Kevin Jones

A study of violence

Australian writer, Jeff Sparrow, recently recently a book that looks at violence and killing , “Killing: A Misadvanture In Violence“. As part of promoting the book he has been interviewed on several radio shows, the one most relevant to SafetyAtWorkBlog, is the 3CR program, Stick Together, about his book.

Sparrow says that he wanted to investigate the “normalisation of killing” and l0oks at occupation which have killing as part of the job. He analysed the killing of animals through the first-hand experience of kangaroo-shooting and visiting an abattoir.

Sparrow says that the abattoir was very much a factory that deconstructs animals rather than manufacturing items, such as cars. This will be no revelation to anyone who has read Eric Schlosser’s book, Fast Food Nation, in which he analyses abattoirs, particularly meatpacking, in the context of food production. Schlosser’s section on the worker safety and compensation processes in the US meat industry is confronting.

They are also possibly more directly relevant to OHS (or heartless capitalism) than Sparrow’s take on abattoirs, although Sparrow does mention how the structure of the workplace “controls the workers”. This harks back to the dehumanisation of workers for the purpose of productivity where repetition makes the reality of the action of killing or dismemberment, mundane.

In comparison, the roo-shooters have a more detailed understanding of their “craft” because they are working in the wild, where things can go wrong, instead of on the killing floor.

Sparrow also looks at killing that is undertaken in other occupations, such as the defence forces, and workplaces, such as deathrow. In these contexts Sparrow talks about the industrialisation of the war processes.

Ultimately, from the workplace perspective, Sparrow’s book sounds like an interesting resource for those who study the depersonalisation of the worker, or industrialisation. For those who work on, or have responsibility for, production lines, this psychological approach to the book may help.

Kevin Jones

A sample chapter of the book is available for download.

The myth of the three-hour sleep

The Australian media has widely reported that Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, exists on three-hours sleep per night. He doesn’t and Professor Drew Dawson, a prominent Australian sleep researcher, discusses the exaggeration of high-flying professionals in an article at Crikey.com on 21 July 2009.

More research of Professor Drew Dawson, Director, Centre for Sleep Research, University of South Australia, is available online.

Absence management data misses the OHS mark

Managing workplace absenteeism often ignores the OHS issues that are integral to the issue.

On 20 July 2009 the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development released its findings on the issue in its annual Absence Management Survey.

The media statement identifies the reasons for short- and long-term absences.

“The main causes of short-term absence are minor illnesses such as colds and flu, stress and musculoskeletal conditions

The main causes of long-term absence are acute medical conditions, stress and mental health conditions and musculoskeletal conditions and back pain.”

However, the media statement identifies no measures to counter these workplace hazards, preferring to focus on ancillary factors such as job security.

Willmott focuses on a comparison between absenteeism in the public and private sectors. The difference is statistically interesting, perhaps, but does not address the causes of absenteeism.

Willmot also illustrates the dominant HR position on absenteeism.

“Effective absence management involves finding a balance between providing support to help employees with health problems stay in and return to work and taking consistent and firm action against employees that try and take advantage of organisations’ occupational sick pay schemes.”

This manages the effect of the problem but not the problem itself which CIPD’s own research has identified as musculoskeletal conditions, stress, mental health and, to a lesser extent, colds and flu.

The comments by the Senior Public Policy Adviser for the CIPD, BenWillmott, are a good example of how some human resources or management organisations miss the health and safety element.

The CIPD does acknowledge the importance of workplace health and safety as illustrated by its reply to the Health & Safety Executive’s draft strategy. It also says in the Absence Management Survey that, in the return-to-work context:

“The involvement of occupational health professionals is identified as the most effective approach for managing long-term absence…”

However even though it sees itself as the “professional and accreditation body for the UK HR profession [which represents] over 130,000 HR professionals at every level of business and in every sector”, it hesitates to take a leadership role in health and safety. It’s a pity because applying the apparent professionalism of the Institute and its membership strength to OHS could achieve great social and business efficiencies.

For those wanting to look at comparison data, CIPD makes available its previous surveys for download.

