The prevailing safety standards in Pakistan are not specific to the construction industry and are governed by the âFac
Reasons for the Poor Implementation of Worker Safety in the Construction Industry of Pakistan: A Contractor’s Prospective Adeeba Abdul Raheem 8 and Jimmie Hinze 9 University of Florida, USA
Abstract The construction industry of Pakistan has experienced rapid expansion in the past few years with more than 3 million workers employed by the industry. Unfortunately, there have been little or no serious efforts expended to improve the safety conditions of the workers. In this paper, the obstacles to improving worker safety in Pakistan will be described. Information was obtained through contractor interviews and surveys. Twentytwo companies participated in this research, representing a large volume of construction work in four major cities of Pakistan, namely Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore and Multan. Several questions were asked of contractors about their views of how construction worker safety can be improved. Several of these questions were open-ended to give contractors considerable freedom to share their ideas regarding the prevailing safetyrelated problems and the possible solutions. Other questions sought specific information regarding the various factors that influence safety, including safety regulations, safety training and education, and the implementation of safety in Pakistan. The information from these interviews confirmed the dire need for specific safety regulations, along with raising the safety consciousness in all construction stakeholders. Keywords Safety legislation, USAID, occupational safety, injuries/fatalities, contractors, developing countries.
INTRODUCTION Pakistan is a developing country and has experienced rapid expansion in construction activities during the past few years with more than 3 million workers employed by the industry (Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, 2010). Unfortunately, there have been little or no serious efforts expended to improve the safety conditions of the workers. Like most other developing countries, there are many difficulties and challenges that Pakistan is facing to better implement safety regulations within the industry (Mohammad et al., 2005; Awan, 2001). The prevailing safety standards in Pakistan are not specific to the construction industry and are governed by the “Factories Act, 1934”, “Workmen’s Compensation Act, 1923” and “Minimum Wage Ordinance, 1961” (Department of Labor of Pakistan). These acts primarily address the occupational safety and health issues of factory workers. The national rules and regulations addressing occupational safety and health (OSH) are numerous but due to their segmented framework, direct application of these laws to construction safety is difficult (Raheem et al., 2011). The weak regulatory framework is 8 9
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not the only problem, as there are many socio-economic factors behind this poor construction safety performance that need to be addressed with a proactive approach. The lack of formal training for all the stakeholders within the national boundaries is also a major issue in regards to proper safety implementation. There is very little awareness about the role that each stakeholder could play to improve the safety conditions within the industry. There are only three registered institutes providing some kind of training and advisory services specifically addressing issues in construction, namely: 1) Center for the Improvement of Working Conditions and Employment, 2) Occupational Training Institute (OTI) and 3) Occupational Safety and Loss Prevention (OSALP).
RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE This research work is a part of an on-going research project entitled “Development of a Center of Excellence for Construction Safety in Pakistan” funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The duration of this research project is three years and is broadly divided into three phases: Benchmarking, Establishment and Training. The first year of the project was spent in collecting data regarding:
Existence of occupational safety and health legislation/ infrastructure Reasons of high injuries and fatalities in Pakistan Prevalent practices and procedures that are adopted to address worker safety in the construction industry Operational structure of the construction Industry in Pakistan and the relative importance of worker safety
Limited numbers of publications were collected in the form of journal/conference papers, reports and news articles from different sources related to construction safety in Pakistan. This activity provided a reasonably solid base for moving forward to interact directly with personnel in the industry in order to start the formation of a framework for collecting statistics related to injury/fatality data, safety perceptions and the enforcement of safety rules. As a first step to accomplish this task, suggestions were developed on specifing the methodology for identifying the specific causes of incidents, prevention through safety strategy on site and promoting safety culture through the implementation of safety regulations. During the next step some of the largest contracting companies were personally contacted and interviews were conducted. In addition, these firms participated by completing safety-related questionnaire surveys.
