Worker deaths prompt call for better safety

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Construction firms are under pressure to improve safety standards after 10 construction workers have died in less than four weeks.

On Monday, two Bangladeshi workers were killed when a slab of concrete fell on top of them at a construction site in Abu Dhabi and crushed them.

Last Friday, The National reported that three workers died on a site in al Nahda, Sharjah, after the scaffolding they were working on collapsed, causing two to die at the scene and another to die in hospital from a severe haemorrhage.

This followed the death of four other workers at Ansar Mall in Sharjah just a fortnight before, after their maintenance cradle also collapsed. A tenth man died in Bahrain when he fell from the third floor of a building under construction in Hoora.

While the cause of most of the accidents was still under investigation, reports suggest that the men who were working in the maintenance cradle at Ansar Mall were not wearing safety harnesses, nor were they tethered to the building independently of the cradle, as is standard practice.

Peter Neville, the Sharjah spokesperson for BuildSafe UAE, who also works for construction firm Halcrow said: “As tragic as this news is, it is not at all surprising. In some cases, training standards are not that high, in others there are enormous issues with competence, supervision and general safety awareness.

“Workers are too often being asked to carry out tasks that they are either not qualified to do or not confident doing, and they are not properly supervised.

“Scaffolding for example, should be safety-checked on average once a week, notwithstanding special circumstances like high winds.

“The accidents reflect bad safety practices, a lack of effective management and complacency about safety within organisations,” Neville said.

Meanwhile, new figures released by the HSE in the UK last week showed how construction deaths in Britain are at an all time low, putting more pressure on regional companies to catch up.

Just 41 fatal injuries to construction workers were recorded in 2009-2010, compared to an average of 66 deaths in the past five years and a fall from the 52 deaths in 2008/09.

Speaking about the UK figures, HSE chair Judith Hackitt said: "It's really very encouraging to see a further reduction in fatalities in the past year. This is performance which owes much to good practice, leadership and employee engagement.

"No industry can or should regard high levels of workplace death and injury as being 'part of the job'. It doesn't have to be this way as many other sectors have shown by their improvement."

In reference to the safety standards across regional firms, Neville added: “Things have improved and they are getting better, but it is a slow process, and when it comes to safety, there is always room for improvement.”