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Confusion among businesses over evolving, unclear workplace safety rules: MP

SINGAPORE — Businesses are finding it hard to keep up with the evolving rules and discrepancies over safe management practices at the workplace as they resume operations after the circuit breaker, assistant secretary-general at the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) Melvin Yong said on Thursday (June 4).

A visitor using the SafeEntry application on a smartphone. Some businesses use SafeEntry for check-ins but not for checking out, Member of Parliament Melvin Yong said.

A visitor using the SafeEntry application on a smartphone. Some businesses use SafeEntry for check-ins but not for checking out, Member of Parliament Melvin Yong said.

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SINGAPORE — Businesses are finding it hard to keep up with the evolving rules and discrepancies over safe management practices at the workplace as they resume operations after the circuit breaker, Member of Parliament (MP) Melvin Yong said.

Speaking in Parliament on Thursday (June 4) during a debate on the Fortitude Budget, the third supplementary national budget, he said that many businesses and their workers have been facing different requirements and sets of instructions from various government agencies. 

Sometimes, new requirements are issued just days after an earlier set of instructions. Then, there are businesses following the instructions differently.

The MP for Tanjong Pagar Group Representation Constituency (GRC) cited the example of the mandatory use of SafeEntry, the digital system that requires visitors to a business location to scan a QR code when entering or leaving the premises, so that the data can be used for quick contract tracing in the event of a Covid-19 infection uncovered at these places.

He said: “Most companies practise the check-in function, but as we know, some do not require you to check out when leaving. Others provide a barcode reader to allow visitors to scan their identity card as an alternative, but this is not practised universally.” 

Mr Yong, who is also the assistant secretary-general at the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC), said that bosses seem to prefer implementing the rules based on principles, while staff members tasked with executing them prefer a “more prescriptive set of instructions for clarity and ease of implementation”. 

Whichever the approach, he said, safe management measures must not inadvertently cause poor safety at the workplace. 

“While we can understand that the aim of these measures is to minimise unnecessary social gatherings at the workplace, some types of work do require clear communication and coordinated teamwork.” 

For example, he said: “Keeping a ‘safety distance’ and speaking through a mask could result in unclear communication, which may lead to heightened risks of workplace accidents.” 

He added that wearing a mask could also affect workers who carry out physically demanding work such as those in the construction or marine engineering sectors.

The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) website states that where working from home is not possible, workplaces should ensure workers are at least 1m apart, and that masks and the necessary personal protective equipment should be worn at all times. 

Mr Yong urged MOM to conduct regular reviews and inspections for high-risk sectors to ensure that the safe management measures are working as intended.

COST OF PUTTING UP SAFETY MEASURES 

Mr Yong said that cost could be a factor in why safe management practices are poorly implemented. 

Businesses have been hit with a double whammy, of having to deal with a decline in revenue while also having to foot the costs to put in place an “ever-evolving set of protective measures to keep our workplaces safe”, he said.

This includes providing thermometers and masks, increasing the frequency of cleansing and disinfection, hiring more people to control crowd access and monitor temperatures, and increasing the number of trips for workers taking transport in order to hold fewer passengers each round. 

Nominated MP Douglas Foo agreed, saying that a recent survey of members in the Singapore Manufacturing Federation showed that some have seen an almost four-fold increase in monthly cleaning expenses. 

Mr Foo, who is also the federation's president, said that companies are also maintaining their own inventories of personal protective equipment and expect these costs to be permanent additions to their operational costs. 

He added that businesses here hope that the authorities will take into careful consideration the need to not be overly prescriptive. 

Regulatory bodies should also be sufficiently resourced and staffed so that business approvals do not become the bottleneck to efficiency, he said. 

MANPOWER AND TECH ISSUES

Mr Foo also said that during the circuit breaker period, some companies had raised the issue of manpower challenges. 

“Key among which is the uncertainty of the permitted workers quota that changes day-to-day for some companies.” 

These fluctuations are an added form of disruption and firms are unable to plan ahead and schedule operations. It has also resulted in a core group of the workforce being stretched as they take up multiple roles. 

“This also has a serious impact on manufacturers as they abide by safety standards and regulations, but staff fatigue is always an ever-present danger,” Mr Foo said. 

Mr Yong also warned that firms that use technology to make their workplaces safer could “end up doing more harm than good”. 

For example, disinfection tunnels may cause serious harm to those walking through them, while other products could cause prolonged ultraviolet light exposure that is harmful to the body. 

“I therefore urge the Government to review, and where necessary, stop the use of such unsafe interventions at our workplaces,” he said. 

ISSUES FACED BY THE CONSTRUCTION SECTOR

Problems faced by employers in the construction sector were raised by several MPs.

Nee Soon GRC MP Lee Bee Wah said that when the Government announced that the construction sector could start work in the first phase of the economic reopening this week, firms were initially happy. But this soon “turned to frustration” when they heard of the number of approvals required before they could start work.

Among them was the recent move by MOM to “say no” to double-decker beds, and to increase the living space each worker has from 4.5 sqm to 6 sqm.

“So, all the current dormitories do not comply. If you don’t have dormitories that comply and no approval for safe dormitories, (they) cannot start work,” she said.

The process of approval from various government agencies will take at least three months, she added.

The mandatory swab tests for construction workers, as well as the compulsory deployment of safe management officers and safe distancing officers at construction sites will further delay a restart to the industry.

The swab tests — where workers have to be tested once every two weeks — could carry on until August or September, while at the same time, there is a bottleneck in the training of safe management officers and safe distancing officers.

Among Ms Lee’s suggestions to the Government is that it absorbs the cost of swab testing beyond August.

“After August, every worker needs to be sent for swab tests… and they did not price in all these costs.”

Even if companies were to start on their projects, the rules laid out by the authorities may not be practical to follow.

Ms Cheryl Chan, MP for Fengshan, said that for the construction, landscaping and renovation sector, it is typical that a single project is fulfilled by suppliers and workers from different companies, who live in different dormitories.

“This scenario, though typical in the past, has now become an insurmountable management task due to the new measures.” 

Even if companies wanted to follow the new rules, some of them are impractical, or will reduce productivity owing to its long roll-out period, and are further exacerbated by the inconsistency of new measures detailed among agencies, Ms Chan added.

The Building and Construction Authority had said that one criterion for construction projects to resume is that workers have to be segregated into teams that operate in different work zones. Workers involved in the same project must also live in the same accommodation.

Related topics

business MOM Covid-19 coronavirus Migrant Workers safe distancing construction

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