More workers have died in construction-site accidents than a year ago

Finland fares poorly in international comparison of industrial safety

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This year more people have lost their lives in industrial accidents on building sites in Finland than by the same time last year.
      Of the 16 investigated fatal industrial accidents, eight have taken place on building sites. Among the incidents there were the familiar falls and cavings-in of earthworking sites, but also the death of a diver on a dam construction site.
      By this time last year, six people had lost their lives in construction site accidents.
      The old-fashioned tough-guy attitude still dogs the branch, experts say. A “real man” does not need a helmet or a safety harness. Such labourers have even been admired by the site foremen and the management of construction firms.
     
In the international comparison of occupational safety on construction sites Finland is doing poorly.
      “In European terms we are competing for the last place with Albania”, says Tarmo Pipatti, Director General of the Confederation of Finnish Construction Industries, RT, referring to national statistics as well as information by international construction companies.
      A good example of the situation in Finland is provided by the global construction and development group Skanska.
      Skanska Finland has managed to get its industrial accident figure down to ten mishaps per one million man-hours, against the construction field national average of nearly 80 accidents.
     
”The irony lies in the fact that Skanska is the clear safety leader within the Finnish construction industry, and yet, when compared globally Skanska Finland’s safety record is the weakest within the group as a whole”, explains Juha Hetemäki, President of Skanska Finland.
      From the point of view of industrial safety, Skanska branches for example in Estonia, Poland, and the Czech Republic are all better than in Finland. According to Hetemäki, the developers abroad insist that there must not be any occupational accidents.
      In the latest Eurostat comparison from 2006, however, Finland was ranked somewhere in the middle among the 15 countries that were included.
      The problem with such comparisons is that the criteria for industrial accidents vary from one country to the next.
     
Lurking in the background, there is often ignorance, poor supervision, inadequate training, and long subcontractor chains.
      “The closer the work is done to the main contractor, the better the chances of getting through it alive and in one piece”, summarises occupational safety secretary Tapio Jääskeläinen from the Finnish Construction Trade Union.
     
In addition to the human suffering, every occupational accident also weakens a firm’s result. One industrial accident costs the employer EUR 6.000, on average.
      According to Reijo S. Lehtinen of the Confederation of Finnish Construction Industries, things are starting to look a little brighter on the construction sites of Finland’s ten largest building firms, but that is only a small portion of all the construction trade activity taking place in the country.
     
In reality there are huge differences in the attitudes towards safety between the various players.
      While Skanska construction worker Simo Jaakkola performs dangerous installation work on the 16th floor of the Leppävaara tower with his safety equipment in proper shape, in the corner of Helsinki’s Töölönkatu men put together scaffolding high up on a multi-story structure in T-shirts, without helmets or protective gloves.
      “There is no limit to the risks a labourer is allowed to take, but when something happens the employer is held responsible and takes the punishment”, Lehtinen concludes.


See also:
  Alcohol involved in one in three accidental deaths (25.3.2009)

Links:
  Confederation of Finnish Construction Industries RT
  The Finnish Construction Trade Union

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