Employer fined for worker's death due to heatstroke

[Cao Pi]

Employer fined for worker's death due to heatstroke
By Clement Mesenas, TODAY | Posted: 09 December 2010 2204 hrs
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SINGAPORE: An employer was fined on Thursday for a worker's death due to heatstroke.

Cheang Heong Lan, the sole proprietor of Chin Kong Trading Construction, was fined S$20,000 for her failure as an employer to ensure workplace safety and health measures that contributed to a foreign worker death on April 25, 2009.

Two days after his arrival from China, Tian Wei begun fabrication work in Cheang's open yard where he collapsed and died.

Tian, who came from Liaoning in north-east China, where the average temperature is between six and 11 degrees Celsius, succumbed to heatstroke after working in the sun for five hours in the yard in Kranji Loop.

The average temperature that day was 32.9 degrees Celsius.

Cheang is the first employer to be fined under the Workplace Safety and Health Act for such an offence. She could have been fined up to S$200,000 or jailed up to two years or both.

Tian had not undergone any acclimatisation before commencing work, the court heard.

Cheang's company did not have an acclimatisation programme, which would require, among other measures, new workers to be acclimatised over at least one week by gradually increasing the workload and time spent in the hot environment, the court heard.

- TODAY/fa