No efficiency without safety

As China has embarked on the journey to seek a balanced and sustainable development of its economy over blind faith in high-speed GDP growth, the country's factory owners should also learn to respect their employees' lives in the pursuit of productivity.

The fire incident at a northeast China poultry plant on Monday is another sad reminder for the country to analyse its work safety issues.

The fire broke out at 6:06 a.m. at a poultry processing workshop owned by the Jilin Baoyuanfeng Poultry Company in Mishazi Township in the city of Dehui, about 100 km northeast of the provincial capital Changchun. It has claimed 120 lives and injured many as of Tuesday morning, according to the rescue headquarters.

Reports showed that most factory exits were locked when the fire broke out.

The death toll would not have been so high, had the exits not have been locked.

The rationale behind the locked doors boils down to efficiency. With the doors locked, workers can not wander about freely and therefore concentrate on their work.

As the Baoyuanfeng owners prioritized the factory's productivity, less importance was given to the safety of their employees.

Survivors said that they had to go to other exits when they rushed to one exit only to find it locked. In one case, some workers fortunately escaped when an employee destroyed a lock with a shovel.

Though accidents in mining sites frequently make the headlines, it is not common for modern factories to report an accident with such a shocking number of casualties.

The accident could have been avoided if management cared more about the safety of their employees than their own pockets and relevant government departments carried out strict and regular supervision.

As China's leadership spells out the promising plan to transform the economy for the great rejuvenation of the nation, the whole country may as well benefit from assuming a more sober-minded stance towards efficiency.

People's safety should always come before the aspiration for efficiency.