A SURVEY OF CONSTRUCTION SITE SAFETY IN CHINA

Zeng, S.X. Wang, H.C. Tam, C.M. Aetna School of Management, Shanghai Jiaotong University, P.R. China Aetna School of Management, Shanghai Jiaotong University, P.R. China Department of Building and Construction, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

KEYWORDS Construction, safety, site accident, China Introduction The issue of construction site safety has engaged both practitioners and researchers for a long time. Some relevant research on this issue has been extensively reported. Hinze (1981) investigated the relationship between the safety performance of individual workers and individual worker attitudes. Hinze and Raboud (1988) explored several factors that apparently influencing the safety performance on Canadian high-rise building projects. In some studies, the usefulness of behavioral techniques to improve safety performance in the difficult construction setting was examined. The study by Mattila and and Hyodynmaa (1988) revealed that when goals were posted and feedback was given, the safety index was significantly higher than when no feedback was given. Fellner and Sulzer-Azaroff (1984) analysed the industrial safety practices through posted feedback. In a study carried out on Honduras construction sites, Jaselskis and Suazo (1994) demonstrated a substantial lack of awareness or importance for safety at all levels of the construction industry. In addition, Laufer and Ledbetter (1986) assessed various safety measures. Some researchers examined costs of construction accidents to employers (Leopold and Leonard, 1987; Levitt and Samelson, 1993). With regards to construction site safety in Hong Kong, Lingard and Rowlinson (1994) investigated the theoretical background to commitment at the group and organizational level and presented a site-level research model which is illustrative of the possible effects. A more recent study by Tam et al. (2001) explored the attitude change in people after the implementation of the new safety management system in Hong Kong. By international standards, the construction industry in China performs very badly in the area of safety. In 1999, 923 site accidents above IV level occurred in countryside construction, in which 1,097 employees sustained fatal injuries and 299 serious injuries (China Statistical Yearbook of Construction, 2000). However, there is no research, to our knowledge, that tries to examine construction site safety in the Chinese construction industry in international literatures. The study in this paper conducted a survey to explore the factors affecting construction site safety. A description of the methodology, results and analysis, and conclusion are provided in the sections that follow. Methodology A structured questionnaire was sent to senior management reprehensive of one hundred large construction firms. Up to the time when the authors write this paper, twenty completed questionnaires have been received. All the twenty construction firms are state-owned. In China, large construction firms are state-owned establishments under the traditional planned economy system. These firms employ a larger number of staff. Moreover, the construction firms fall into two professional categories: housing building, and civil & municipal engineering.

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Results and Analysis Site accidents There are two categories of site accidents including: more serious accidents and less serious accidents. In more serious accidents, some labors sustain injuries or fatal injuries in the accidents. The 20 % of the respondents claimed that there were records of more serious accidents before. All the respondents claim that less serious accidents occasionally occur. Effects of site accidents This survey lists four aspects of effects of accidents on construction sites including order of production and operations, reputation of firms, psychology of labors, and others. Table 1 lists the respondents views. Effects of site accidents Order of production and operations Reputation of firms Psychology of labors Others Total Table 1 Effects of accidents on construction sites Number of firms 6 14 0 0 20 Proportion (%) 30 70 0 0 100

In Table 1, 70 % of respondents choose the answer reputation of firms and 30% choose order of production and operations. It indicates that the significant effect of site accidents is on reputation of construction firms. Causes of site accidents There are some causes of accidents on construction sites including throwing from high-rise projects, dropping from high-rise projects, improperly operating equipment, and others. Respondents were asked to choose an answer, and the results are listed in Table 2. Causes of site accidents Throwing from high-rise projects Dropping from high-rise projects Improperly operating equipment Collapse of scaffold and framework Others Total Table 2 Number of firms 2 10 4 4 0 20 Proportion (%) 10 50 20 20 0 100

Causes of accidents on construction sites

In Table 2, 70% of respondents ranked dropping from high-rise projects the first cause of site accidents. According to China Statistical Yearbook of Construction (2000), the accidents due to dropping from high projects resulted in 207 (18.87%) employees death. The OHSAS18000 system The respondents were asked whether they would implement the OHSAS 18000 system for safety and health. The 50% of the respondents are going to adopt the system, and the others are not to adopt it. Factors resulting in site accidents The respondents were asked to provide their opinions on the importance of the factors affecting construction site safety by scores from 1 to 5, where 1 represents the least important and 5 the most important. To determine the relative ranking of the factors, the scores were then transformed to importance indices based on the following formula.

