Amendment of China’s Work Safety Law was approved at the 10th meeting of the Twelfth Standing Committee of the National People's Congress on Aug 31, 2014 and is scheduled to become effective from Dec 1, 2014.
Severe accidents such as the 2014 dust explosion in Kunshan and 2013 oil pipeline explosion in Qingdao have underlined the need for revision of China’s work safety condition. The amendment involves more than 70 changes with a view to reinforce the concept of human safety over economic progress, improve accident prevention systems and emergency response systems, enhance law enforcement and increase penalties.
Many people believe the lenient punishments specified in the old law pandered to incompliant work safety practices and consequently led to frequent work safety accidents. The situation will be different after the amended law comes into force. As stipulated in a newly added clause, the responsible production or business entity will have to pay comparatively heavy fines for work safety accident that are classified into 4 different severity levels:
Ordinary accident: 200 thousand ~ 500 thousand RMB
Larger accident: 500 thousand ~ 1 million RMB
Major accident: 1 million ~ 5 million RMB
Extraordinarily serious accidents: 5 million ~ 20 million RMB
Penalties will also be imposed on the primary responsible individual if the accident occurs due to his/her negligence or wrongdoings, including demotion or dismissal and a fine between 30% and 80% of previous year’s income. Once a person is confirmed as responsible for an extraordinarily serious accident, he/she can no longer stay in the chief decision-making position of companies in the same industrial sector.
To guarantee law enforcement, administrations of work safety will be empowered to close worksites and confiscate hazardous installations or materials. They can also inform relevant departments to stop the power supply to incompliant enterprises.
