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1. The current work safety situation in China
Work safety is a basic policy of our country, to which the Central Committee
of the Communist Party of China and the State Council have long been attaching
great importance. In recent years, a series of major measures have been
taken one after another to strength work safety. Since their establishment,
the State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS) and the State Administration
of Coal Mine Safety (SACMS) have taken up the responsibility of implementing
the overall work safety supervision management and coal mine safety inspection
and law enforcement around this country. With work safety considered a
very important content of rectification and standardization of market
economy order, unremitting efforts have been focused on special work safety
check-ups, examinations and rectifications on hazardous chemical safety
management, coal mine safety and non-coal mine safety, road transport
safety and water-rout transport safety, civilian blasting material, fireworks
and firecracker safety management and fire-fighting in places of public
gatherings, etc. At the same time, major work safety inspection and work
safety oriented special supervisions were organized and implemented throughout
this country with major attention focused on monitoring and control of
major sources of dangers and the rectifications of major sources of hidden
dangers. This is reflected by staging the nation¡¯s first ever ¡°National
Work Safety Month¡± activity and the activity of ¡°Work Safety Circuit¡±,
which created the air of ¡°cares for life and attention on work safety¡±.
At the same time, great attention is devoted to speeding up the pace of
the legal system construction for work safety. The promulgation of a series
of important work safety oriented laws and regulations such as the ¡°Law
of the People¡¯s Republic of China on Work Safety¡±, the ¡°Regulations of
Coal Mine Safety Supervision¡± and the ¡°Regulations of the State Council
of the People¡¯s Republic of China on the Investigation into the Administrative
Responsibility for Very Serious Accidents¡± just pushed the work on work
safety of this nation onto a healthier development track that is ruled
by legal system.
The implementation of the above measures has promoted the overall work
safety situation around this country towards the direction of overall
improvement. Starting from January 1 to October 20, a total of 99 very
serious accidents occurred in this country each involving more than 10
deaths, causing a total of 1,831 deaths. Compared with the same period
last year, number of accidents of this category dropped by 12 or 10.81%
while the deaths involved reduced by 273 or 12.98%. Of these total accidents,
there are a total of 93 accidents each involving the loss of 10 ~ 29 lives,
causing a total of 1,420 deaths. This is 4.12% year-to-year reduction
in the number of accidents of this category and a 3.07% drop in number
of deaths involved compared with the same time last year; a total of 6
accidents each involving more than 30 deaths, causing the loss of 411
lives, reduced by 8 or a 57.1% compared with the previous year in terms
of number of such accidents and reduced by 228 or 35.7% reduction in terms
of the number of deaths caused. Work safety situation in some certain
trades and industrial sectors showed substantial improvement. Taking the
coal industry as an example, during the period January ~ September, fatality
rate per million tons of coal produced in all coal mines throughout the
country dropped somewhat. In the state-owned key coal mines, this fatality
rate dropped by 0.23 percentage points; in state-owned local coal mines,
this fatality rate dropped by 1.5 percentage points while in township
coal mines this rate dropped by 8 percentage points.
However, affected by the development level of productive forces and the
weak basis of work safety infrastructure, work safety in China is still
faced with a grim situation. The first thing is that total number of accidents
remains big. During the period January ~ September, a national total of
799,567 death/injury involving accidents of all categories occurred throughout
China, resulting in the loss of 99,820 lives. Of this total, road transport
accidents account for 580,632 with the loss of 80,670 lives. Although
the accident increase rate and death increase rate dropped respectively
over the same period last year, the total numbers still climbed up. The
second thing is very serious accidents do occur now and then. Accidents
in this category such as ¡°4.15¡± air crash, ¡°6.20¡± coal mine methane gas
explosion accident in a coal mine in Jixi in northeast China and some
other accidents resulted in tremendous losses and hence very bad influence.
The third is that major sources of danger and very serious work safety
related hidden dangers do exist in many places and/or work units, which
calls for intensified monitoring, inspection, major rectification measures
to be taken for improvement.
