Table of Contents

`1.0 Introduction 2

2.0The Importance of Safety and Health in the Construction Industry 3

3.0 Definition, The Legislation and Regulating Bodies in Malaysia 43.1Definition 43.2The Legislation in Malaysia 43.3The Regulating Bodies in Malaysia 54.0 Statistical Datas of Construction Related Accidents 74.1SOCSO on Reported Occupational Accidents 74.2DOSH on Fatal and Non Fatal Occupational Accidents 84.3 CIDB Compiled Statistics 125.0 Causes of Construction Related Accidents125.1Causes of Construction Accidents from DOSH Reports 13

6.0 Conclusion and Recommendations15

7.0 References 17

1.0 INTRODUCTION

construction industry makes up an important part of the Malaysian economy and can be described as some kind of an economic engine for Malaysia, as we move from a developing country status towards a developed and industrialized nation as envisaged in Vision 2020. The construction sector employs approximately 9% of the total workforce in Malaysia[footnoteRef:1], which accounts to approximately 1.15 million people out of the total 12,717,901 as of the World Bank statistics for 2012. [footnoteRef:2] Although this figure does not seem extravagant and of which accounts for less than 5% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the industry is an essential growth enabler because of its extensive linkages with the rest of the economy, for example, the manufacturing, professional services, financial services, education and other industries. Therefore it's reach is far and wide, and effects many more lives of people, either directly or indirectly. [1: Dependency of Foreign Workers in Malaysian Construction Industry, Mohd Arif Marhani, Universiti Teknologi MARA ] [2: World Bank http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.TOTL.IN ]

This being the case, the construction industry has been identified as one of the most hazardous industries in the world, as measured by work-related mortality, workers compensation, injury and fatality rates, incurring more occupational fatalities than any other sector in both the United States and in the European Union. In 2009, the fatal occupational injury rate among construction workers in the United States was nearly three times that for all workers.[footnoteRef:3] As we can see, even developed nations face an uphill task of managing health and safety in their respective construction industries, it is then only fair to say that Malaysia has its own share of problems to deal with. [3: Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_safety_and_health]

Safety at work is a complex phenomenon and a subjective area of study. This is because industrial safety has undergone significant changes over the past decade. However, the construction sector is notable as it continues to register a high rate of accident-related casualties. Construction workers who work within the construction industry face a greater risk of fatality than workers in other industries.

The title of this paper is therefore: The Management of Health and Safety in the Malaysian Construction Industry, the scope of which shall cover the importance of safety and health, the law and regulating bodies, statistical datas of accidents, and the causes of these accidents and finally a conclusion and recommendations on the subject matter.

2.0 The Importance of Safety and Health in the Construction Industry As explained, construction is one of the most dangerous occupations in the world, and therefore safety and health in the construction industry are critical considerations on all construction projects. Todays owners face a variety of risks when they undertake a construction project. Not only must owners be concerned with potential risks to their employees, tenants, or property, but they must also be concerned about the risks that the contractor bears. Safety is a critical item on all construction projects for multiple reasons including protecting the welfare of employees, providing a safe work environment and controlling construction costs. [footnoteRef:4]Additionally, health and safety is not only important in construction sites to protect workers, but it is also important to ensure that members of the public are not put at risk. [4: Why Construction Safety is Important, Jim Emmons, http://www.vsl.net/article/tabid/157/contentid/87/default.aspx]

Contrary to common perception, there is little up-front cost to the owner for implementing and maintaining the safety programs required since the contractor is already mandated by law to comply with local, state and federal regulations. To take advantage of this safety benefit, all the owner has to do is demand that the contractor document and implement the proper safety programs that will protect employees working on the job site. Having a good safety culture must be considered a Condition of Employment. A contractor with a good safety culture not only requires safety but demands that all employees Live it, Breath it., and that all the employees are actively working to make safety an integral part of the job process.

As can be seen from many incidences, poorly implemented health and safety techniques, design and management can result in accidents, illness and even death. These mishaps in turn, will cause unwanted delay to the project, cost overruns, prolongated operating expenditure, and perhaps even legal lawsuits which can be very time consuming, complex and costly. Therefore, it is only in the best interest for the employee to ensure for the safety, health welfare of employees, providing a safe work environment and controlling construction costs.

