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IOSH Middle East Conference 2018

Open-access content Wednesday 16th May 2018
From the archive:  Just so you know, this article is more than 1 year old.

Conference-report-IOSH-Middle-East-Conference-2018

 

"There is significant evidence to show that asbestos is making its way on to construction sites and into new projects [in the Gulf region]," Charles Faulkner, head of environment, health and safety at asbestos consultancy Anthesis Consulting Group, told IOSH's Middle East Conference in Abu Dhabi on 25 April.

The hazardous material is being used in new buildings across Abu Dhabi and Dubai more than a decade after the United Arab Emirates (UAE) banned it in 2006, Faulkner said. Most prevalent are insulating boards and braided asbestos insulation, as well as cement roof sheeting, cement pipework, gaskets and vinyl floor tiles.

Faulkner raised the issue during a Q&A session with IOSH's president and conference chair, Craig Foyle. He went on: "For the gaskets, we've seen counterfeit materials that claim to be non-asbestos coming from China but when tested in a laboratory they've tested positive for chrysotile white asbestos. Of the braided insulation: unfortunately that can be bought from Alibaba [the Chinese e-commerce company]."

He blamed the problem on a lack of awareness of the risks posed by asbestos exposure and the transient nature of most of the UAE's expatriate population: "As people leave, they take their knowledge and experience with them." He advised employers to "implement a best practice approach to asbestos [-¦] Identify the asbestos risks on your sites, risk-assess it and then have a plan in place to manage that risk."

Short rations

Keith Griffin, managing director of consultant HSEC Services, gave examples of poor living conditions that have prevailed in Middle Eastern labour camps, housing the region's hundreds of thousands of migrant workers. He told delegates about non-air conditioned bedrooms sleeping up to eight men and recalled one instance of people working 14-hour days from the beginning of their two-year contracts.

The provision of meals was another issue facing the region's migrant workforce living in labour camps. Griffin said he was shocked to discover the "swill" that was being served on one site -- "it was just a bone in water".

During Ramadan one year he visited a camp in Abu Dhabi that had failed to cater to those who were fasting: "Come Sahur [the pre-dawn meal], the kitchen was closed. There were several hundred Muslims lining up for breakfast and there was nothing. People were angry for weeks."

The conference took place less than a month before the start of Ramadan -- which runs from 15 May to 14 June -- and Griffin encouraged delegates to visit the website www.productivemuslim.com for advice on looking after their workforces throughout the month. "Make sure that, if you've got camps, get the diet right and respect the culture," he said.

Griffin reminded the audience that lost productivity due to poor wellbeing cost employers "a fortune" and that the buck stopped with managers.

Stephen Smith, the director of safety, health, environment and quality at Australian-owned construction multinational Multiplex, echoed Griffin's point that wellbeing and productivity went hand in hand.

Multiplex worked with a consultant to develop a bespoke worker welfare management system that addressed legal obligations mandated in local laws in the Middle East, international standards and the UK Modern Slavery Act.

Smith said the system "talks the language of construction professionals", adding: "We've taken away the human rights jargon; construction managers and site managers don't want to hear that. They want something that's process driven, that they can pick up and implement effectively."

Multiplex recently took on 750 migrant workers for a construction project. "More than 3,000 people were queueing down the street," Smith said of the recruitment day. "That's a reflection on what happens when you can promote some really good practices, like the 'employer pays' principle [under which migrant workers are not required to pay recruitment fees]."

To the root

The impact of worker welfare on workplace performance was picked up again by Subba Rao Palagummi, a health, safety and environment consultant at Kuwait Oil Company and currently serving as best practices chair for the American Society of Safety Engineers' Region IX.

He told delegates about an incident at an oil and gas processing plant in which an experienced foreman had lit a cigarette inside the facility because he was distracted.

"I visited his [labour] camp, bought him a cup of coffee and asked him, 'What made you do this?' He told me, 'Today is 18 May and I haven't received my salary [which should have been paid on 7 May]. My son and wife are at home and I was thinking about them'."

Palagummi concluded: "Human behaviour is not the root cause of accidents. It is because of some system failure in the management."

