Published February 5, 2009 3:41pm

Company: Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction (Subic Bay Shipyard)

Address: Green Beach 1, Redondo Peninsula, Sitio Agusuhin, Brgy.Subic,

Zambales

“Unsafe Work Environment”

MANILA, Philippines — The chair of the Senate committee on labor formally

inspected on Thursday the controversial workplace of Hanjin Heavy Industries and
Construction in Subic, Zambales, a television report said.
In her report over QTV's Balitanghali, GMA News' Ruth Cabal said the inspection
was headed by committee chair Senator Jose "Jinggoy" Estrada accompanied by
officials from the Labor department and the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA).
The report quoted Estrada as saying that he would like to see the safety facilities
provided by the Korean firm to its 8,000 workers.
During the inspection, lawyer Ramon Ogregado of the Subic Bay Support
Service Group disclosed that unsafe acts of the workers and their lack of training
caused the deaths and injuries.
A total of 19 deaths at the Hanjin shipbuilding facility have been reported, the
latest of which happened last January 25. A labor-support group in Subic, however, had
placed a bigger death toll at 24. The figure included stay-in workers who reportedly died
from malaria.
As a solution, the report said, Hanjin will build a permanent satellite office that
would monitor the company and a trauma clinic equipped with ambulance and speed
boat to attend to the accidents.
 Implications of the Issue to the Performance of Employees and to the
Organization in General

Safety in the workplace will be of great concern for employees for this will seriously
affect their working life. As mentioned above, the issue in here is the safety of workers
in the workplace. Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction failed to provide safety to
their workers for there have been numerous deaths and injuries occurred in their
working site. Lack of proper training of their employees in handling the machines is also
a cause to the numerous accidents in the site. Given this situation, the employees will
be the one greatly affected to this especially their productivity. Serious accidents in the
workplace would discourage them to continue working for the reason that their life is
more important and they still have family members whom they support. This will also
contribute frustration and anxiety about their future for their safety is not guaranteed
while they are working. Some will find safer workplace and leave the company. People
working under safe conditions are likely to be more dedicated to their work, which
results to producing good quality products and services compared to employees on
unsafe work environment who could not focus doing their work because of the risk in
their lives. On the part of the company, this will also bring them losses for they will have
to pay for the medical and insurance expenses for their injured workers in addition to
this, they will also lose some skilled and talented workers. Also, if the company has a
bad reputation in terms of safety of their employees, it will have a difficulty in gathering
workforce which would greatly affect its production. They might be producing fewer
products thus affecting their profitability.