"High-risk industry"
Nov 18, 2019
By: Shlomi Hadar, Adv. John Geva Hadar & Co., Attorneys and Mediators
The year 2019 is drawing to a close, and it can now be said openly that it was a very difficult year for the construction industry in terms of risks. The data is concerning: as of early November, according to various reports, 42 people were killed at construction sites and 168 were injured, with injuries ranging from moderate to severe.
It should be noted that in recent years, even bystanders have been affected by safety deficiencies at construction sites, and some have lost their lives. Consequently, the fight against workplace accidents has become a public concern, not only the responsibility of construction workers themselves.
Moreover, awareness of the situation at construction sites appears to be rising among the general public, even among those not directly involved in construction work. In recent years, the media coverage of workplace accidents and safety deficiencies at construction sites has increased significantly.
To further raise public awareness and mobilize the entire population in the fight against workplace accidents, the Occupational Safety and Health Institution launched the campaign “Cry of the Families of Workplace Accident Victims.” The campaign aims to engage the public in preventing workplace accidents. As part of the campaign, the national hotline “Life Line” was established, allowing citizens to report safety hazards at construction sites at any time.
Already in May of this year, a citizen reported a danger to workers at a construction site in the Katamon neighborhood of Jerusalem via the “Life Line” service. Following the report, inspectors from the Safety and Health Office were dispatched to the site.
45 construction sites were closed due to orders issued following citizen complaints, and fines were imposed.
Another step in the fight against construction accidents was taken by the State Comptroller at the Ministry of Finance, who added criteria to the government contractors registry. According to the new rules, any registered contractor who receives two stop-work orders due to serious safety deficiencies, or where workers were seriously injured or killed, will be suspended from the government contractors registry for one year. During the suspension period, the contractor is also prohibited from carrying out engineering works or signing execution contracts.
This issue of licensing may, of course, also have implications for the insurance coverage of developers and contractors.
Work accidents exact high prices
Undoubtedly, work accidents exact high social costs, families pay a heavy price for the loss of their loved ones, and anyone could be the next victim. This also has an economic impact, as each year the state pays considerable sums in benefits to workers injured in the workplace.
It goes without saying that a construction company that does not have adequate insurance coverage also exposes its shareholders to personal lawsuits, in addition to criminal proceedings.
Therefore, the question arising from the current situation is, what is the most effective and appropriate way to combat occupational accidents in the construction industry and reduce the exposure of contractors?
Is deterrence through legal proceedings, arrests, sanctions, and filing of indictments? Or is enforcement preferable by issuing closure orders and monitoring sites? Is it through advocacy or regulation? It seems that the answer to this is a combination of all of the above tools plus raising social awareness of the issue.
On the legal level, and according to the publications, units like Lahav 433 came into the picture, leading to arrests in the construction industry that served as a deterrent, but there is a danger that these types of procedures and sanctions will be disproportionate and will not take into account the great complexity of the industry, which from the moment the stake is driven into the ground is exposed to risks, some of which are difficult to predict.
On the financial level, of course, adequate insurance coverage can alleviate the situation, but in order to deal with the fear of criminal sanctions and to reduce the risk of insurance claims (and thus the increase in premiums or difficulty in finding a company that will agree to insure), it is appropriate to adopt approaches taken in other legal branches that offer internal and private regulation that each body in the field creates for itself; conducting proactive private audits; building procedures and business thinking that from its very foundations sees the issue of occupational safety as an inherent and inseparable part of the company's DNA, as a condition for its success, professionalism, and survival and the survival of its managers and owners in the industry.
Arrests of construction company owners, as mentioned, can create deterrence, but deterrence without solutions is similar to banning vehicles from entering the center of the country without alternative transportation solutions.
Ultimately, it seems that in recent years, awareness has been rising among the public and among government bodies about the need to address the issue of occupational safety with a strong hand, and precisely for this reason, this is the time to step up and accelerate processes that will put occupational safety and risk management at the center of the construction industry.
מסמכים