METHODOLOGY Twenty-two companies participated in this research representing a large volume of construction work being performed in four major cities of Pakistan, namely Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore and Multan (Figure 1). The selected companies were categorized as CA, C-B, C-1, C-2 and C-3 by the Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC), based on the cost of construction put-in-place within the duration (one/two/three years) for the renewal/upgrading of each company’s license (Table 1). These categories were selected for the following reasons:
During the research it was observed that the companies below category C-3 (relatively small firms) did not have specific safety manuals and appeared to provide little consideration for worker safety. The reasoning that was offered was that it is too expensive to implement safety on site for relatively small construction companies involved in local projects. 55
Most of the companies performing international projects fall between categories C-A to C-3 and it is mandatory for them to implement safety on site as it is not only a vital part of their contractual obligations, but their progress payments depend on the overall performance including worker safety on site.
Because of time constraints and limited funding, it was not feasible to include all the companies that are listed by “All Pakistan Contractors Association” as its members. Also, for the same reasons it was not possible to expand the study throughout the country. Table 1. Contractor categories Limit of Construction Cost of Projects (million dollars – U.S.)* C-A No Limit C-B Up to 22 C-1 Up to 11 C-2 Up to 5.5 C-3 Up to 2.7 Source: Pakistan Engineering Council (http://www.pec.org.pk/downloads.aspx) *The cost is provided in Pakistani Rupees in the standard registration/renewal form for contractors by the Pakistan Engineering Council and is converted into U.S. dollars by the authors to facilitate the international readers. Constructor Category
The study was conducted in two phases: interviews and questionnaire surveys. The interviews were conducted either with the owners or project managers of the selected contracting companies and the questions asked were open-ended. This open-ended format was used to provide each interviewee an opportunity to talk in a comprehensive manner about the answers to the questions. These firms further participated by completing a safety-related questionnaire. The questionnaire survey was divided into three major parts: 1) general information about the company, 2) safety performance (including information about safety personnel, safety training, and worker orientation), 3) company safety culture (including information regarding home office involvement, safety addressed in the mission statement, use of personal protective equipment and safety communications).
Figure 1. Selected cities for the research study Source: lonelyplanet, http://www.lonelyplanet.com/maps/asia/pakistan/
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ANALYSIS The research data were collected through interviews and questionnaire surveys. The information collected from the interviews consisted of vital first-hand facts that helped the research team to better understand the real obstacles to incorporating safety into the operational structure of the Pakistani construction industry. The questionnaire survey was conducted to empirically gauge the safety practices on site and to determine how firms plan to strategically implement safety regulations. INTERVIEWS During the interviews, the 22 company representatives were asked questions regarding their views about the importance of safety within their organizations and how it can or does impact the macro and micro climate of the company. This influence includes productivity and morale of construction workers, project delays and project costs; and the reputation of the company itself. Almost all interviewees had the opinion that the implementation of safety impacts the working environment and it should be implemented properly. Despite this, they had different points of view regarding the obstacles to implementing safety in the construction industry. Lack of legal infrastructure specific to the construction industry was viewed as the prime reason for having fragmented views and methods to incorporate safety into each company’s culture. Almost every interviewee described a different approach of defining injury and how to prevent injuries in the future. All held the view that since there are no strict construction safety regulations and since safety is not addressed in the standard contract language prepared by the Pakistan Engineering Council, they tend to pay less attention to safety implementation on projects. While 90 percent of the interviewees stated that they provided worker safety training/orientation, it was evident that the orientation is given to only selected personnel on site, such as the site manager or group leader. It is assumed that relevant information will be disseminated to the workers under the manager/group leader. They all acknowledged that there are very few training sources locally available to provide training specifically designed for the different stakeholders. They also felt that there should be standardization of safety terminologies and injury/fatality recording methods. One interesting comment regarding safety implementation was about the sternness of the applied rules and how this will impact the overall culture and profit of the company itself. Almost all the interviewees felt that, as a relatively small developing economy, there are some limitations to the implementation of safety rules as described by the safety standards, such as those promulgated by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). It was suggested that there should be a strong collaboration between the various stakeholders to come up with an approach to safety that is suited to the construction industry of Pakistan. QUESTIONNAIRE SURVEY The survey was conducted and analyzed under the three major parts: General Information The companies were selected on the basis of the categories designated by the Pakistan Engineering Council (Figure 2), ranging from a net worth of 22 million dollars to 2.7 million dollars (U.S.). Each company provided the research team with their safety manual that explained the safety specific duties of each team member. 57
