Safety and health regulations important

Safety and health regulations are vital in workplaces and should be integrated in the planning stages of every project to assist with improving the safety standards of the construction sector.

Minister of Labour, Social Security and Human Resource Development, the Honourable Esther Byer Suckoo, highlighted this as she delivered the feature address during a safety workshop, which was put on by the Barbados Contractors Association at the Ministry of Labour yesterday morning.

“It is evident that we cannot consider safety and health as an afterthought and it must be integrated in the planning stages of every project from inception, as we seek to improve the safety standards in the construction sector,” she said.

“This of course requires a paradigm shift from a reactionary approach to management of safety and health – where action is taken only after an inspection or serious accident – to a proactive approach.”

Based on The Safety and Health at Work Act, she explained that all risks to health and safety should be assessed before the start of any job and the necessary steps be put in place to reduce these risks.

“The ACTION Programme was developed by the Labour Department to encourage companies to adopt safety and health management systems,” she said.

“ACTION, an acronym for A Commitment To Improving Our Nation, is based on the Plan To Do Act model which encourages proactive planning for safety and health. To date, a number of companies have successfully participated in the programme and have been awarded by the Labour Department. ACTION is a management systems approach that I encourage you to consider implementing in the Association.”

She noted that employees need to be encouraged to actively participate in the implantation of preventive and control measures, as well as assist with the general management of safety through their involvement with joint safety and health committees, as required by the SHaW Act.

“It is well-known that actively functioning safety committees usually lead to better observance of safety practices. This not only results in lower accident rates and reduction in work-related health problems, but contributes to timely completion of projects and avoidance of additional expenses,” she added.