3.0 Legislation framework and institutional structure

3.1Definition To comprehend what constitutes safety and health in the workplace and mechanisms in place to enforce them, one must first understand its definition in an overall sense and accepted standard. Since 1950, the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have shared a common definition of occupational health. It was adopted by the Joint ILO/WHO Committee on Occupational Health at its first session in 1950 and revised at its twelfth session in 1995. The definition reads:

"The main focus in occupational health is on three different objectives: (i) the maintenance and promotion of workers health and working capacity; (ii) the improvement of working environment and work to become conducive to safety and health and (iii) development of work organizations and working cultures in a direction which supports health and safety at work and in doing so also promotes a positive social climate and smooth operation and may enhance productivity of the undertakings. The concept of working culture is intended in this context to mean a reflection of the essential value systems adopted by the undertaking concerned. Such a culture is reflected in practice in the managerial systems, personnel policy, principles for participation, training policies and quality management of the undertaking."Joint ILO/WHO Committee on Occupational Health[footnoteRef:5] [5: ILO Encyclopaedia of Occupational Health and Safety, http://www.ilo.org/iloenc/part-ii/occupational-health-services/item/155-occupational-health-services-and-practice]

3.2Legislation And The Construction Regulation

Figure 1

In Malaysia, the first Health and Safety Act in Malaysia was introduced in 1967. This as known as the Factories and Machinery Act (Occupational Safety and Health Act, 1994). This was subsequently replaced in 1994 with the Occupational Safety and Health Act which is currently used in the law (OSHA, 1994), which was gazetted on 25 February 1994 by the Malaysian Parliament. These regulations are supported by Orders, Guidelines and Codes of Practices. The list of regulations under this Acts are[footnoteRef:6]:- [6: DOSH Malaysia, http://www.dosh.gov.my/]

1. Occupational Safety and Health (Employers' Safety and Health General Policy Statements) (Exception) Regulations 1995

2. Occupational Safety and Health (Control of Industry Major Accident Hazards) Regulations 1996

3. Occupational Safety and Health (Safety and Health Committee) Regulations 1996

4. Occupational Safety and Health (Classification, Packaging and Labelling of Hazardous Chemicals) Regulations 1997

5. Occupational Safety and Health (CLASSIFICATION, LABELLING AND SAFETY DATA SHEET OF HAZARDOUS CHEMICALS) REGULATIONS 2013

6. Occupational Safety and Health (Safety and Health Officer) Regulations 1997

7. Occupational Safety and Health (Safety and Health Officer) Order 1997

8. Occupational Safety and Health (Prohibition of Use of Substance) Order 1999

9. Occupational Safety and Health (Use and Standards of Exposure of Chemicals Hazardous to Health) Regulations 2000

10. Occupational Safety and Health (Notification of Accident, Dangerous Occurrence, Occupational Poisoning and Occupational Disease) Regulation 2004

3.3The Regulating Bodies And Institutional Structure Under the Enforcement and Legislation area, the need for an increased number of DOSH officers to be placed at a construction site was addressed. This is to ensure, surveillance of the construction site is conducted by an independent officer on an individual, team and company level. Prior to this framework, available data on injuries and fatalities were considered unreliable to be used as solid evidence or statistically due to misreporting and underreporting.

Another organisation which collects data on health and safety in Malaysia is SOCSO. However, only 68% of the workforce in Malaysia is represented in this database. Furthermore, SOCSOs data is employed for tracking and monitoring benefit claims and hence is not considered surveillance data. Also, SOCSO only accounts for Malaysian citizens and does not include information on foreign employees. Since foreign employees make up a large number of labourers in the construction industry, the information collected by SOCSO is not accurate in terms of reflecting the actual numbers of injuries and fatalities in the construction sector. The data collected by SOCSO cannot be deemed accurate as it does not represent the entire Malaysian work force. Self-employed workers for example are not part of the SOCSO organisation and therefore are unrepresented statistically. Furthermore, only claimable accidents and injuries are recorded in the SOCSO database. [footnoteRef:7] [7: Health and Safety in the Malaysian Construction Industry, Anushya Ramasegar, Auckland University of Technology ]

3.4 Five Year Framework (MPOSHCI,2005)

In Malaysia, the Department of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) under the Ministry of Human Resource is responsible to ensure that the safety, health and welfare of workers in both the public and private sector is upheld. DOSH is responsible to enforce the Factories and Machinery Act 1967 and the Occupational Safety and Health Act 1994.

In 2005, the Malaysian the Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) collaborated with the DOSH to produce a five year framework (MPOSHCI, 2005) to address occupational safety and health issues within the construction industry. There are six key areas identified for this Master Plan, by the National Occupational Safety and Health Committee in the construction industry (MPOSHCI, 2005).

