Just back from Singapore and Hong Kong. Much that’s strange to report (I’d never been to Asia before), but on a union-geek tip, I found this quite amusing: two official attempts to promote good workplace health & safety.

Singapore’s government might politely be described as ‘paternalistic’, so they don’t have the hang-ups about mounting an all-out irony-free H&S campaign that we might. “Shine at Work” is run by the unions, government and NGOs, and has impressive advertising all over the place – I saw a huge conversion of a bus shelter with posters and giant cutouts.

Best of all though is the official pop song of the Shine campaign, which you can download from the site. All together now: “When you do your job, Remember safety first. Always look, think, then you do. Working safely with a smile, For colleagues and your loved ones.”

Also Hong Kong, where the Science Museum has a whole gallery devoted to H&S at work – putting it on a par with dinosaurs or space travel. You walk through a scaffold tunnel, where objects drop scarily towards your head, find out how to lift heavy objects and work at height safely, and watch a frankly odd musical animatronic show, where Prof Safe introduces his friends the hazardous substances, and how to store them safely.

Someone needs to get the museum webmaster on-message though: “You can experience the thrill of potential hits by falling objects at construction sites”.

I reckon most of our safety reps would like this in the UK – there’s certainly enough of them to get our own H&S pop tune into the download charts 😉