Workplace Safety and Health Act(WSHA)

Introduction

The Workplace Safety and Health Act (WSHA) is an essential part of the new framework to cultivate good safety habits in all individuals so as to engender a strong safety culture in our workplace.

It emphasises the importance of managing workplace safety and health proactively by requiring stakeholders to take reasonably practicable measures to ensure the safety and health of workers and other people that are affected by the work being carried out.

The 3 guiding principles that underpin the new OSH framework are:

Reducing risks at source by requiring all stakeholders to eliminate or minimize the risks they create
Instilling greater ownership of safety and health outcomes by industry
Preventing accidents through higher penalties for poor safety management

Key Reforms include:

Allows a gradual increase in scope to cover all workplaces
Assigns responsibilities to a range of stakeholders at the workplace along lines of control
Focuses on workplace safety and health systems and outcomes
Provides for more effective enforcement through issuance of "remedial orders"
Provides for higher penalties for non-compliant and risk-taking behaviour to prevent accidents upfront

The WSHA stipulates that every person must take reasonably practicable steps to ensure the safety and health of every workplace and worker.

It goes beyond the Factories Act's prescriptive nature to:

Specify liabilities for a range of persons at the workplace
Focus more on workplace safety and health goals and systems
Stipulate greater penalties for compromising safety and health

MFE International can help you meet the requirements of WSHA

Under the WHSA and its subsidiary legislation, you are required to meet certain legislative requirements as follows:

Project-based Risk Assessment, WSH(Risk Management Consultancy
Under the Workplace Safety and Health (Risk Management) Regulations, workplaces are required to conduct a comprehensive risk assessment (RA) on work processes and implement control measures to eliminate or reduce the safety and health risks posed to any person.
MFE International will help you meet the requirements of this regulation and ensure that the organisation�s risk management system is functioning effectively- where occupational risks are properly identified, evaluated and controlled and are compliant with Workplace Safety & Health Risk Management: Risk Assessment Guidelines 2006
See details of our Risk Assessment services

Workplace Safety and Health Officers
Under the Workplace Safety and Health (Workplace Safety and Health Officers) Regulations, every workplace specified in schedule 2 of WSHA shall appoint a workplace health and safety officer.
In accordance with the Second schedule of WSHA, the following needs to appoint workplace safety and health officers:
- Shipyards in which any ship, tanker and other vessels are constructed, reconstructed, repaired, refitted, finished or broken up
- Factories used for processing petroleum or petroleum products.
- Factories in which building operations or works of engineering construction of a contract sum of $10 million or more are carried out.
- Any other factories in which 100 or more persons are employed, except those which are used for manufacturing garments.
MFE International provides MOM qualified safety officers for companies to address this requirement.

see details of our services relating to Provision of Safety Officers
Overtime Risk Assessment Endorsement

Under the Employment Act, Section 38 (5), overtime endorse is required if workers work for:
- more than 12 hours per day
- more than 72 hours overtime per month
The endorsement is valid for 2 years but applies for low risk activities only.
Application for overtime will not be approved if:
- Stop Work or Remedial Work Order has been issued and pending rectification
- Fatal accident in the last 12 months
- No exemption activities
Examples of no-exemption activities include:
- Any work where mental concentration is paramount to ensure safe operations
- Any work involving continuous and manual operation of machinery
- Work activities in extreme thermal conditions involving continuous changes in working temperatures
- Work activities undertaken in a compressed air environment
- Work activities undertaken by young persons and pregnant women
- Work involving strenuous physical demand from manual handling of objects or machinery for prolonged hours
- Work at elevated heights where workers are liable to fall a distance of more than 3 meters