Earlier in the day Dr Rob Cooling, vice-president of health, safety, quality and environment (HSQE) at Dubai's upcoming Expo 2020, gave an insight into the challenges of deploying a safety and health strategy that spans thousands of workers on a scheme for which a reported £31.4bn worth of construction projects are currently under way.

The number of construction workers on the 4.38 sq km site will soon ramp up from 13,000 to about 40,000 as the 20 October 2020 opening date for the world exposition draws closer.

The "Better Together" strategy is underpinned by six elements: leadership; communication; competency; engagement; reward and recognition; and continuing improvement. "Leadership is a core strand that runs through our strategy," said Cooling. "You do start with the higher-level vision and it's how that is deployed [...] It's important that these messages get down to the workforce and supervisors in particular."

To ensure the responsibility for safety and health cascades through the supply chain, Expo 2020 organises forums for its safety practitioners, as well as safety, health and welfare leaders' tours. A week before the conference Expo 2020 had delivered the first in a series of leadership sessions on HSQE to about 150 executives from consultants, contractors, subcontractors and project managers.

Its safety leadership team has also developed a streamlined version of IOSH's Leading Safely course because "we really struggle to get people out for a day", Cooling said. "We put together a shorter, three-hour session that gives context about our strategy and then focuses in on leadership [-¦] and the concrete behaviours that we want to see from our leaders."

As part of its welfare programme, Expo 2020 arranges an annual social function. This year it was a cricket tournament and about 4,000 workers watched security technology supplier Transguard beat civil engineering firm Al Naboodah in the final at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium.

Cooling said: "I've been in the region for coming up to 11 years and I've never been involved in a programme that has such a significant focus on worker welfare."

You may also be interested in...

 Heather Bryant, Balfour Beatty

Wednesday 16th May 2018
“Some people will say ‘you can’t do zero harm, that’s just ridiculous’ but how come we have sites that can go for years and years without harm? We are saying that day by day you always have to aim for zero harm and we expect those gaps to get bigger and bigger so sites go for more and more years [with no accidents].”
Open-access content

 Kevin Myers, IALI

Wednesday 18th April 2018
Kevin Myers has a unique perspective on the UK’s safety and health regulator. He served in increasingly central roles in the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) from soon after its foundation in 1975, culminating in a year as acting chief executive in 2013.
Open-access content

 ICOH 2018 Congress

Monday 14th May 2018
The global reach of the International Commission on Occupational Health was illustrated at the organisation’s triennial congress in Dublin, Ireland, from 29 April to 4 May in a panel session on occupational cancer prevention which featured OH experts from around the world. Dr Kurt Straif of the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer reminded delegates of the state-level hierarchy of controls, starting with bans on carcinogens in the workplace or mandating closed systems in which no human contact was possible.
Open-access content

 EPC-UK: committed to fitness

Friday 11th May 2018
For EPC-UK, a company with a distributed, ageing, mainly male workforce of nearly 250, the management of occupational ill-health risk is vital.As a leading manufacturer and supplier of commercial explosives (see "EPC-UK" box below) for the UK mining, quarrying and aggregate sectors, EPC’s employees are scattered over eight locations from Shetland to Cornwall and their work is demanding.
Open-access content

 Landsec: duty to manage

Wednesday 18th April 2018
As one of the UK’s biggest construction clients and the nation’s largest listed commercial property company, Landsec accords asbestos management primary importance.“If there is an asbestos issue on one of our sites, it would be bad news, so it’s in our interest to do the right thing,” says David Tucker, health, safety and security business partner.
Open-access content
Moussa Oumarou and Issa Saad Al Jafali Al Nuaimi at the opening ceremony

 Qatar agreement to improve OSH standards for migrant workers

Friday 4th May 2018
The new office is the first step in implementing the technical cooperation agreement signed between the Qatar government and the ILO last November.The ILO said it will work with the government and other stakeholders to implement a new OSH policy that will pay particular attention to the risks of heat stress. This will be supported by an awareness raising campaign.
Open-access content
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