By Clement Mesenas, TODAY | Posted: 09
December 2010 2204 hrs
SINGAPORE: An employer was fined on Thursday for a
worker's death due to heatstroke.
Cheang Heong Lan, the sole proprietor of Chin Kong Trading
Construction, was fined S$20,000 for her failure as an employer to
ensure workplace safety and health measures that contributed to a
foreign worker death on April 25, 2009.
Two days after his arrival from China, Tian Wei begun fabrication
work in Cheang's open yard where he collapsed and died.
Tian, who came from Liaoning in north-east China, where the average
temperature is between six and 11 degrees Celsius, succumbed to
heatstroke after working in the sun for five hours in the yard in
Kranji Loop.
The average temperature that day was 32.9 degrees Celsius.
Cheang is the first employer to be fined under the Workplace Safety
and Health Act for such an offence. She could have been fined up to
S$200,000 or jailed up to two years or both.
Tian had not undergone any acclimatisation before commencing work,
the court heard.
Cheang's company did not have an acclimatisation programme, which
would require, among other measures, new workers to be acclimatised
over at least one week by gradually increasing the workload and
time spent in the hot environment, the court heard.