Despite pleas, warnings and a new Safety And Health At Work (SHaW) Act, little appears to have been done to make staff and customers of City establishments feel safer in the aftermath of the Campus Trendz fire.
A check with Tudor Street and Swan Street stores showed that even where renovations have occurred, new exits, smoke detectors, ceiling sprinklers and fire extinguishers have not been added.
Some property owners and renters put the failure down to the high cost of retrofitting at a time when “things are tight”, downright impracticality and waiting to see how the authorities would react.
The Campus Trendz fire occurred in September, 2010, killing six young women. The tragedy triggered pleas for the many one-door establishments along Tudor Street, Swan Street and other areas of the City to have alternative exits and to beef up safety. Some also warned that unless there were improvements more tragedies would occur.
But there has been no headlong rush by property owners or people renting premises to do things differently, even after the tougher SHaW Act came into effect on January 1, replacing the Factories Act.
A number of business people said creating a second exit was impractical. One Tudor Street businessman who declined to be identified said: “If I cut a back door it’s going to end up in somebody else’s store.”
One business went to another extreme: it took out the back door “for security reasons” when the building was renovated, with the manager saying there had been a number of burglary attempts.
Lawyer David Comissiong, who represents the families of some of the fire victims, complained: “Nothing of substance has been done by the property owners or those renting premises to bring them in line with the requirements of the law.”
He said that while the new act had strengthened Government’s hand in terms of improving health and safety conditions in the workplace, the administration had not moved with haste against premises that might be in breach of the regulations.
Orlando Scott, a senior assistant general secretary of the Barbados Workers’ Union who specializes in health and safety matters, also voiced concern about the lack of progress.
“While it is necessary to give small businesses or any business a chance to catch up, to retrofit, it is also necessary for people to work with haste to ensure that the premises are safe, not only for the workers themselves but customers as well because we do not know when an accident will take place,” he told the WEEKEND NATION.
“Such premises also need to be monitored because if you do not monitor the situation, people can take things for granted.”
He said it took from 2005 to 2013 for the SHaW Act to come into force “and I don’t think we could wait for another eight years for people to take care of their businesses”.
If people spend money on other things they thought were necessary, they need to be made to understand that making the premises safe for both customers and workers was equally important, he said.
Scott complained that companies were failing even when it came to the smaller issues in health and safety.
“If you look at the report from the National Insurance Scheme for 2009, the last report to come out, you will notice that the things that cause accidents and injuries are slips and falls, not the large things,” he said. “It means therefore that basic, fundamental issues we are not looking at and if we do not look at these, how can we look at the larger issues?”
Minister of Labour Dr Esther Byer Suckoo conceded that there could be problems getting some one-door City establishments to create a second exit but said the emphasis was on property owners/renters to “mitigate the risks”.
She said this meant keeping the entrance clear and not cluttered with merchandise, installing the necessary equipment (such as commercial fire extinguishers and smoke detectors), storing combustible materials properly, and training staff in health and safety.