Kevin Jones

New approach to risks of nanomaterials

US research scientists have released a new article about assessing the exposure risk of nanomaterial. Treye Thomas, Tina Bahadori, Nora Savage and Karluss Thomas have published “Moving toward exposure and risk evaluation of nanomaterials: challenges and future directions“.

Refreshingly they take a whole-of-cycle approach to the materials and, even though, the conclusion is that more research is required, that they are approaching the hazard in this fashion is a very positive move.

They say that nanomaterials will only become an acceptable technology if people understand the risks involved with the products.

“The long-term viability of nanomaterials and public acceptance of this new technology will depend on the ability to assess adequately the potential health risks from nanomaterial exposures throughout their lifecycle.”

This openness by manufacturers has not been evident up to now as the commercial application of the technology is early days.

The researchers advocate two elements to further investigation of nanomaterials.

The first is metrology and

developing tools to characterize and measure relevant

attributes of nanomaterials, including particle

size, number, and surface area. The second is lifecycle

analysis of nanomaterials in consumer goods

and their transformation and degradation in products

throughout the lifecycle of materials.

“The first is metrology and developing tools to characterize and measure relevant attributes of nanomaterials, including particle size, number, and surface area. The second is lifecycle analysis of nanomaterials in consumer goods and their transformation and degradation in products throughout the lifecycle of materials.”

There are several medical articles included on the Wiley Interscience website that may be of relevance but it is heartening to see some interdisciplinary thinking in this field.

Kevin Jones

Professionalism and academia

The Australia safety industry is being pushed by OHS regulators to improve its professionalism. Upgrading of qualifications in any discipline always generates conflict between the educated and the competent. OHS is no different.

In The Age newspaper on 20 July 2009 was an interesting article that provides a brief overview of postgraduate studies. The article makes no mention of workplace safety courses but provides an interesting illustration of the dichotomy above.

The full article deserves reading as it illustrates cost and time issues but there were several points made that seem pertinent to recent moves in the OHS profession.

The president of the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations, Nigel Palmer, is quoted as saying

“It’s clear that we’ve seen a dramatic increase in fees. Whether or not there has been a corresponding increase in the quality of those courses remains an open question”.

Most postgraduates undertake their studies while employed. This makes it much easier to manage time, if the company provides study leave options, and it provides a ready source of material for business studies, in particular. Some companies also assist with the payment of fees. This is not the case for those who are seeking employment or who are self-employed. The costs in money and time almost makes postgraduate study an impossibility.

The postgraduate courses themselves are often hard to define. Professor Richard James of the University of Melbourne’s Centre for the Study of Higher Education admits that most institutions would have difficulty defining a master’s degree.

Holly Alexander chose to study outside the universities after completing a Bachelor of Arts degree. She found the practicality of her course immensely useful and the article identifies a crucial differentiation between academics and practitioners.

“Of critical importance to her was the fact her teachers practised their craft and provided invaluable industry contacts.”

The OHS profession in Australia is developing a “core body of knowledge” which seems to be vital to the profession but noone has explained why, even though hundreds of thousands of dollars are being spent on the task. And still there remains those experienced OHS professionals and practitioners who wonder why after twenty years of successful consulting and advice they need to benchmark themselves to “prove” their professionalism.

Outside the core body of knowledge, Holly Alexander’s point above is very important. The academics and educators in any profession need to have an industry network that functions in the real world and their professional skills must be able to be applied practically, otherwise the qualification is meaningless.

Kevin Jones

Swine flu – A very odd catastrophe

Each weekend the readership of one particular swine flu article increases.

It is almost two months since that article was posted and the mood in Australia is remarkably blasé about swine flu even though over that time Australia has experienced its first swine flu deaths. It seems that for those not directly affected by a swine flu case, the influenza is a non-issue.

This mood is surprising as the initial reports of Australian exposure, when isolation remained a valid option, were alarming, even allowing some leeway for media hype. Perhaps the alarms were more from the authorities’ response – isolation – than from the infection. Perhaps one’s expectations were increased from a teenage diet of disaster movies and novels such as Day of the Triffids.