Key Areas Identified for the Master Plan:1. Enforcement and Legislation2. Education and Training 3. Promotions4. Incentives5. Standard Development6. Research and Developments and Technology

4.0 Statistical Datas of Construction Related Accidents

As explained in the previous section, it can be seen that the Malaysian construction industry has no known systematic approach to collecting surveillance data. Nonetheless this paper shall endeavor to obtain any relevant statistics from DOSH, SOCSO and CIDB in regards to the construction industry.

4.1SOCSO on Reported Occupational Accidents

Malaysia recorded a worrying increase in the numbers of accidents occurring at the construction sites by SOCSO indicating the number of permanent disabilities and fatalities from year 1996 to 2008. Although the construction industry is not the highest contributing industry towards the accident statistics in Malaysia, however, its figures showed a very high rate in the year 2000. With such unpredictable figures reported, accidents in this industry have captured the attention and concerns from both governmental and non-governmental organizations.[footnoteRef:8] [8: An Analysis of Accidents Statistics in Malaysian Construction Sector, Dayang Nailul Munna Abang Abdullah, Faculty of Business Management Universiti Teknologi MARA ]

From the 2000 to 2008, the occupational accidents in Malaysia showed a continuous decline. However, the statistics has remained stagnant since 2009. By industrial sectors, manufacturing recorded the (31%) highest number of accident, followed by public services and social security (18%), commercial (17%), real-estate, rental and business (8%), construction (7%), transportation (7%) and other sectors (12%) (SOCSO, 2010).Figure 2Figure 3

The unproportionately high occupation death in the transportation industry in contrast of the construction industry is probably due to the latters better OSH management and programmes with specific Building Operations and Work of Engineering Construction (BOWEC) Regulation and authority such as CIDB as compared to the fragmented authorities in the transportation industry. One of the importance factors in implementing internal control to ensure that companies comply with the OSH legislation is management's motivation, where high consequences of severe accidents have played vital parts as they are associated downtime and compensation costs.[footnoteRef:9] [9: Safety Culture in Malaysian Workplace: An Analysis of Occupational Accidents, AUYONG Hui-Nee School of Management, Universiti Sains Malaysia ]

4.2DOSH on Fatal and Non Fatal Occupational Accidents

From the statistics by DOSH (2013) on investigated fatal occupational accidents classified according to sectors, the manufacturing sector stands as the second highest sector after construction for the year 2007 and 2009 to 2012.

Table 1

According to Table 2, the rate of fatality in the construction sector has reduced from 43% in 2007 to 37% in 2013. The high rate of was probably due to the fact that, the employers of mainly foreign labour dominated construction might not place enough attention to occupational safety and health of their workers.

Table 2 It also seems that race/nationality are also important explanatory factors, as the Malaysian construction sector is dominated by migrant workers and are over represented in these accident statistics. Table 3 shows some selected accident cases in Malaysia construction sector as at December 2011. It can be seen that migrant workers from Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan etc, are mostly involved in the accidents.[footnoteRef:10] [10: A STUDY OF FATAL AND NON-FATAL ACCIDENTS IN CONSTRUCTION SECTOR Yakubu Danasabe Mohammed, Universiti Putra Malaysia]

Table 3Figure 3 below shows the 2014 statistics with 72 deaths and 94 Non Permanent Disability (NPD) investigated cases. Whereas Figure 4 shows the distribution of cases amongst states. [footnoteRef:11] [11: DOSH Malaysia, http://www.dosh.gov.my/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1225&Itemid=545&lang=en]

Figure 4

Figure 5

4.3 CIDB Compiled Statistics On the other hand, a construction employment statistic compiled by CIDB revealed that construction workers constitute about 7.1% of total workforce in Malaysia (2010). The industry generally accounts for 11% of all industrial workers fatalities (2007). In year 2010, Occupational accident in the Malaysia construction sector alone includes 66 death, 4 cases of permanent disability and 50 cases of non-permanent disability (2011). Moreover, according to CBS Interactive Business Network 2007, since 2001, the Malaysia construction scene has consistently recorded fatality rate of over 25% per 100,000 workers, (CIDB, 2007).[footnoteRef:12] [12: A STUDY OF FATAL AND NON-FATAL ACCIDENTS IN CONSTRUCTION SECTOR Yakubu Danasabe Mohammed, Universiti Putra Malaysia]