2. Publicity and implementation of the ¡°Law of the People¡¯s Republic
of China on Work Safety¡±
The ¡°Law of the People¡¯s Republic of China on Work Safety¡± was adopted
at the 28th Meeting of the Standing Committee of the Ninth National People¡¯s
Congress of the People¡¯s Republic of China on June 29, 2002. On the same
day, President Jiang Zemin signed the Order of the President for its promulgation
and this Law will officially enter into force on November 1, 2002. The
promulgation and enforcement of this Law are of great significance to
the enhancement of the construction of the legal framework for work safety,
enhancement of the legal sense of the Chinese nation on work safety, enhancing
work safety supervision and management according to law, standardizing
the work safety practice in production and business units for sustained
improvement of work safety situation. Since its promulgation, the ¡°Work
Safety Law¡± has been met by heated study, publicity and implementing campaigns
in various forms around this country.
Firstly, careful study and publicity of the ¡°Work Safety Law¡± have been
staged in an attempt to cultivate an atmospheric environment for the entire
society to learn, get acquainted and try to abide by this Law. The State
Administration of Work Safety (State Administration of Coal Mine Safety),
the National Legal Knowledge Popularization Office and the Ministry of
Justice issued a joint circular to include the study and publicity of
the ¡°Work Safety Law¡± within the legal knowledge popularization work planned
for the fourth five-year-plan for the popularization of legal knowledge
in this country. The State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS) set up
a ¡°Work Safety Law¡± popularization and publicity group composed of many
leaders and experts of the National People¡¯s Congress Standing Committee
Legal Work Commission, the State Council Legal Work Commission and some
other relevant departments. The group conducted many presentations in
many places in this country aiming at popularizing and publicizing the
¡°Work Safety Law¡±. The same kind of publicity activities, presentations
and forums were also held and chaired by chief leaders of many provinces,
autonomous regions, municipalities and ministries. These chief leaders
also took a lead in the study and publicizing the ¡°Work Safety Law¡±. Many
large-sized enterprisers also organized different activities in different
forms to study and popularize the ¡°Work Safety Law¡±. All these activities
leave the ¡°Work Safety Law¡± known to the general public and deeply rooted
in the heart of the general public.
Secondly, unremitting efforts have been devoted to the preparation and
drafting of supporting regulations and rules. In order to ensure an efficient
implementation of the ¡°Work Safety Law¡±, the State Administration of Work
Safety (SAWS) has identified a total of 18 most wanted supporting rules
and regulations to be promulgated within this year or next year. Up to
now, a series of work safety oriented regulations such as the ¡°Provisions
of Management on the Inspection of Work Safety Products for Use in Coal
Mines¡±, ¡°Provisions of Management of Registration of Hazardous Chemicals¡±,
¡°Regulations of Management on the Business Licenses for Hazardous Chemical
Marketing¡± and ¡°Provisions of Management on the Fixed-Point Production
of Packing Materials and Containers for Hazardous Chemicals¡± have been
promulgated by the State Economic and Trade Commission (SETC) for implementation.
While the ¡°Provisions of Reporting, Investigation and Handling of Injury-Fatality
Accidents¡±(Draft), ¡°Provisional Regulations of Administrative Penalty
on Work Safety Law Violations¡±, ¡°Provisional Regulations of Work Safety
Related Administrative Reconsiderations¡± and ¡°Provisional Regulations
of Investigations into the Responsibility for Failure in Hidden Danger
Handling That May Cause Major Disasters in Coal Mines¡± have been submitted
to relevant departments for examination and they will soon be promulgated
for entry into force.
Thirdly, work safety supervisors were organized for trainings in relevant
legal matters. In order to improve the administrative management level
based on law, work safety supervision and management departments at all
levels have organized training courses for work safety supervisors and
law enforcement personnel. On passing relevant examinations after their
training, these work safety supervisors and law enforcement personnel
were issued official certificates so that their duty performance was legalized.
The work accomplished over the recent period has made everything ready
for the official enforcement of the ¡°Work Safety Law¡±.
