China Amends Production Safety Law to Reinforce Enterprise' Responsibilities in Production Accidents

The draft amendment of the Production Safety Law of the People’s Republic of China (P.R.C) was passed at the 10th conference of 12th Standing Committee of the National People's Congress and will be implemented from 1 December 2014.
 
GUANGZHOU, China - Dec. 3, 2014 - PRLog -- This new law strengthens the importance of production safety, further reinforces the responsibility of the enterprise, and updates the related law and regulation, increasing efforts to identify the parties responsible for production accidents and prosecuting them, and establishing a people-centered concept.

Production safety is a continuing struggle and is of key importance to each employee as well as being in the direct interest of the enterprise. In order to prevent and reduce production accidents, the People’s Republic of China has amended the “Production Safety Law of the P.R.C” (hereinafter referred to as the “original law”), and the changes will be implemented from 1 December 2014.

Preventing and Reducing Production Accidents

Compared to the “original law“, the major changes in the “new law“ are as follows: reinforce and implement enterprises’ main responsibilities for production safety. In recent years, the most common reason for a number of accidents has been the poor execution of safety measures and ineffective supervision by both enterprises and the government. To reinforce responsibilities, there are four new regulations within the new law which mainly focus on clarification of the responsibility for safety and enterprise’s own production safety management system.

- It clearly stipulates that the enterprise remains liable for production safety even where technology and management services are provided by a third party.

- It states that enterprises should build a production safety responsibility system, clearly defining the responsibilities of each position, the scope and criteria of assessment and reinforcing the monitoring of the effectiveness of the responsibility system.

- It clarifies the seven responsibilities of the production safety management institution and its staff.

- It emphasizes that enterprises should reinforce safety precautions and emergency responses, and improve the underlying risk assessment process in order to eliminate the potential issues.

How to Improve Production Safety?

Improve the professionalism of staff involved in safety production, and develop a system for registered safety engineers. The professionalism of corporate employees, especially production safety staff plays a critical role in the safety process. To reinforce this, the new law clearly defines the qualification required of health & safety staff, and requires enterprises to educate and train staff on production safety, ensure that they have access to the necessary safety technology, be familiar with health & safety regulations, operational skills, emergency measures and their rights and responsibilities in terms of production safety. Unqualified staff should not be used in such positions. In the meantime, the new law develops a system for registered safety engineers and requires that enterprises should employ registered safety engineers for safety management. In addition, the standard for developing safety supervising units has been raised, which means that any enterprise with over 100 employees should set up production safety management units or employ external professionals. This will impact on millions of enterprises. Based on the new law, enterprises will have to increase investment in equipment and infrastructure so as to raise production safety standards.

Production Accidents – Liability and Punishment

Build up the integrity system for production safety and increase efforts to identify the parties responsible for production accidents. The “New Law” stipulates administrative punishments and, potentially career restriction, through disbarment from senior positions. It has escalated this topic from an administrative regulation to a legal provision and stipulates eight penalty clauses against production units and their owners and senior management.  It also further clarifies that anyone convicted of such an offence may not serve as Principal or Director in the future.  The “New Law” has also significantly raised the fines for accident liability in processing units, these now range from RMB 200 thousand to RMB 20 million depending on the seriousness of the accident.

In fact, the minimum fine remains the same, while the maximum fine was raised by 2 to 5 times according to varied local economy levels and enterprise sizes. It is worth mentioning that taking corrective action within a time limit will not be a mitigating circumstance, which strengthens the deterrent to illegal practices in production safety, helps the government save administration costs and improves effectiveness of implementation.

Encouraging Production Safety Responsibility

Further there is a recommendation to enterprises to buy safety responsibility insurance and for the government to set up an announcement and notification system for serious illegal behavior.

All in all, the "new law" will bring significant consequences to enterprises. It requires that enterprises should establish and improve the responsibility system for production safety in conjunction with the enterprise’s technology and a rule to “embed safety into production”. It clearly defines the responsibilities of all employees in production safety in accordance with the relevant provisions of the “Production Safety law of P.R.C”.   Meanwhile, the enterprise should self-assess their own shortcomings and take action to ensure the maintenance of facilities and equipment and undertake effective risk assessments, prompting employees to pay more attention to production safety, so as to avoid safety incidents and promote a win-win situation.

About SGS Social Responsibility Services

SGS has been involved in social accountability (http://www.sgs.com/en/Sustainability/Social-Sustainabilit...) since its inception and has been offering tailored audit services since1996. Supported by the largest networks of highly trained auditors, with extensive experience of reviewing operation with particular emphasis on factory capability, labor standards, environmental compliance and business integrity, SGS can support responsible purchasing policies.

For further information, please contact an SGS expert.

Website: http://www.sgsgroup.com.hk/sas

SGS is the world’s leading inspection, verification, testing and certification company. SGS is recognized as the global benchmark for quality and integrity. With more than 80,000 employees, SGS operates a network of over 1,650 offices and laboratories around the world.

Contact
Jerry Lau
cts.media@sgs.com
+86 (0)20-3213 6435
End
Source: » Follow
Email:***@sgs.com
Tags:Sgs, Production Safety Law, Production Accidents, China Production Safety
Industry:Business, Security
Location:Guangzhou - Guangdong - China
Account Email Address Verified     Account Phone Number Verified     Disclaimer     Report Abuse
SGS Consumer Testing Services News
Trending
Most Viewed
Daily News



Like PRLog?
9K2K1K
Click to Share