The Taipei City Government Department of Labor yesterday announced NT$1 million (US$32,500) in fines against Taipei Dome contractors over breaches of labor safety rules.
The department announced the inspection following the hospitalization on Monday of a worker surnamed Sung (宋) who fell off a construction rack that had no railing.
Taipei City Foreign and Disabled Labor Office head Chen Hui-chi (陳惠琪) said that Sung was still in intensive care after fracturing four neck vertebrae in the fall.
Department Commissioner Lai Hsiang-lin (賴香伶) criticized site contractors over failure to report the injury to the department within eight hours of the incident as outlined in the Occupational Safety and Health Act (職業安全衛生法).
“Contractors and subcontractors [for the Dome project] should hold themselves to the highest safety standards rather than putting workers in an unsafe environment,” she said. “If you cover up an injury, it raises questions over whether there are safety issues you do not want outsiders to know about.”
“Today’s inspection shows that [site contractors] Farglory [Land Development Co] and Tung-yuan Construction have been careless about protecting worker safety,” Lai said.
Taipei Labor Inspection Office Director Tzou Tzu-lien(鄒子廉) said he had learned of Sung’s injury only after being questioned by reporters.
He said the department’s inspection of the Dome construction site had found 16 breaches of safety rules, mainly for lack of safety railing on construction racks and ladders.
Inspection photographs showed gaps in high-rig railings, open building sides and gaping holes within the belly of the construction which had not been fenced off.
He said the contractors had been fined according to the act and ordered to immediately remedy the problems.
They had been ordered to cease work on four areas within the site that could not be immediately improved, he said, adding that the areas would need to be sealed off until safety measures could be installed.
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