3. Basic idea and focus for the next phase of work on work safety
The general ideas for the next phase of work to be done on works safety
is to take advantage of the publicity, implementation and enforcement
of the ¡°Work Safety Law¡± to perform the function of monitoring, management
and supervision on work safety. Attention is to be focused on the implementation
of ¡°three major matters¡±, i.e. further perfecting the work safety mechanism,
improving the work safety contingent construction and intensifying the
work safety legal system construction. Efforts are also to be focused
on the construction and consolidation of ¡°six major supporting systems¡±
such as work safety legal system, work safety information system, work
safety technology and equipment system, mine disaster emergency rescue
system, work safety publicity and education system and work safety training
system. In addition, efforts are also to be devoted to the promotion of
¡°five innovations¡± in the ideological and conceptual transformation, transformation
of work functions, disaster and accident preventive mechanism, technical
and managerial means for work safety supervision and management and work
safety science and technology. This is to achieve a sustained improvement
in work safety situation in this country. To this end, the following three
tasks call for major efforts:
Firstly, to further improve the study, publicity and enforcement of the
¡°Work Safety Law¡±. The first thing to do is to further push forward the
¡°Work Safety Law¡± oriented study and publicity activity. This is to further
strike the significance of the ¡°Work Safety Law¡±, the main purpose of
the work safety related legislative activities, the basic legal system
concerning the work safety and their main contents even more deeper into
the heart of the general public. The second thing to do is to quicken
the pace of the preparation of the supporting rules and regulations to
go with the ¡°Work Safety Law¡±. The examination and revision process are
be quickened for the ¡°Provisions of Reporting, Investigation and Handling
of Fatality-Injury Accidents¡± so that it can be promulgated as soon as
possible. Rules and regulations are to be drafted such as the ¡°Regulations
of Management on Major Sources of Danger¡±, ¡°Provisions of the Elimination
of Equipment Seriously Threatening Work Safety¡±, ¡°Regulations of the Use
of Safety Signs and Safety Precaution Signs¡± and ¡°Provisions of the Registration
of Certified Work Safety Engineers¡±. The existing work safety standards
and norms in force are to be sorted out and revised to prepare for China¡¯s
entry into the relevant international conventions. The third thing to
do is to intensify the work on work safety administration and supervision
as well as administrative enforcement of relevant laws, regulations and
rules. This is also to be accompanied by intensified measures for administrative
penalties. In case behaviors of work safety law violation are found, the
persons that are found responsible for very serious and major accidents
are to be investigated and punished according to law. This is to see to
it that laws are observed and strictly enforced and that lawbreakers are
brought to book.
Secondly, focus of attention is to be laid on the special items, i.e.
the supervision and management of coal mine safety and the management
on dangerous chemicals. For state-owned large-sized coal mines, attention
and major efforts shall be directed to the handling of major hidden dangers
relating to mine methane gas. Local authorities are to be urged on the
closure and rectification of illegal small-sized coal mines and small-sized
coal mines without the necessary means for coal mine safety. In case the
small coal mines that must be closed turn out to refuse to shut down or
the closed small coal mines restore coal production without permission,
the owners of the mines are to be investigated for legal responsibilities.
At the same time, the local governments concerned are to be investigated
for administrative responsibilities. Efforts shall also be focused on
the examination and rectification of production, storage, transport, marketing
and user units of dangerous chemicals. The ones that are found not up
to relevant legal requirements must be shut down. The illegal dangerous
chemical marketing networks and outlets must be eliminated resolutely.
Thirdly, inspection and supervision on work safety are to be intensified
to prevent accidents from occurring. Large-scaled work safety examination
campaigns should be organized and conducted frequently and the local governments
and competent departments shall be urged to prepare and implement relevant
measures to address the major hidden dangers and very serious work safety
problems identified. Those production and business units in question that
don¡¯t exert sufficient efforts to address the work safety problems must
be investigated for responsibility. Work safety supervision and administrative
departments and coal mine safety administrative departments at all levels
shall carry out careful analysis of the typical problems existing in work
safety that are representative of some certain trends in relevant trades
or industries as well as those work safety problems that bear more profound
roots so as to work out relevant policy-oriented measures more to the
point. It is a must to work out measures that lays emphasis on the prevention
of accidents more in advance. It is also very important to exercise the
accident responsibility investigation system and the announcement system
to expose the bad work safety units as well as major sources of danger.
It is of basic importance to intensify day-to-day work safety inspection
and supervision and it is equally important to enhance all basic work
for work safety by all possible means.
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