Hansard Explorer

Ms Yeo Wan Ling asked the Acting Minister for Manpower in light of recent news reports on outdoor workers’ health being adversely affected by their working conditions, what actions can the Ministry take to ensure that employers improve the adoption rate of the Ministry's haze guidelines among outdoor workers.

Ms Eileen Chong Pei Shan asked the Acting Minister for Manpower regarding the Ministry's haze guidance for outdoor work (a) how the Ministry determines and enforces employer compliance with it; (b) what support the Ministry provides to employers who reduce or stop outdoor work in line with it; and (c) whether it will make the key measures for haze mandatory, as it has done for additional heat stress practices from 1 December 2026.

The Minister of State for Manpower (Mr Dinesh Vasu Dash) (for Acting Minister for Manpower): Mr Speaker, may I seek your permission to address oral Question Nos 5 and 6 together, please.

Mr Speaker: Go ahead.

Mr Dinesh Vasu Dash: Under the Workplace Safety and Health Act, employers must take reasonable and practicable measures to keep their workers safe, and that includes protecting them from the haze. It is mandatory for employers to adhere to the Ministry of Manpower's (MOM's) haze guidelines, which stipulate the measures that employers should adopt, based on the daily Pollutant Standards Index (PSI) forecast, in planning outdoor work arrangements for the following day.

Since September this year, MOM has conducted more than 500 worksite inspections on compliance with the guidelines. Most workplaces inspected had the necessary protection measures in place. The most common lapse was an absent or incomplete risk assessment on haze-related hazards. For such cases, employers were issued Notices of Non-Compliance and required to rectify the lapse or face composition fines.

MOM has also issued an advisory based on the one-hour PM2.5 readings to help employers make more timely adjustments on the ground. MOM encourages employers to adopt the measures in the advisory and will continue to remind employers to do so, and that includes during worksite inspections.

When employers reduce or stop outdoor work due to the haze, the Tripartite Advisory on Haze-Related Workplace Measures provides practical guidance on how they could manage the impact on their workers, including on flexible work arrangements, leave and salary matters.

Mr Speaker: Ms Yeo.

Ms Yeo Wan Ling (Punggol): May I ask the Minister of State, whether in the event of a prolonged haze, MOM will work with major service buyers, including Government agencies and Town Councils, to ensure that contractors are not subject to contractual penalties when they need to suspend or reschedule their work to protect their workers? I think this is particularly important for outsourced workers, such as cleaners and security officers, where contractors may feel pressured to fulfil their service obligations despite the deteriorating air quality.

Can the Minister of State also consider encouraging service buyers to build such provisions into their contracts so that workers' safety is not compromised by commercial considerations?

Mr Dinesh Vasu Dash: Mr Speaker, I share the Member's concerns on the safety of workers. Part of the reply had been given yesterday, but let me just reiterate a few key principles.

Firstly, the Government tries to guard against overregulation of commercial contracts as far as possible, but that said, we do encourage contracts to include flexibilities to cater to unknown contingencies, such as the haze.

I do believe that Government agencies can also lead the way in exercising those flexibilities, and to encourage companies to think on outcome-based approaches rather than process and procedural approaches alone.

Mr Speaker: Ms Eileen Chong.

Ms Eileen Chong Pei Shan (Non-Constituency Member): Thank you, Speaker. I thank the Minister of State. I have one supplementary question. I would like to know if the Ministry will consider issuing mandatory stop-work order for strenuous outdoor work when the PSI reaches hazardous levels, and if not, why not? And also at what air quality threshold then, would MOM consider doing so?

I believe I have also filed a related Parliamentary Question, which is Question No 94 for today, about whether employees have reported wage or leave deductions after employers have suspended outdoor work due to the haze, and if the Minister of State could provide relevant data on that?

Mr Dinesh Vasu Dash: I thank the Member for the question. Firstly, as far as the guidelines for haze-related stoppages as well as measures, they are all quite well-detailed in the MOM's website. I would encourage the Member to take a look at that.

Specifically on employers not fulfilling their end of the bargain or creating issues in terms of payments and so forth, I think there are measures at which they could report it; workers could report it through the SnapSAFE app. That is one way where they could highlight to MOM what the issues may be.

In terms of how we have come up with the regulatory framework, it is based on what we have seen and addressed from a whole-of-Government perspective to ensure that workers can continue where it is safe, and where additional measures that need to be taken, they are taken in accordance to what is written in the guidelines thus far.

Mr Speaker: Ms Eileen Chong, next question.