Safety issues exist at Korean shipyard before blast

Work safety issues have beset the Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction Co. Ltd. even before Friday’s explosion at its shipyard in Subic, Zambales that killed two workers and injured three others, a labor group said.

By Tonette Orejas - Inquirer Central Luzon Desk

A preliminary report released by the Manggagawa para sa Kalayaan ng Bayan (Makabayan) cited "poor implementation of safety rules and regulations."

For one, it said that Hanjin would not issue safety permits to subcontractors before these could be allowed to build a part of a ship.

"There's mixed use for the work area. In the blast incident, the workers on the upper level were doing the grinding while those at the lower level were applying oil near the propeller and the acetylene [tanks])," said Manny Geraldino, president of the Subic Shipyard Workers Union and Shipbuilders and Construction Workers Association.

That information came from the co-workers of the victims, said Geraldino, who is also chair of the Makabayan in Olongapo City and Subic.

The Makabayan report, which gathered the accounts of two foremen of subcontractors and workers in Hanjin's own pre-outfitting, power tooling, hull outfitting and major assembly departments, said employees were given a general orientation of the shipyard.

"No dry dock orientation is given in case of fire," the report said.

There was also "no systematic dry dock fired rail, specifically alarm system, exit map and lights," it said. Housekeeping is poor, it noted, adding that hoses and cables are "entangled."

According to the report, Hanjin has hired no company doctors although Philippine labor laws require companies to assign one for every 300 workers.

Hanjin started doing business in 2006 off the coast of Subic town's Redondo Bay, an area within the jurisdiction of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority SBMA). It has invested $1.6 billion, making it the country's single biggest foreign direct investment that year.

"Hanjin has 8,000 workers now and it has only provided three nurses," the report said. While there are nurses, they do not deal with fever and headaches "even if those are caused by the hot temperature in the workplace," the report said.

"Nurses address only wounds, eye-related problems and sprains," the report said.

Makabayan said workers have reported having no group life insurance to cover accidents and deaths. In those cases, the workers can only get benefits from the state-owned Social Security System (SSS).

SBMA Administrator Armand Arreza said "there are safety concerns that we continue to work with Hanjin in addressing." He did not disclose what those are, but said a report will be released in time.

Hanjin general manager, Pyeong Jong Yu, insisted that the shipyard was a "safe workplace."

"As we clearly indicated in our preliminary incident report to the SBMA, the area was inspected by a safety team and nothing unsafe factors [were] found or detected prior to the commencement of work," Pyeong told the Philippine Daily Inquirer, parent company of INQUIRER.net.

"On the report that no safety officer was around while the work was going on, I want you to consider the size of the shipyard, number of working places inside the ship that is being built. No shipbuilders in the world are designating individual safety officer to every (work) place. Instead, prior inspection is to be done especially when the (work) place is deemed a hazardous area," he said.

"Assuming the hazardous materials were in existence in the area of incident, it should have been found and cleared by our safety team. Moreover, those who alleged that there were hazardous materials should have immediately reported that to the safety team, leader or supervisor," Pyeong
said.

Former Zambales Vice Governor Ramon Lacbain, now chair of the provincial government's Task Force Hanjin, gathered another account of what the Hanjin reported to SBMA as an "industrial accident."

"I was told by a co-worker of the victims that the explosion originated from a `bottled' acetylene tank that had been in use for two days after the centralized acetylene tank ran out of supply," Lacbain said.

The worker said the centralized source was considered safer because only a tube was inserted into the hull of the ship that was being built. A tank, on the other hand, would have to be taken in whole into the hull.

The sparks produced by the cutting of metal could have ignited the acetylene, the worker said.

Hanjin on Saturday said the valve in the hose of the oxygen tank leaked and that the sparks produced by the grinding of the propeller ignited the fire in the stern tube room that could have already been filled by pure oxygen.

Lacbain said seven work-related deaths had happened at Hanjin.

The first victim was Jose Navarro, 19, of Tondo, Manila, who fell from a 43-meter tall building being constructed at the shipyard.

The second was Reynan Loquinario, 25, of Cawag, Subic, who died after he was hurled out from a truck driven by a Korean engineer.

Two more men died when a heavy metal sheet crashed on them as they were constructing an elevator. The fifth victim was run over by a truck inside the shipyard last week.

Lacbain said the task force has asked Hanjin to provide copies of reports on those incidents but the company has not released those yet.

The sixth and seventh victims, Mario Laxamana, 30, of Morong, Bataan, and Jeremias Adamos, 33, of Sto. Tomas, Subic, died in the blast on Friday.