CITING an “alarming rate” of accidents on construction sites, some fatal, and a tendency to under-report for fear of driving up insurance premiums, the Construction Industry Council (CIC) has outlined a raft of suggestions to transform the sector in Jamaica.

“The average is for every storey you go — about four floors — you have one serious injury, meaning a death or a broken limb. I know of an injury where somebody broke his neck and it was never reported,” former president of the Incorporated Masterbuilders Association of Jamaica (IMAJ) and CIC member, Michael Archer, told the Jamaica Observer.

Among those who work in construction, it is often said that for every incident reported, about three to five are not; so there is very little hard data on the actual numbers.

International players are required to keep records and certain industries — for example bauxite and petroleum — have to follow established protocols, but recordkeeping does not come naturally for most local contractors. Those who have international certification do keep records, but they are not collated and reported locally, according to Archer.

“We need to go all the way down to smaller contractors, where most of those incidents occur, although the fatalities tend to be at the largest projects,” he said.

The urgency to document these incidents and make the data available locally takes on added importance because of the sheer scope of work being done.

“One would think that the construction industry only involves block and steel, but we’re now talking about the built environment: industries from the ports to bauxite to petroleum, building roads, mining, all of that sort of thing is covered,” noted CIC member and former president of the Jamaican Institute of Quantity Surveyors Dean Burrows.

Insuring these projects is not cheap, and premiums depend on the nature of the job. For example, the rates for building a bungalow for private use would be vastly different from those applied to a large commercial development. According to Archer, generally speaking, the range is usually two-and-a-half to three per cent of the contract value, while something like an airport runway project may attract a rate of about 15 per cent.

And even when insurance is in place, injured workers who fail to grasp the importance of safety measures may hurt their own chances of receiving compensation.

“Some persons don’t fully understand the implications of [their actions]. They might say, ‘I just don’t feel like wearing the harness today,’ and then something happens,” said CIC council member and Association of Land Economy and Valuation Surveyors
President Rochelle Channer Miller.

She gave an example of an uninformed worker who, in seeking compensation for an on-the-job injury, may describe breaches he has committed.

“The person doesn’t really even understand that, because they weren’t doing what they should have done, when they tried to claim on the policy and admit to that, they’re not going to get compensated. So it’s also a culture thing,” Channer Miller told the Sunday Observer.

With an eye on protecting the sector and all its players, the CIC is trying to get the message out that routinely implementing safety measures can be less costly than trying to fix complications that come with unsafe practices. It is also focused on making the point that reporting incidents will help identify and craft solutions to problems.

“From my experience, when there are incidents, there are times where we record it internally but just never thought necessary to record it outside. So it’s not known by anybody outside of the project. There was no incentive to publish the information, or [any information] on where to go and publish the information. So it’s not something that’s circulated amongst the industry,” said CIC Chairman Martin Addington.

The Factories Act does address health and safety issues but does not specifically address the construction sector.

The CIC has stressed that the goal is not to punish those who commit infractions but to effect behavioural change. It acknowledged that, in addition to legislative changes, this will require a cultural shift and greater leveraging of the technological tools available locally and internationally.

CIC members pointed to, for example, the peculiarities of the Jamaican context in which some labourers show up for work shrouded in a haze of ganja smoke, wearing Crocs footwear and a baseball cap, as they have reserved hard hats and safety boots for wearing off site. Then there is the contractors’ need to keep profit margins healthy.

“The adversarial nature of contracting in Jamaica, where you price against another person, encourages people to give the lowest price; therefore, one of the easiest things to cut out is the cost of safety,” said Burrows.

He stressed that it is often cheaper to start out by following the rules.

“The additional cost to the contractor to maintain health and safety is not great in terms of the cost of construction, but it can become onerous if the contractor is not following the protocol,” Burrows cautioned.

He said some of the rules that are sometimes sacrificed because of expediency, or in the pursuit of profit, include workers’ refusal to wear safety gear and supervisors’ failure to insist that they do as well as failure to ensure that scaffolding is properly installed. He said the largest cost may be the salary for a safety officer.

“In international construction contracts, because of the incidence of accidents, one usually has a safety officer on site. That person’s purpose is to see to it that the safety protocols are put in place, and usually it’s just that cost [to cover his salary]. But if there is no safety officer on site and there is an incident and an injured party claims on insurance, the cost to the contractor can be a lot greater than his expenditure on a safety officer. So it’s trading off one against another,” said Burrows.

In the same vein, Archer pointed to the positive boost that being safe can have on productivity. He gave the example of a slab that was not properly done, not properly inspected, and then collapsed.

“You have to take it down and do it over. That type of issue may not cause a particular injury to an individual, but it could, in fact, in many cases, result in low productivity. Hence, [it is] part of the reason why local contractors can’t compete with their international counterparts, because they don’t observe those requirements that enhance their productivity,” he told the Sunday Observer.

The CIC wants to see passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Bill, along with finalising the Building Act regulations, to “give inspectors 21st-century teeth and align Jamaica with Caricom and ISO norms”. It also wants to see digital audits and e-citations become the norm; the linking of planning approvals to safety readiness; tax incentives offered to sector players sourcing technology needed to boost safety; as well as digital innovation that can be tailored to local needs and skill sets.

“The question is: How can we educate and sensitise people that it is in their best interest to follow protocols that increase productivity, reduce potential health and safety risks?” said Archer.

Now in its 65th year, the CIC plans to roll out a series of workshops to share its message.

Fatalities tend to be on larger projects but smaller work sites typically have more incidents.

The average is for every storey built, there is one serious injury: meaning a death or a broken limb.

Workers who fail to grasp the importance of safety measures may hurt their own chances of receiving compensation.