Report IDA - SSC Webinar :
Highlights to Construction Sites (Safety)
Regulations (CSSR)
under Factories and Industrial Undertakings
Ordinance, Cap.59
Speaker : Mr. Dickson LEUNG,
Experienced Occupational Safety Officer of the Labour Department, HKSAR.
Among all the current HK legislations about Occupational Safety and
Health, the Factories and Industrial Undertakings Ordinance, Cap.59 is one of
the most important laws and it has the most regulations under the same
ordinance.
In the 75-minute-long webinar
briefing, Dickson highlighted all the critical parts in the Construction
Sites (Safety) Regulations (CSSR). He first brought us the legal definition of
"Construction Sites" to clarify our misunderstanding on that. In fact, the storage of construction
materials / plants, domestic maintenance or even gondola cleaning works are all
defined as construction works.
Following the introduction, the
webinar went for the relationship and safety responsibilities of principal
contractors and sub-contractors. It allows our members working in such firms to
have a better understanding about their own duty in site safety. For the managerial
staff, on the other hand, they also benefit from setting out a better budgeting
plan during the tendering stage. Focusing on site practice, Dickson showed us
the legal requirements in a construction site. It includes safe use of Personal
Protective Equipment (PPE), lifting operation, scaffolding and working
platform, excavation, electricity and safe access & egress. A lot of
technical knowledge and dimensional guidelines ranging from equipment
categories, structural requirement, testing & examination criteria, safety
devices to operation manner were presented to our engineers as a reference for
their site checking. Last but not least, Dickson shared with us an
analysis of accident statistics to help us know more about the distribution of
accident root causes in construction sites. It pinpointed what common mistakes we
have and which safety measures we should enhance in future.
The webinar was very successful with about
380 attendees. And the Q&A
session met with an enthusiastic response. A lot of questions were raised so that
we had to extend our Q&A session to fulfill all the members' need. One of
the most controversial questions is that: "If an accident happens under
supervision of both an engineer and safety officer, who should be responsible
for that?" Here, SSC
would like to let all our members know--- "Safety is Everyone's
Responsibility"!