BSU to help develop construction safety rules

Build Safe UAE (BSU) has been recommended by the ILO as the private collaborative partner in the Ministry of Labour (MOL)-led drive to develop a list of comprehensive Federal Occupational Safety & Health (OSH) regulations for the UAE construction sector, according to an official.

"The MOL has led this project from the beginning and had spoken to the ILO on looking for a private sector partner. The ILO, in turn identified BSU as a good collaborative partner to engage with the private sector.

On May 6, BSU will meet the four working groups that have been created and initiate discussions to start the drafting of the different categories that need to be included in the new regulations. The deliverables will come post the May meetings," said Elias McGrath, Group Administrator, BSU and Assistant Project Manager at Bovis Lend Lease International.

The BSU, a not-for-profit organisation, consists of 70 major (international and local) members from the UAE construction industry who have agreed to freely share their safety information in the forms of alerts and best practice case studies. The open-distribution list of alerts covers around 7,100 registered individuals. "The next stage will be providing the first draft to the MOL

for review and to the ILO for comment in the next six to nine months. A more detailed programme will be developed when we meet this Thursday with the leaders," he told Emirates Business in an exclusive. "We will draw on existing regulations drafted by DM and the new regulations that are coming into place in Abu Dhabi.

"We will also draw on the experience from the municipalities throughout all the emirates, the Civil Defence, the Ministry of Defence and the private sector to create a document that can be used for the UAE. We are not looking at reinventing the wheel but on drawing on the existing experience to build a suitable document, which is practical and feasible for the construction stakeholders in the industry." Initial discussions started two months ago. "We were called to a meeting by the Ministry of Labour to explore the collaboration and the project scope. We were asked to engage the private sector. We came to our first joint meeting two weeks ago and confirmed the overall scope of work," he added.

Twelve players were selected to form the four working groups. "The MOL had some criteria from the private sector such as organisations must have experience in the UAE, individuals need strong experience in occupational, health and safety and a mix of local and global experience. We proposed 50 companies who had expressed interest, of which 12 companies have been selected to participate in the committee."

He feels it is premature to get into details. "The MOL has expressed it is very much a public and private sector initiative that is driven by the federal level. In the draft document, we will draw from the existing good practices that are taking place within the UAE but also comply with international best practices and standards.

"At the same time, we are considerate of the intention of this project to provide the construction sector with a tool to improve productivity and protect the lives of the employed in the industry."

Standardisation of standards

The Ministry of Labour (MOL) said in a recent meeting: "The construction sector is growing and we would like to help it in its activities and future plans. There were an estimated 1.7 million workers in the construction sector across the UAE as of 2009 compared to 780,000 in 2004. And there is a huge expatriate workforce employed by global and local companies with different sets of micro policy and standards that exist. We are looking for standardisation in standards – a single federal regulation for construction OSH. The outcome must raise the rate of compliance in the sector and help the industry by producing a tool to improve productivity. The product that emerges must be consistent with federal practice.

"MOL will be the advocate and custodian. The final draft will be submitted to the UAE Cabinet for approval and if decreed, then made into law. This regulation will form the federal benchmark that sets the minimum standards acceptable. The MOL has selected a group of OSH experts who they believe forms the best well rounded technical team of contributors for this project and possess enough experience to cover the proposed categories of the document structure."

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