Dubai labourers: A matter of life and death

When a fault on an excavator led to the death of a worker on one of Bovis Lend Lease’s UK sites last year, it was a personal tragedy for the man’s family, friends and colleagues. But it was also a death that would have repercussions not only in Britain, but around the world.

Bovis’ health and safety managers were shocked to discover that there had been similar incidents, albeit near misses, on sites around the UK, and almost 100 incidents internationally. If they’d had a system for sharing that information, tragedy could have been averted.

The fatality was the catalyst for a new spirit of data sharing, both within Bovis Lend Lease and with its competitors. In Dubai, this has culminated in the Build Safe Dubai initiative, which offers an anonymous forum for construction managers across the emirate to share warnings and good practice with their peers. Its potential to improve health and safety in the region is vast – even if its members have had to find a way to work within the political and practical constraints that Dubai presents.

The founder members were signed up last year when Bovis Lend Lease chairman John Spanswick called a meeting with the heads of five other main contractors working in the region: Balfour Beatty, Carillion, Laing O’Rourke, Multiplex and Murray & Roberts. But since it opened to other firms in January, Build Safe Dubai has snowballed, with little more than word-of-mouth promotion. Directors at 58 companies have publicly signed its charter, promising to provide a safe working environment and adequate welfare facilities and training. More than 750 individuals have joined its mailing list, and it now receives between five and 10 “safety alerts” each week.

There are no published accident statistics in Dubai, and a vacuum of safety information and regulation has contributed to frequent injuries on site. The problem is not a lack of standards. In fact, the Dubai Municipality has a comprehensive code, based on British regulations. During the summer months, for example, there was a ban on working from 12.30-3pm, when temperatures topped 50ÞC. “Local and international regulations are not a lot different, but Dubai takes a lot of stick about a lack of regulatory enforcement” says Grahame McCaig, chair of Build Safe Dubai and general manager of Dutco Balfour Beatty.

But the fact remains that the state has only 16 inspectors to cover 6,000 building sites. “Given the sheer volume of work in Dubai, I think that even the Health and Safety Executive [the UK inspectorate] would struggle to regulate the market,” admits McCaig.

“Larger, high-profile developments probably do get the required level of attention, but the many individual buildings dotted around the city don’t,” adds Chris Doyle, Bovis’ head of safety and sustainability for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. “We couldn’t fault the efforts of the regulators – we saw our role to share best practice and try to reach contractors that way.”

There were some human rights workers who published some critical statistics and blamed the government. The only upshot was that they were asked not to continue operating in the country. That doesn’t help the cause

Chris Doyle, Bovis Lend Lease

The key difference wih Build Safe Dubai, Doyle says, is that only the chief executive or regional manager of a company can sign up to the initiative, and they must do so at a public ceremony. It’s not a binding contract, but safety is at least in theory led from the top.

“We’ve had a few instances where one organisation has contacted us and said, ‘We’ve got a signatory organisation on a project not giving us the right support. So you have the chief executive of one company ringing the chief executive of the other saying, ‘We’ve both signed this charter, can we work it out?’”

Build Safe Dubai is trying to get across the idea that safer working conditions provide more than a mere reputational boost to contractors. “The productivity of labour is going to improve,” says McCaig. “If a guy isn’t worried about falling off scaffolding, you get a better quality of product because he’s focusing on what he’s trying to deliver. If you cut time lost to accidents, you haven’t got people sitting in hospital when they could be working. It’s an all-round advantage.”

One of the biggest challenges facing contractors in Dubai is communicating with the labourers themselves, drawn mainly from the Indian subcontinent. “Their appreciation of danger is not the same as we are used to in the UK,” says McCaig. There is a general lack of awareness of safety, and the language barrier is an issue. We develop safety presentations in their local language, and make use of lots of pictorial material.”

On the Build Safe Dubai website, there are hundreds of pages on best practice, toolbox talks, general risk assessments, and site safety induction talks in English, which companies can access freely and get translated for their workforces.

It also emails “safety alerts” submitted by members but distributed anonymously, drawing people’s attention to possible dangers or lessons learned from a particular incident. It has sent more than 100 since the beginning of the year – exactly the sort of information that might have saved the UK worker killed by the faulty excavator.

“The fundamental idea is that there’s no intellectual property in safety,” explains Doyle. “Everyone can share safety alerts or lessons learned and we’re a much better industry for it.”

We didn’t approach anybody, and we don’t stand on a soapbox. It’s going extremely well at the moment – word of mouth does penetrate

Grahame McCaig, Dutco Balfour Betty

Build Safe Dubai is of course only a voluntary body with no power of enforcement, but Doyle doesn’t see how it could be any other way. “Anything that could be seen as being critical of government organisations or the Sheikh is not looked upon favourably. There were some human rights workers who published some critical statistics and blamed the government. The only upshot was that they were asked not to continue operating in the country. That doesn’t help the cause.”

At the moment, directors sign up to become associate members and make a public commitment, but Doyle suggests in future there could be another level of accreditation where they would have to demonstrate safety practices across the organisation.

Build Safe Dubai is undoubtedly preaching to the converted – UK firms who are aware of the need to improve health and safety. At the moment, several say they are able to turn down jobs where the client is looking for the cheapest price at the expense of welfare. They also voice their frustration that the government doesn’t penalise contractors who openly flout the rules.

McCaig and Doyle agree that to make a real impact they must reach local contractors – and clients. The list of nearly 60 signatories does now include some locals. Of the clients, so far, only Dreamworks, developer of Dubailand has signed up, but representatives of other major developers did attend the last bi-monthly meeting. McCaig says he has also received a positive response in Abu Dhabi from government developer Aldar about setting up a similar initiative there.

So far, there’s been no need to undertake active promotion of Build Safe Dubai: “We didn’t approach anybody, we don’t stand on a soapbox,” says McCaig. It’s going extremely well at the moment – word of mouth does penetrate.”

One of McCaig’s ambitions is to appoint an influential Emirati as a patron of the organisation – perhaps even Sheikh Mohammed himself. After all, improving conditions for site workers is one of his stated goals in the Dubai Strategic Plan 2015. “I think Sheikh Mohammed would support the initiative completely,” says McCaig. “At the moment you see the Build Safe Dubai signage on several projects across Dubai. I’m really hoping he’ll drive past and ask what it is all about.”