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2.3. Construction project supervisors’ inspection on safetySince 1989 China has begun adopting the Construction Supervision Scheme . Oneof the project-supervisor engineer s responsibilities is to monitor construction safety. Since the issuance of the Regulation on Construction Project Supervision in 1996,the construction supervision scheme has been extensively practiced in China. Ac-cording to the system, the role of the supervisors is to enhance construction super-vision by introducing checks and control at various construction stages on behalf ofthe clients. Under clause 32 of the current Construction Law issued in 1997, thesupervisors duties are to ensure construction works in compliance with the con-struction regulations, to supervise execution of the work, to monitor constructionsafety, to prepare supervision plans and to notify the government in the case of anyviolation of the relevant statutory legislations.2.4. Types of ownership of construction firmsIn China, all large construction firms were state-owned establishments under thetraditional planned economy system. Since the adoption of the reform and openingpolicies in 1978, the traditional planned economy system has been gradually replacedby the market economy in China. A great number of peasants were liberated fromtraditional cultivation and farming works and organized themselves into rural-village-enterprises and rural construction teams (RCT). This was closely associatedwith the rapid economic expansion, which results in high volumes of constructionactivities and renders China the largest construction market in the world. As at 1999,the proportion of RCT has reached 51%, with that of state-owned enterprises (SOE)at 10%, urban collective-owned (UCO) at 26%, and others (including public-listedsharing-holding, foreign-funded enterprises) at 13% (see Fig. 2), which represents agreat change in the form of ownership of construction enterprises in China.Previous research has revealed that there is a relationship between sizes of firmsand accident rates (Hinze and Raboud, 1988). A study by McVittie et al. (1997) in-dicated that accident rates decrease as the sizes of firms increase. The underlyingfactors include the degree of planning and organization in large firms versus that ofsmall firms, the presence of in-house health and safety expertise or resources, thedegree of unionization, access to and use of external support services relating to health and safety, levels of government inspection and the effects of economies ofscale. Comparing SOEs with RCTs in China, the average numbers of employees are735 and 150 respectively (China Statistical Yearbook, 2001).However the fatality ratefor the former is three times that of the latter (China Construction Statistical Year-book, 2000). This trend contradicts to the findings of McVittie et al. (1997), repre-senting the exceptional behavior of construction safety in China. The fatality rate forSOEs was 6.0 per 100,000 workers and 2.0 for RCTs. This is closely associated withthe operational nature of construction firms in China. Almost all Chinese construc-tion firms of different sizes compete for similar jobs in the construction market andmanage similar projects, which results in excessive competition and thin profitmargins, especially for large SOEs which need tomaintain a sizable business turnover.In spite of the well-defined roles of the above parties in construction safety, thesafety performance on construction sites is still disappointingly poor in China.
Oc-cupational accidents have not been effectively prevented. When comparing the fig-ures of 1998 and 1999, the serious accidents on construction site had increased by21.2% while the number of fatalities had increased by 15.1%.3. Root causes affecting safety performanceThere are various factors influencing safety management in the construction in-dustry. These factors can be grouped into people s role, organization, management,technology, industrial relationship and so on. Due to differences in culture, man-agement and the market structure, these factors have perse influence on con-struction safety. The related literature to date on safety management is tabulated inTable 1, based upon a literature search in our libraries. Based on the above, a questionnaire survey was designed by incorporating 25factors affecting construction safety. The objective of the survey is to explore thestatus of construction safety management in China. The survey was conducted in 200large and medium-sized construction firms listed in the Dictionary of Quality SystemCertificated Enterprises. As ISO 9000 certified companies have embraced safetymanagement in their quality systems, they should, theoretically, perform better insafety. The results of the survey can be expected, therefore, to give a better picture ofsafety management than in the average company. Structured questionnaire surveysand interviews were used to collect the necessary information and data. Question-naires were sent to the safety representatives including safety inspectors, managersand directors, who were responsible for safety, of the construction firms listed in theDictionary of ISO 9000 Certified Enterprises. The areas of investigation of thequestionnaires are summarized as follows:• safety management system;• safety behaviors and safety measures;• impact of site accidents on companies;• factors affecting safety