China: Draft implementation regulations on work safety law issued

In response to the frequent and often disastrous work-related accidents (the devastating explosion in Tianjin Port is a recent example), the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) has been making efforts to enhance work safety. Following the enactment of latest amendments to the PRC Work Safety Law last year, the PRC State Administration of Work Safety published the draft Regulations on the Implementation of the PRC Work Safety Law (Draft Regulations) on 11 September 2015, to solicit the public opinions. The Draft Regulations provide for more specific work safety requirements on companies in order to prevent work safety accidents.

These include:

• the "person in charge” at each company is required to report the company's work safety conditions at a shareholders' meeting and to the employee representatives' congress on an annual basis, and shall accept their supervision;
• certain types of company (eg, those engaging in the production or storage of hazardous chemicals, fireworks or firecrackers, mining companies and metal smelting companies) are to be subject to enhanced corporate governance and human resources requirements, including to establish a work safety committee responsible for coordinating and solving significant work safety issues, and (depending on the size of the company) to have a certain number of work-safety specialists and safety engineers;
• more detailed requirements concerning the screening and elimination of such hidden risks;
• special requirements for companies with sensitive operations (ie, where the work safety accidents are more likely to occur such as where there are oil and gas storage tanks or factory buildings at risk of dust explosions);
• a requirement for companies engaged in the production or storage of hazardous chemicals, fireworks or firecracker, mining companies or metal smelting companies to maintain work safety liability insurance.

Impact for employers

Employers should review what steps they will need to take to comply with the new requirements.  Further details of the changes are available here.