# Construction Workers - Safety Issues?



## Andy Capp (Oct 5, 2008)

So there I was at National Pants roundabout slip road in Sharjah (heading from Dubai), looked out my window and saw the attached. The guys are standing on a bitof ply, 4 stories up, no helmet, no safety rope attached and wearing flip flops.

And you wonder why there's so many deaths on construction sites.


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## flossie (Jun 9, 2008)

Unfortunately, life is cheap here. Cheaper than implementing standard safety practices, anyway.


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## Maz25 (Jul 6, 2008)

Unfortunately, this seems to be a common occurence here. You can find the same in the Marina as well or just about any construction site here. Someone told me this morning as well that these poor labourers earn only 22 AED a day - I felt physically sick!!!! On a good day, I spend more than that on lunch!!!


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## DesertStranded (Oct 9, 2008)

Maz25 said:


> Someone told me this morning as well that these poor labourers earn only 22 AED a day - I felt physically sick!!!! On a good day, I spend more than that on lunch!!!


Unfortunately, not only is their salary pathetic. They often live in unsanitary workcamps. And quite frequently they are made to repay their visa costs and sometimes aren't paid for months on end. There are companies here that even don't pay the workers. They just wait for them to go on strike and then they have them deported so they can bring in a fresh batch of 'slave' laborers. It happens a lot more than is reported.


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## Shinjuku (Jul 12, 2008)

Safety begins at home, so to anyone else working in the construction industry, if you're out on site and see such incidents, please report it!


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## Rusty2 (Aug 19, 2008)

Please be careful here not to tar every construction company with the same brush. Like every other industry there are good and bad. There are some reputable (mostly UK) construction firms in the UAE which apply exactly the same standards of health, safety and employee care that they practise in the UK. 

Unfortunately due to the rate of development there are an abundance of less diligent operators.


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## Ogri750 (Feb 14, 2008)

Health and Safety on a construction site in Dubai? Please, don't make me laugh.

90% ofthe sites here, if they were visited by the HSE would have so many violation notices served against them, the sites would be shut for months.

As for worker welfare, a perfect example of how little attention is given. We are starting to reduce the number of workers on our site, but we still have approx. 1000 workers. A guy came to the office yesterday with a pretty severe cut to his hand. He made his way to Health, Safety and Enviroment people, obviously in need of first aid. I watched in amazement as 4 people did not have clue what to do with him. I stepped in and did the necessary. When the senior guy from the HSE team turned up, I asked how many in his team were first aid trained. None. It turns out I am the only person who is first aid qualified on the site from our company. Shocking to say the least.


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## Shinjuku (Jul 12, 2008)

Ogri750 said:


> Health and Safety on a construction site in Dubai? Please, don't make me laugh.
> 
> 90% ofthe sites here, if they were visited by the HSE would have so many violation notices served against them, the sites would be shut for months.


Sad but true. H&S improvements don't happen overnight. It usually takes a major incident with at least 20 fatalities before there will be any political will to change things.
Which makes it even more important that each of us do what we can on individual projects to raise the standards of H&S.


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## crazymazy1980 (Aug 2, 2008)

Shinjuku said:


> Sad but true. H&S improvements don't happen overnight. It usually takes a major incident with at least 20 fatalities before there will be any political will to change things.
> Which makes it even more important that each of us do what we can on individual projects to raise the standards of H&S.


or kill 20 workers muwahahahahahahaha


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## Shinjuku (Jul 12, 2008)

crazymazy1980 said:


> or kill 20 workers muwahahahahahahaha


I always knew you were an evil ******. Must be that twitch in your eye


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