A concern group for industrial accident victims on Wednesday urged authorities to issue specific licences to contractors that carry out scaffolding-related work. Siu Sin-man of the Association for the Rights of Industrial Accident Victims made the comment after a worker fell to his death on Tuesday while dismantling bamboo scaffolding from a To Kwa Wan building. Currently, bamboo scaffolding workers must be accredited by the Occupational Safety and Health Council – and their licences have to be renewed. But contractors do not have similar requirements. They only need to be registered under the Buildings Ordinance. Siu said having a more specific licensing system for contractors could enhance regulations. “Scaffolding is a high-risk industry. If we only use business registration, [there’s not enough] regulation for this kind of work. So people can easily open a company to do this high-risk [job],” she said. Siu added that she is unsure whether the worker who died was wearing proper safety equipment when the incident occurred. The worker’s relatives held a mourning ceremony earlier in the day. His wife said her husband operated a company with several partners, and that he spent more than 20 years in the field and was always very careful.