5.0 KEY ISSUES IN HEALTH AND SAFETY

The statistics on accidents merely only describe the cases of accidents, but do not mention the factors that lead to those accidents. According to Ridley 99% of the accident are caused by either unsafe acts or unsafe conditions or both (Ridley, 1986). As such, accidents could be prevented. The unsafe act is a violation of an accepted safe procedure which could permit the occurrence of an accident. The unsafe condition is a hazardous physical condition or circumstances which could directly permit the occurrence of an accident. Most accident results from a combination of contributing causes and one or more unsafe acts and unsafe condition. In order to effect permanent improvement, we must deal with the root causes of accident.[footnoteRef:13] Through the statistics and theories drawn down on accidents causation, all these supporting evidence reflects on the needs to better investigate what are the factors that affect the occurrence of accidents and its frequencies in the Malaysian industry. [footnoteRef:14] [13: CAUSES OF ACCIDENTS AT CONSTRUCTION SITES, Abdul Rahim Abdul Hamid, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia] [14: An Analysis of Accidents Statistics in Malaysian Construction Sector, Dayang Nailul Munna Abang Abdullah, Faculty of Business Management Universiti Teknologi MARA ]

Table 4 overleaf shows 128 accident cases from DOSH from year 2000 to 2004. The analysis shows that the causes of construction accidents on average are mainly attributed to the management (29.2%) such as poor inspection programs, poor safety policies and lack of safety education programs. Second major cause is due to the unsafe method (26.4%) mostly related to incorrect work procedure. Human element come in third position (12.5%) as lack personal protective equipment usage and workers negligence contribute to the cause of accidents. Working in variable hazard and at high elevation has been part of the unique nature of the construction industry (11.1%) which associates this industry as more risky than others. Finally, factors such as unsafe equipments (9.7%) and job site conditions (11.1%) especially poor site management also have roles in contributing to the cause of accidents at construction sites.

The overall results are not comprehensive as the reports are not geared toward revealing all possible root causes as stipulated in the multiple causation model. Furthermore, the documented reports were prepared by the enforcement officer who would naturally focus on the management when it comes to the aspect of accident prevention.[footnoteRef:15] [15: CAUSES OF ACCIDENTS AT CONSTRUCTION SITES, Abdul Rahim Abdul Hamid, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia]

Table 3

6.0 Conclusion and Recommendations

From the literatures, we can conclude that the cause of accidents in the construction industry is a multi faceted phenomenon mainly attributed to workers negligence, failure of workers to obey work procedures, work at high elevation, operating equipment without safety devices, poor site management, harsh work operation, low knowledge and skill level of workers, failure to use PPE and poor workers attitude about safety.

Therefore, it is evident that a focused dedication and effort toward safety program is needed at construction sites. As such, to ensure that successful safety programs are implemented on sites, the following recommendations could be implemented:-

1- Management Commitment; this includes leadership, vision, and direction, statement of objectives, commitment, supervision, safety analysis, and prevention planning.

2- Safe work condition; this includes proper housekeeping, proper site layout and space availability.

3- Safe work habit; this includes awareness, good communication, personal attitude, safety culture, positive groups and personal competency.

In order words, a successful safety program is based on the commitment and the participation of management and workers in policymaking and in the establishing an adequate feedback system that will lead to continuous improvement of the safety program. By reducing the number of accidents, the construction industry does not have to be labeled as a 3D (Dirty, Dangerous, and Demeaning) industry anymore.

7.0References

Dependency of Foreign Workers in Malaysian Construction Industry, Mohd Arif Marhani, Universiti Teknologi MARA

World Bank http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.TOTL.IN

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_safety_and_health

Why Construction Safety is Important, Jim Emmons http://www.vsl.net/article/tabid/157/contentid/87/default.aspx

ILO Encyclopaedia of Occupational Health and Safety, http://www.ilo.org/iloenc/part-ii/occupational-health-services/item/155-occupational-health-services-and-practice

DOSH Malaysia, http://www.dosh.gov.my/

Health and Safety in the Malaysian Construction Industry, Anushya Ramasegar, Auckland University of Technology

An Analysis of Accidents Statistics in Malaysian Construction Sector, Dayang Nailul Munna Abang Abdullah, Faculty of Business Management Universiti Teknologi MARA

Safety Culture in Malaysian Workplace: An Analysis of Occupational Accidents, AUYONG Hui-Nee School of Management, Universiti Sains Malaysia

A STUDY OF FATAL AND NON-FATAL ACCIDENTS IN CONSTRUCTION SECTOR, Yakubu Danasabe Mohammed, Universiti Putra Malaysia

CAUSES OF ACCIDENTS AT CONSTRUCTION SITES, Abdul Rahim Abdul Hamid, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia PAGE 17