8 Number of companies
7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 C-A
C-B
C-1
C-2
C-3
Figure 2. PEC designated categories of the selected contracting companies
%
Seventy percent of the participating companies were using the general contract arrangement for most of their projects, twenty percent were using design-build and ten percent were using multiple forms of contracting methods, including unit rate and turnkey methods (Figure 3). The design–build method was adopted by those companies having very large volumes of international construction work (contracts undertaken in the global community) under contract, as there is a growing acceptance of this approach in the international community. 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 General contract
Design-build
Others
Figure 3. Different contracting methods used by the selected contractors
Almost all the interviewed companies were using cost plus contracting for reimbursements on most/all of their projects. Approximately 40 percent of the companies that were interviewed had employees who worked 36 to 45 hours per week. This was computed by utilizing the number of worker hours worked in the past year and the number of field workers employed in the past year. The computation of the hours worked per week provides information on the amount of overtime that is worked. A typical worker in Pakistan works 48 hours each week. Thus, the companies whose workers were working more overtime reported the highest number of hours worked per week. Some companies were considerably above the 48 hours worked per week. There was no statistically significant correlation found between the number of hours worked per week and the category of the company, i.e., some large companies had small ratios and vice versa. Some very large companies employed workers for 26 to 35 hours per week (Figure 4). 58
12 Number of companies
10 8 6 4 2 0 15-25
26-35
36-45
46-60
Figure 4. Worker hours worked per week
Safety Performance The most difficult measure to determine in this research pertained to safety performance, due in large part to the lack of standardization of defining safety terms and methods of recording worker injuries. Four companies within the selected pool described thoroughly what incidents they regard as injuries, but these still were missing the details regarding record keeping. Because of the ambiguity regarding recording methods adopted by different companies, they were specifically asked about the number of injuries treated by physicians in the last year. The answers provided ranged between 0 and 6 injuries. The researchers were doubtful that firms actually had zero accidents, especially in an environment with no formal construction safety regulations and no established safety infrastructure.
%
Another major performance-related issue observed was the training/qualification of the safety personnel. Of the selected firms 28 percent provided details regarding the qualifications (BSc. /BE/ BTech.) and preferred safety certifications of the safety personnel (Figure 5). The other 72 percent of the companies either required field experience of 5-10 years (32 percent) or a bachelor’s degree of Science, Engineering and Technology (40 percent). This indicates that even within the large contracting companies proper safety certification is not required, either due to the lack of training resources or a weak safety culture within the industry. 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 Degree+NEBOSH/Other Field experience of 5-10 cert. years
BSc./BE /B.Tech
Figure 5. Qualification requirements for safety personnel by the selected companies
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Half of the selected companies named the project manager as the investigating authority in case of any accident. Twenty-three percent of the companies indicated that the project manager and safety representative both were authorized to investigate accidents and to determine their causes (Figure 6). No firm selected a foreman or the superintendent as an investigating authority on site. 60 50
%
40 30 20 10 0 Project Manager
Safety Representative
Both
Foreman/superin.
Figure 6. Investigating authorities as described by the selected companies
It was observed in the survey analysis that there was a linear relationship between the size of the company and the duration of safety orientation training sessions that was statistically significant. From category C-A to C-1 the duration of the safety orientation was 20-50 minutes whereas from category C-2 to C-3 it was reduced to 10-20 minutes (Figure 7). That is, as the size of the company declined, the duration of the worker orientation sessions was also reduced. Note that in the equation shown in Figure 7 that x represents the size of the firm, expressed in dollars.
