Occupational accident rate remains high

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Minister of Manpower and Transmigration Jacob Nuwa Wea warned employers on Monday to be proactive in bringing down the high rate of occupational accidents, or face stiff penalties for failure to provide adequate safety for workers.

"We will intensify our supervision of companies, especially the ones in the chemical and construction sectors, to check whether or not their management is complying with the law on health and labor safety," the minister said after signing a cooperative pact with the Surabaya Institute of Technology (ITS) for the development of labor safety technology.

Nuwa Wea expressed his deep concern over the high rate of occupational accidents partly because of employers' ignorance of the law.

He said that the number of occupational accidents increased to more than 66,300 cases in 2000 from an average of 45,000 cases annually from 1995 to 1999.

"According to our data, in the more than 66,300 accidents, a total of 4,142 workers were killed, 20,970 others were seriously injured and more than 87,000 could no longer work. This means that an average of 13 workers died after workplace accidents everyday during 2000," he said, citing the labor accidents also caused losses of 71 million man hours and Rp 340 billion in lost profit.

Nuwa Wea explained that employers were obliged to provide health and labor safety for workers employed to do work which exposed them to hazards.

"The supervision must be intensified especially in chemical factories, underground mining, construction projects and sea and land transportation projects," he said.

The law calls for a maximum penalty of five years imprisonment for companies found guilty of violations.

He admitted that the government has annually awarded companies who succeeded in reaching zero accidents in their companies but it was found less effective for small- and middle-sized companies for financial reasons.

The minister said many of the country's uneducated workers had a little or no awareness of the health and labor safety regulations in their work places as many desperate job seekers had accepted any type of job, even in work places prone to accidents.