Nearly 40 per cent of workers reported that their employers had not provided them with any measures to help prevent heat stress, an NGO has found, more than a year after guidelines to help stop heat stroke at work were introduced. The Association for the Rights of Industrial Accident Victims interviewed 470 frontline workers from late June to mid-August, and also found that 46.7 per cent of workers had felt unwell due to heat stress at work, with symptoms such as dizziness, headache, nausea, rapid breathing and confusion.
Last May, the Labour Department introduced the Guidance Notes on Prevention of Heat Stroke at Work, a three-tier heat stress warning system to advise measures employers could implement to prevent heat stroke among their staff. The labour rights group urged the government to review its guidelines and to more closely monitor their implementation across various sectors. The system has came under fire, as NGOs criticised the guidelines for not being legally binding , and experts questioned the scientific basis of the warning system .
The guidelines were revised in April to more closely link the system to the Hong Kong Observatory’s weather warnings. Additionally, warnings would remain in effect for at least an hour to prevent signals from going up and down frequently in a short space of time. According to the Association for the Rights of Industrial Accident Victims, 49 amber warnings – the lowest level of the system – were issued on 45 days from June 12 t.