Middle East workplace safety culture under the spotlight

In the new era of corporate governance everyone from the plant level superintendent to the chairman or president of major corporations should be questioning the soundness - or even existence - of their safety programmes.

The spotlight will fall on the regional companies failing to adopt best international practice in safety management after the 1st Middle East Congress on Managing Safety in the Workplace, which takes place in Dubai next month (www.iirme.com/safety).

"With the lack of local legislation - or the lack of will to apply it - the question of implementing programmes to reduce accidents in the workplace is not one that has been given high priority by many companies in the region - with honourable exceptions,"said congress director Chris Mullinger.

"But this is changing rapidly. Multi-national companies apply safety programmes at their Middle East workplaces of the same high standards as in their more tightly-regulated home bases. This, in turn, is forcing regional joint venture partners to do likewise.

"In addition, as more and more regional companies seek to sell their products into other markets, they are having to introduce safety and environment programmes acceptable to their target customers."

A lot remains to be done, however, and the question of corporate responsibility and safety management is prominent on the agenda of the Managing Safety in the Workplace Congress.

Best practice both internationally and regionally will be discussed and the Congress will be followed by a special workshop for board level directors and senior executives on their responsibility for safety in the workplaces they manage.

Many governments encourage director-level responsibility for safety management and, in some cases, are tightening existing laws with the creation of the offence of "corporate killing" or "corporate manslaughter".

The need for senior executive and board level involvement in safety programmes has been underlined by research:

Safety experts in the UK found that most major calamities are caused by "management failure"

The European Union says 6000 deaths a year from work-related accidents and injuries is the result not only of carelessness and negligence but "bad management and incompetence"

In the United States the financial cost of 5,300 work related deaths in 2001 was worked out at US$132 billion

Even companies who have safety management programmes in place have to ask essential questions about the soundness, or otherwise, of their programmes.

"These questions cannot, and should not, be answered with a simple yes or no," said Mulllinger. "They go to the heart of the need for management safety programmes to have substance and depth and not just rely on buzzwords.

"They are the kind of questions delegates at the 1st Middle East Congress on Managing Safety in the Workplace will be facing up to next month."