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Taipower makes worker safety vow

A performer enacts a skit demonstrating the importance of safety equipment at a press conference held in Taipei yesterday by the city government's Department of Labor to declare a year of workplace safety. PHOTO: CNA

After two fatal accidents on the site of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant before the Lunar New Year holiday, the Taiwan Power Company (Taipower, 台電) yesterday made a pledge to improve worker safety.

A Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) news release yesterday said the management of the site had been "inadequate" and "in need of overall improvement."

Despite the conciliatory words exchanged between Taipower and CLA officials at yesterday's signing of the "safety cooperation pledge," Lin Chin-chi (林進基), the head of the labor inspection department at the CLA, took the opportunity to harshly criticize Taipower's previous lack of commitment to safety.

"To have two almost identical fatal accidents happen within just three days of each other is unforgivable," Lin said. "The managers at Taipower cared only about the quality of the construction and the speed of the progress, not about worker safety."

On Jan. 9 this year, a worker was crushed by heavy equipment because the cables used to hoist the equipment were not correctly tied. Just days later, on Jan. 11, a similar accident occurred at another site at the fourth nuclear power plant, resulting in a fatality.

"A certain set of operating procedures have to be followed to safely suspend heavy equipment on a construction vehicle such as ensuring the center of gravity of the bundle is not off and first performing a test suspension." Lin said. "That standard operating procedure was ignored."

A spokesmen for Taipower explained that the two fatal accidents happened with separate contractors.

"Unfortunately, sometimes contractors cut corners," said Huang Pei-shan (黃陪山), deputy director of the construction administration department of the Longmen (龍門) section of the plant.

There is plenty of blame to go around, Lin said.

"We cannot have a situation where Taipower foists the responsibility for worker safety off on large contractors and large contractors in turn foist it off on small contractors," Lin said.

In the wake of the accidents, the labor inspection department mobilized every available staff member to sweep all work sites at the fourth nuclear power plant for safety violations. Work was suspended on 14 sites and a total of NT$800,000 in fines was levied.

Although the fines pale in comparison with the overall scale of the project, the work stoppages were taken very seriously by the contractors and Taipower, said a CLA official in the labor inspection department who declined to be named.

"There is a lot of pressure to get the plant online in time for the test run next year," the official said.
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