by gravel falling from trucks.
The New Airport Projects Co-ordination Office's (NAPCO) senior safety engineer, David Cheung Hing-wan, said the accident rate was good when compared with casualties in the construction industry as a whole.
In 1992 an incredible 30 per cent of Hong Kong's construction workers were injured. Moreover, 49 people have died on the territory's building sites in the first half of this year - compared with 48 deaths for the whole of 1992.
Mr Cheung said most of the accidents on airport project sites were minor, but NAPCO was determined to get its accident rate lower than six per cent.
It would try to develop awareness among management, contractors and workers by providing courses on industrial safety, he said.
The Governor, Chris Patten, has already vowed to raise safety standards on the territory's construction sites.
In June, speaking after a visit to a North Point site where 12 men died when a hoist collapsed, Mr Patten said he would not allow Hong Kong to be built on the blood of its workforce, and vowed that tough action would be taken against those who ignored industrial safety measures.
The visit to the sites involved 20 members of the Hong Kong Construction Industry Employees General Union and the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions.
A spokesman of the group, Poon To-cheun, said he believed the safety consciousness of imported workers, especially those from developing countries, was lower than that of local workers.
''I think imported workers are more likely to have accidents because they are working in an unfamiliar work environment and working with unfamiliar machines,'' he said.
Of the 7,000 workers currently employed on the airport core project sites, about 1,570 are imported workers.
Mr Poon said the Government should encourage contractors of construction projects to introduce tighter measures to ensure workers' safety.
''The Government should also encourage the employers to provide safety training through legislation,'' he said.
This month it was announced that Hong Kong may have a semi-independent industrial safety watchdog if discussions in the Labour Department come to fruition.
The department is under pressure to hive off its factory inspections division and let it loose to tackle what Mr Patten has described as Hong Kong's ''culture of carelessness'' on industrial and construction sites.
Factory inspectors called for the separate safety organisation following the North Point lift disaster. They were backed by the Society of Registered Safety Officers.