Training Minutes
60 50
y= 1.41e-6x + 13.943 R2 = 0.93
40 30 20 10
27,050,000 25,030,000 22,000,000 20,540,000 18,607,000 15,046,090 11,000,000 10,540,000 9,808,700 7,609,878 7,476,589 6,598,700 5,953,897 5,500,000 5,250,000 4,598,790 3,509,800 2,700,000 2,678,000 2,448,760 2,209,800 1,240,000
0
C-A
C-B
C-1
C-2
C-3
Figure 7. Duration of worker orientation
Safety Culture In relation to safety culture, a survey question was asked regarding home office involvement, the inclusion of safety in the mission statement and safety communications. Companies under the categories C-A and C-B replied that someone from the home office made safety inspections on projects on a weekly or biweekly basis, whereas in the smaller companies the home office visits were generally on a monthly basis (Figure 8). 60
50 40 %
30 20 10 0 weekly/bi-weekly
Monthly
Quarterly
Bi-yearly
Frequency of visits by home office personnel
Figure 8. Frequency of project visits by home office personnel
Companies were asked who in the home office reviewed safety reports generated by the projects, and the results showed that company presidents are never involved in this review. These safety reviews are generally performed by the safety director or other persons in the home office, including the Manager QHSE, CEO etc. This finding reinforces the perception of minimal involvement in safety planning and implementation by the presidents/vice presidents of construction companies in Pakistan. 60 50
%
40 30 20 10 0 President
Vice-President Safety director
Other
Figure 9. Home office involvement in safety reports review
Almost all participants indicated that there was an increased use of personal protective equipment (PPE) on their construction sites. It was common for participants to state that 70 percent to 80 percent of the construction workers were compliant with wearing proper PPE, but it was not clear which PPE was being utilized. That is, was it utilized purely for the sake of safety or was it utilized for the task being performed. Companies under category C-A and C-B provided the researchers with a detailed safety manual and safety policy of their companies. All safety aspects were clearly demonstrated and the preferred actions for better implementation of safety on site were described. A large percentage of the companies in the remaining three categories had safety manuals which were very abbreviated and generic, with some aspects of safety implementation and monitoring that were not addressed.
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CONCLUSIONS The research findings suggest that the large contracting firms in Pakistan are implementing safety rules primarily on the international joint ventures and there is less safety consideration on the local projects. The majority of the contractors attribute this culture to the lack of construction specific safety regulations and the use of vague safety language in the standard form of bidding documents by the Pakistan Engineering Council. The majority of the contractors acknowledged the importance of safety and its significance to improving overall productivity, worker morale and the company reputation, but they do not have any disciplinary binding mandate established either by the Pakistan Engineering Council or All Pakistan Contractors Association. The construction safety training programs are few in number and even these are not well equipped and publicized. Consequently, there is a general perception among the contractors regarding the high cost of training and implementation of safety on their projects. The lack of training facilities in Pakistan is the reason that most of the contracting companies hire their safety personnel on the basis of their experience or related bachelor degree. Because of the fragmented nature of the national safety culture, there is no well-defined mechanism for injury/fatality recordkeeping or incident investigations. Each contracting firm has its own established rules and methods in this regard. In conclusion, there is a dire need for improving the national safety culture of Pakistan by devising strong safety regulations and an equally firm disciplinary process for proper implementation. This will in turn help in improving the macro and micro safety climate within the contracting firms in Pakistan. It is evident that the issues identified in Pakistan, as resulting in poor implementation of worker safety in the construction industry, are not unlike those found in other developing countries. There are other countries with weak or non-existent safety regulations. There are other countries with similar economic conditions. Thus, the findings of this research may be considered to have broader applicability. As solutions are developed, countries can share their experiences and construction safety performance can improve in other countries with similar circumstances.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT This project was funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) and the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan (HEC) under the joint Pakistan-US Science and Technology Cooperation Program (Phase 4).
REFERENCES Awan, T. (2001) Occupational Health and Safety in Pakistan. Asian Labor update report No.39. Labor Force Survey (2010-2011) Pakistan Bureau of Statistics. http://www.pbs.gov.pk. Mohammad S. and Ali T. (2005) Safety Behavior in the Construction Industry in Pakistan. Proceedings of the 4th Triennial International Conference, “Rethinking and Revitalizing Construction Safety, Health, Environment and Quality (pp. 64-75), 17-20 May. Port Elizabeth, South Africa. 62
PEC Constructors/Operators Application Form (2012) Pakistan Engineering Council, http://www.pec.org.pk/downloads.aspx.
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