A workplace safety concern group has urged Hong Kong contractors to stop using “old-style” lift platforms following the death of an outsourced government maintenance worker after the platform he was working on fell at a sports centre.
The 69-year-old male worker was carrying out ceiling maintenance works at the North Kwai Chung Tang Shiu Kin Sports Centre on Monday morning when the elevated platform he was on plunged, a government statement said.
He fell from a height of around nine metres, local media reported.
The worker, who was outsourced by the Architectural Services Department, was unconscious when paramedics arrived, and was later certified dead at Yan Chai Hospital.
The Leisure and Cultural Services Department, which operates the sports centre, said in a statement on Monday night that it extended the deepest condolences to the worker’s family. It added that the incident was under investigation, and that the department has suspended the use of similar elevated platforms.
In response to the Kwai Chung sports centre incident, the Association for the Rights of Industrial Accident Victims said in a Chinese statement on Monday that according to people in the industry, the elevated platform that the worker was on was an “old-style” device that dated back to the 1990s, which did not have adequate safety mechanisms to ensure proper foot placement before being raised.
The group urged the city to stop using those platforms and to make prosecutions if the contractor was found to have committed safety violations.
The Labour Department said it would issue suspension notices to the contractors concerned, and that work could only be resumed once the department was “satisfied that measures to abate the relevant risks have been taken.”
A spate of workplace incidents, some fatal, have put a spotlight on industrial safety in recent years. Labour rights groups have long said the fines faced by employers were insufficient for reflecting the severity of the offences and deterring offenders.
In May, two companies were fined HK$70,000 over two separate workplace safety incidents that led to death. The penalties came after an occupational safety law was amended in April, under which employers face an increased maximum penalty of HK$10 million – up from HK$500,000 – for safety violations.
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