The issue currently has no specific workplace relevance so there are no plans for further SafetyAtWorkBlog articles on the issue. Still, it feels a very odd catastrophe.

Kevin Jones

Driving and talking

The issue of driving while using a mobile is a perennial issue for the media but nothing much changes. The New York Times on 20 July 2009 carried an article on the latest research which confirms many previous studies that using a mobile phone while driving increases the risk of an accident.

Pages from 6i17 raw No US State has banned the practice because social use of mobile phones has become so widespread that any ban is impossible to enforce effectively.

In January 2009, SafetyAtWorkBlog reported on the recommendations from WorkSafe Victoria on the matter. Even in their guide they would say nothing more than

“recommend that hands free calls be kept to a minimum”.

At some point for most workplace hazards, the evidence outweighs the enforcement difficulties and bans ensue. It has happened to asbestos, it has happened with smoking, but these are decades after dancing around the most effective control measure – elimination.

Pages from 6i02 v4 The industrialised world, in particular, has been wrestling with the hazard of phones and driving for well over a decade. One report from 2002 said

“Tests carried out by scientists at the Transport Research Laboratory established that driving behaviour is impaired more by using a mobile phone than by being over the legal alcohol limit.”

The footnote to this comment said

“Previous research has shown that phone conversations while driving impair performance. It was difficult to quantify the risk of this impairment because the reference was usually made to normal driving without using a phone. “Worse than normal driving” does not necessarily mean dangerous. There was a need therefore to benchmark driving performance while using a mobile phone to a clearly dangerous level of performance. Driving with a blood alcohol level over the legal limit is an established danger.”

There are always conditions set with research findings but these are sensible and valid.

Pages from 3i13 According to a 2004 report by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported by UPI (unable to find a link)

“…estimated 8 percent of all motorists — about 1.2 million drivers — were using cell phones at any given time while driving, up from 6 percent in 2002 and 4 percent in 2000. About 800,000 of those drivers used handsets and not hands-free devices.

Handheld cell phone use increased from 5 percent to 8 percent among drivers aged 15 to 24 between 2002 and 2004.

Use of cellular-phone handsets increased from 4 percent to 6 percent of female drivers, while the number of men talking on handheld cell phones while driving remained constant at 4 percent.

Motorists were more likely to use a cell phone while driving alone, but drivers with children in the vehicle were just as likely to use the phone as those without children in the car.”

For those readers who like dollar figures, the same UPI article stated

“A 2002 study by the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis, part of Harvard University’s School of Public Health, found drivers using cell phones caused 1.5 million accidents annually resulting in 2,600 deaths and 570,000 injuries.

Researchers estimated banning cell phone use in vehicles would cost $43 billion a year in lost economic activity.”

[The only HCRA report on the website is is a 2003 study – Cohen, J.T. and Graham, J.D. A revised economic analysis of restrictions on the use of cell phones while driving. Risk Analysis. 2003; 23(1):5-17.]

A September 2003 report from NIOSH lists a range of driver hazards related to work activities and is worth downloading. Pages 51-555 deal specifically with phone use.

(If any reader knows of a literature review on this topic, please contact SafetyAtWorkBlog)

This workplace hazard has been around for so long that in the opinion of SafetyAtWorkBlog, when someone is driving a work vehicle 100% of their attention should be on the principal task at hand – driving.

Achieving this realistic aim can be helped by

not passing on mobile phone numbers when one knows the person is driving. The low tech alternative of taking a message works.
having employees turn off the phone while driving. (The phone does have an OFF switch)
not fitting workplace vehicles with hands-free units.
reminding employees of the safe driving policies of the business; and
enforcing those policies so that employees know that dangerous acts will not be tolerated or compensated by the company.

Above all, employees must be informed of the risks involved with distraction, must be reassured that employers will support safe actions, and must realise the affect on other drivers and their families from their own mistakes.

Kevin Jones

Author: Kevin Jones

A study of violence

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The myth of the three-hour sleep

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Absence management data misses the OHS mark

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New approach to risks of nanomaterials

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Professionalism and academia

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Swine flu – A very odd catastrophe

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Driving and talking

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