management; and• government support.Sixty completed questionnaires have been received, a response rate of 30%, anaverage response rate for the construction industry as construction firms are nor-mally found not helpful in completing questionnaires. In addition, interviews wereconducted with government officials of the construction departments in charge ofconstruction safety, focusing on safety policies and procedures issued by the gov-ernment, safety standards, and factors affecting safety on construction sites.In the survey, all the 200 construction firms are ISO 9000 certified, representing abetter picture of safety management than in the average company as describedabove. Among the 60 responded, they fall into two categories of ownership: 52 state-owned (87%) and eight public-listed sharing-holding enterprises (13%). Out of all theresponding firms, 52 firms (87%) employ over 1001 people, four firms (6.5%) between501 and 1000, and four firms (6.5%) below 500.5. Results and discussion5.1. Safety manual and proceduresThe purpose of the safety manual is to communicate a firm s safety policy, identifythe safety factors, define responsibility and control the safety management system.As the backbone of the management system, the manual defines the safety proce-dures and instructions and identifies the specific requirements. The respondents wereasked whether they have a safety manual and safety procedures. 62% of the re-spondents claimed that they did not have documented safety manuals, while 38%had. With respect to the safety procedure, all the respondents said that they haddocumented procedures for safety management on construction sites, which formedpart of the procedural process control (Clause 4.9) of ISO 9000: 1994. However, themajority of the respondents (92%) claimed that not every worker knew the proce-dure. That means they had a quality management system, which included and de-fined a safety procedure but not a structured safety management system supportedwith a safety manual.5.2. Provision of personal protection equipmentThe status of the provision of personal protection equipment (PPE) for workers isillustrated in Fig. 3.Fig. 3 shows that the most common PPE provided are gloves, hard hats and eyegoggles. However, many workers consider that hard hats are not convenient for theiroperations.5.3. Safety meeting and trainingRegular safety meetings are necessary for communicating safety information to allparties. 36% of the respondents claimed that they had regular safety meetings, andthe others indicated that safety issues were discussed and presented at other meet-ings, such as construction planning meetings. However 87% argued that the topmanagement seldom attended the safety meetings.The respondents were asked whether they had provided safety training for thefirst-line workers. 24% of the respondents claimed the provision of systematictraining; 65% offered occasional training; and the others (11%) rarely provided anytraining. In the construction industry, construction workers have high mobility andthey switch from one company to another frequently. The transient nature of the construction workforce makes it difficult to train workers. The lack of effective labortraining is a major concern in safety management.5.4. Impact of site accidentsThe questionnaire asked what the most significant impact of site accidents onconstruction firms was. The possible answers were increase in cost , interruptedconstruction schedule , impairing reputation of firms , imposing psychologicalburden on workers , and others. Fig. 4 shows the results.Fig. 4 shows that 68% of the respondents considered impairing reputation offirms as the most serious impact of site accidents. Interrupted construction sched-ule , increase in cost and imposing psychological burden on workers were indicatedby 15%, 12% and 5% of the respondents respectively. That means the respondentswere in general more concerned about the public view and image, rather than theinternal distress of time, cost and labor.5.5. Perceived probability of serious accidents on sitesConstruction sites exhibit unique hazardous characteristics; for example, workersare crowded together on sites, operating at height and outdoors, with the use ofheavy machine and equipment. The questionnaire explores the perceived probabilityof serious accidents on construction sites, which will lead to fatalities. The respon-dents were asked to choose the most probable serious site accidents (can be morethan one from a list of accidents prepared by the authors) that may lead to fatalitiesand the results are shown in Fig. 5.Fig. 5 indicates that falling from height is considered most risky (92%) (Larssonand Field, 2002). The other accidents in descending order of perceived probabilityare hit by falling materials , collapse of earthwork, use of heavy machine , and electrocution . The results are comparable (with the exception of the ranking of electrocution ) with the safety statistical data of the construction industry in China(as listed in Table 2). The results indicate that the frequencies of accidents correlatepositively with fatalities and severe injuries with the exception of electrocution.Table 2 shows that falling from height scores high both in the accident and fa-tality records. The proportion of the accident reaches 50% of the total accidents,which is obviously higher than any other accidents. With respect to fatality, 524construction workers (48%) lost