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Relative importance/difficulty index =

w
AN

(1)

where w is the weighting given to each factor by the respondents, ranging from 1 to 5, A is the highest weight (i.e. 5 in the study) and N is the total number of samples. Based on equation (1), the relative importance index (RII) can be calculated ranging from 0 to1. Table 3 shows the relative importance index of each factor affecting construction site safety. Ranking Factors affecting site safety 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Table 3 Lack of attention from leaders Reckless action Poor safety conscientiousness of managers Non-certified skill labor Lack of emergency measure Poor equipment Lack of training Poor equipment maintenance Non-rigorous enforcement of safety regulations Non-definite organization commitment Lack of experience of managers Non-effective operation on safety regulation Poor of education of laborers Poor safety conscientiousness of laborers Not-strict operation procedures Lack of technique guide Lack of personal protective equipment Non-perfect of safety and regulations Overtime work for labor Lack of protection in material carrying Lack of protection in material storage Lack of teamwork Shortage of safety management Poor information flow Lack of innovation technology Relative importance index of each factor affecting construction site safety Relative importance index 0.92 0.90 0.88 0.87 0.87 0.85 0.80 0.80 0.76 0.75 0.75 0.75 0.74 0.73 0.70 0.70 0.68 0.67 0.65 0.65 0.64 0.63 0.60 0.60 0.55

In Table 3, the respondents rank the first and the third, with a relative importance index of 0.92 and 0.88. It indicates that leaders play a very important role in safety management in construction. Reckless action is graded the second, with a relative importance index of 0.9. According to China Statistical Yearbook of Construction, fatal employees were 46 (4.19%) resulted from reckless action in 1999. Non-certified skill labors is graded the fourth, with a relative importance index of 0.87. In construction, some activities are professional, such as tower crane and gantry operation, and framework and scaffold erection etc. In 1999, the fatal employees were 102 (9.3%) and 46 (4.19%) resulted from gantry and framework erection respectively. Lack of emergency measure is ranked the fifth, with a relative importance index of 0.87. In general, construction firms have no emergency measures in China. This is relative to the factor lack of attention from leaders and poor safety conscientiousness of managers. The respondents grade poor equipment and poor equipment maintenance is ranked the sixth and the eight respectively, with a relative importance index of 0.85 and 0.80. In 1999, the fatal employees were 95 (8.66%) resulted from the problems of construction equipment. Lack of training is ranked the seventh, with a relative importance index of 0.80. One of the characteristics in China construction is that there are a large number of peasant-workers in the first line,

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who have low education level. The percentage of peasant-workers trained in the construction industry is very low, that is, 3% of peasant-workers have been trained and gained professional certification; 7% trained for short-term; and 90% non-trained (Zhang, 2001). Being lack of necessary training easily results in site accidents. The respondents rank non-rigorous enforcement of safety regulations the ninth, with a relative importance index of 0.76. The respondents grade non-definite organization commitment the tenth, with a relative importance index of 0.75. Conclusion By international standards, the construction industry in China performs very badly in the area of safety. All the construction firms have records of site accidents. The significant effect of site accidents is on reputation of firms. The obvious cause of site accidents is dropping from high-rise projects. Although there are factors resulting in construction site accidents, the main factors include lack of attention from leaders, reckless action, poor safety conscientiousness of managers, non-certified skill labor and lack of emergency measure. References Fellner, D.J. and Sulzer-Azaroff, B. (1984) Increasing industrial safety practices and conditions through posted feedback. Journal of Safety Research , 15, 7-21. Hinze, J. (1981) Human aspects of construction safety. Journal of the Construction Division , ASCE, 107, 61-72. Hinze, J and Raboud, P. (1988) Safety on large building construction projects. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management , ASCE, 114, 286-293. Jaselskis, E.J. and Suazo, G.A.R. (1994) A survey of construction site safety in Honduras. C onstruction Management and Economics , 12, 245-255. Laufer, A. and Ledbetter, W.B. (1986) Assessment of safety performance measures at construction sites. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management , 112(4), 530-542. Leopold, E. and Leonard, S. (1987) Cost of construction accidents to employers. Occupational Accidents , 8, 273-294. Journalof

Levitt, R. and Samelson, N.M. (1987) In Post, N.M. and Young, N. (eds), McGraw Hill, NewYork. Lingard, H and Rowlinson, S. (1994) Construction site safety in Hong Kong. Construction Management and Economics, 12, 501-510. Mattila, M. and Hyodynmaa, M. (1988) Promoting job safety in building: an experiment on the behavior analysis approach. Journal of Occupational Accidents , 9, 255-267. Tam, C.M., I.W.H.Fung and A.P.C.Chan (2001) Study of attitude changes in people after the implementation of a new safety management system: the supervision plan. Construction Management and Economics , 19(4), 393-403. Tang, S.L., Lee, H.K. and Wong, K. (1997) Safety cost optimization of building projects in Hong Kong. Construction Management and Economics , 15, 177-186.

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