Labourers taking short-cuts are to blame for the majority of injuries on construction sites, a top executive at Arabtec, one of the largest builders in the Gulf, has said.
Work place safety is a particular concern in the GCC, where there is rapid development in relatively immature markets that rely on low-paid foreign labour and do not have unions.
Arabtec group chief operating officer Mark Andrews said safety standards in the UAE were “variable, if nothing else” and were “inconsistent” compared to more established markets such as the UK.
“If I compare [the UAE] to a market like the UK, what you see is something that is far more consistent; the safety standards are almost mandated by government and by a combination of industry bodies, whereas in this market it is far, far less consistent,” he told a construction conference in Dubai on Tuesday.
“Some of the projects that we have, and indeed that others are doing, the safety is at world-class levels and the challenge for those of us running the businesses is to get them all to world-class levels.”
But employees “ignoring” procedures made it difficult for managers to meet the highest safety standards.
“There is no excuse for not running safe operations [but] given the work forces that we have there are additional challenges in doing that,” Andrews said.
“I’m sure the vast majority of contractors … see the same as me: the vast majority of lost time injuries continue to be on people knowing the procedure but just not following it [causing] slips, trips [and] falls.
“The equipment is there, the process is there, the method is there but they just ignore it and they take the shortcut.
“You just have to stay on top of it all the time.”
Qatar, which is preparing for the 2022 World Cup, has particularly faced international union scrutiny over its workplace safety record.
The number of falls from heights has nearly doubled from 600 in 2008 to 1000, according to the director of the Trauma Intensive Care Unit at Hamad Medical Corporation, Dr Ahmed Zarour.
The International Trade Union Confederation slammed the country as a “21st-century slave state” earlier this year over its alleged poor conditions for guest workers and human rights abuses.
The world’s leading union claimed that 191 Nepali workers died in Qatar in 2010, most of them because of heart attacks caused by outdoor temperatures rising to up to 50C.
“More labourers will die in Qatar during construction than the footballers who step on the pitch,” secretary general Sharan Burrow told AFP.
“The way Qatar takes advantage of migrant workers is a disgrace to football.”
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