THE SCOPE OF DUTIES OF STAKEHOLDERS IN WORKPLACE SAFETY AND HEALTH ACT

Abstract

The standard of care in terms of actions that is incumbent upon stakeholders is described in the WSHA being so far as is reasonably practicable. The introduction of flexibility follows with it the controversy of to what extend should stakeholders implement safety measures to be considered sufficient to ensure safety at workplace. In light of these issues, the legal framework in place must be effective in determining if stakeholder had met the standard of so far as is reasonably practicable. Therefore, the effectiveness of the WSHA ought to be scrutinized in this aspect and this sets the stage of research for this dissertation.

This dissertation focuses on the study of the effectiveness of WSHA in setting the so far as is reasonably practicable standard for the stakeholders to meet and it seeks to research this through detailed case study of four construction industry cases: Public Prosecutor v. Guthrie Engineering (S) Pte Ltd, Matec Engineering Services Pte Ltd v. Public Prosecutor, Public Prosecutor v. Mirador Building Contractor Pte Ltd and Public Prosecutor v. CME Industries Pte Ltd. Specifically, a systematic analytical framework has been carefully created to analyze these cases.

The tenor of the analyses of the four chosen case studies have supported the hypothesis that WSHA is effective in setting the so far as is reasonably practicable standard for the stakeholders to meet. Furthermore, the analysis conducted has shown that although Judge and MOM uses a separate set of guidelines to determine if stakeholders are taking reasonably practicable measures, there are no apparent discrepancy between the two when undergoing the reasonably practicable test under the provisions of WSHA. The results bespeak the effectiveness of WSHA in determining duties of stakeholders qualified by the words so far as is reasonably practicable.