their life due to falling from height in 1999 (seeTable 3).5.6. The OHSAS 18000 systemThe respondents (all accredited with ISO 9000) were asked whether they hadimplemented the OHSAS (Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series) 18000system, a new international standard for the Chinese enterprises, for safety and health. Although 50% of the respondents claimed that they were going to adopt thesystem, they were in fact adopting a wait-and-see attitude. The rest had not con-sidered adopting it.5.7. Relative importance of factorsThe respondents were asked to provide their opinions on the importance of a listof 25 factors affecting construction site safety by scores from 1 to 5, where 1 rep-resents the least important and 5 the most important. To determine the relativeranking of the factors, the scores were then transformed to importance indices basedon the following formula (Tam et al., 2000):Relative importance index ¼PwA Nð1Þwhere w is the weighting given to each factor by the respondents, ranging from 1 to 5and A is the highest weight (i.e. 5 in the study) and N is the total number of samples.Based on Eq. (1), the relative importance index (RII) can be normalized to fallwithin 0–1. Table 4 shows the RII of each factor affecting construction site safety,according to the respondents.The respondents ranked poor safety awareness of firm s top leaders and poorsafety awareness of project managers first and third, with a RII of 0.93 and 0.89. Itindicates that leaders play a very important role in construction safety management.The top management sets up appropriate environments for safety by defining thesafety policy and allocating resources. The attitude of the top leaders plays an im-portant role in cultivating a good safety culture (Seppala, 1995). However, in practice,not all business leaders pay great attention to safety management because otherbusiness objectives such as profitability, schedule and quality are always competingfor their time and resources (Hakkinen, 1995). This can be seen from the question-naire response that only a small proportion of top management attended safety meetings. As contractors have to finish the work within a specified period of time, atan agreed price and at a certain standard of workmanship, most people focus on theimmediate problems and view their top priorities as meeting the production schedule,quota and cost targets, and quality requirements. Only after achieving these objec-tives will they give some considerations to safety (Tam et al., 2001). Lack of training is ranked second with a RII of 0.90. Training programs helppersonnel carry out various activities effectively, establish a positive safety attitude,and integrate safety with the construction and quality goals. In fact, the percentageof construction workers being trained is very low in China. Statistics reveal that only3% of workers have been trained and certified, 7% trained under short-term pro-grams, whilst 90% are without any training at all (Zhang, 2001). From the survey,there were only 24% of the respondents providing systematic training and 11% noteven any training at all. In addition, one of the characteristics of the Chinese con-struction industry is the existence of a large number of peasant workers, who receivelittle education and are unskilled, untrained, and inexperienced (education levels ofthese workers are shown in Fig. 6).They come from poor provinces and are ready to take up any jobs to earn areasonable living for their families. Due to relatively low requirements for skills inconstruction, the industry has been overwhelmed with peasant workers. Reluctance to input resources for safety is rated as fourth, with a RII of 0.86.This is closely associated with the operational nature of construction firms in China.Almost all Chinese construction firms of different sizes compete for the same jobs inthe construction market and manage similar projects, which results in excessivecompetition and thin profit margins, sometimes even losses due to the unhealthycompetition. The vicious circle hinders technology and productivity improvement, inwhich the state-owned construction firms are the direct victims (see Fig. 7).Meanwhile the government policy has set a burden on SOEs, which need toshoulder extra welfare costs and retirement pension of workers that include socialand welfare amenities.Additionally, delay in payments is a common problem in China. In 1999, thevalue of arrears in payment reached 222,140 million RMB (Yuan) (27,090 million US$), which was 19.1% of total construction output. This phenomenon is attributedto two main reasons. First, all construction firms can and are willing to tender for allkinds of jobs, which results in acute competition in the construction market. Underthese circumstances, construction firms, which are desperate for jobs, will use theirown funds or even borrow money from the banking system to start the project onbehalf of the clients. Second, the operational environment for the Chinese state-owned construction firms is far from perfect. Although the National ConstructionLaw was issued in November 1997, the existing legislative and regulatory frame-works are incomplete, and often, high-level government officials have the final say onany decisions. As a result, the clients and contractors are not equals. The legitimateinterests of construction firms cannot be protected when they come into conflict withother higher-level benefits.