The government has urged employers of outdoor workers to develop their own rules to prevent heatstroke after rolling out revisions to an official warning system that was slammed as ineffective and disruptive when introduced last year.
The adjustments were made after stakeholders aired views to the Labour Department, Deputy Commissioner for Occupational Safety and Health Vincent Fung told RTHK on Friday. The pilot scheme was not originally due for review for two years.
The Labour Department launched the revisions on Thursday to minimise situations in which a heat warning is cancelled and then reissued soon afterwards, disrupting worksites.
The three-tier warning system designed to protect workers from heatstroke went into effect last May, suggesting different rest arrangements for people working outdoors or in indoor environments without air conditioning.
But bosses were not legally obliged to offer the recommended rest periods.
The warnings are issued according to the Hong Kong Heat Index (HKHI), a composite of readings including ambient temperature and relative humidity.
Adjustments
Fung on Friday said the department would observe heat index data for a longer period – one hour instead of the previous 30 minutes – for a more accurate reading on whether the temperature would fall.
The heatstroke warning system will also function in lockstep with the observatory’s weather warnings. The Extremely Hot weather warning – hoisted when the mercury reaches 35 degrees Celsius – would automatically trigger an amber warning under the Labour Department’s guidelines.
That would mean a 15-minute rest for every 45 minutes of work for employees with a “moderate” physical workload including chefs, cleaners, delivery workers, mechanics, crane operators, and welders.
Fung said the the two warnings were closely linked and having them function in tandem would be more convenient for workers.
“If the industries think that the guidelines are hard to follow, the best thing for them to do is to develop their own industry rules or codes of conduct,” he said. The construction industry set its own rules last year, and the government is in talks with cleaning contractors, he added.
Asked whether he would consider legislating to make the guidelines mandatory, Fung said the Occupational Safety and Health Ordinance states that employers have a responsibility to provide a safe working environment.
However, more than 60 per cent of workers experienced symptoms of heatstroke in the three months after the warning system was launched last May, according to the Greenpeace NGO, which has urged the government to give the recommendations legal backing.
Hong Kong has just recorded its hottest April in at least 150 years, with an average temperature of 26.5 degrees Celsius.
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