[Labor Rights Perspective] Behind the Serial Fatal Industrial Accidents is a Bloody, Cannibalistic System

 

Fatal industrial accidents have occurred one after another in Hong Kong. In November alone, six workers have lost their lives, which is shocking. Behind every worker who unfortunately passed away, there are family members and relatives who love them deeply. It is even more painful to think about the plight of these broken grassroots families. The latest figures released by the Labour Department show that the number of deaths from industrial accidents in the first half of 2024 increased from 9 to 11 compared with the same period last year. Among them, the construction industry, which is the hardest hit area for work-related accidents, also saw an increase in the number of accidents from 1,397 to 1,443 in the first half of this year, reflecting that the situation has not only not improved, but has even worsened. Senior government officials have repeatedly said that "one is too many", but accidents are happening one after another. What is the problem?

Labour Department officials have urged the industry to avoid "speed and convenience," repeatedly claiming to strengthen education and publicity. This, in reality, merely shifts responsibility onto individuals, completely avoiding the core institutional causes of the problem. While employees naturally need to maintain occupational safety awareness, they are not in a position to dictate the working environment, equipment, and tools used on the construction site. Members of the Federation of Trade Unions have proposed establishing a reporting mechanism modeled on mainland China, offering bonuses to employees who report violations. This simply introduces a "dumb culture" into construction sites, adding pressure and conflict to frontline workers. The Labour Department is incompetent, failing to properly perform its duties of supervision, inspection, and prosecution, and there is absolutely no reason to shift the blame onto employees. Ultimately, these proposals, which focus social issues on individual misconduct, only serve to mask the underlying, bloody, and merciless system: lenient penalties for violations, a multi-tiered subcontracting system, and the lowest bidder wins, which have systematically fostered a deliberate neglect of occupational safety. If the government does not learn from its mistakes and quickly reverse the institutional roots of the problems, it will be difficult to prevent the continuous occurrence of industrial accidents.