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Some OHS information is very questionable

Media releases are statements issued to the media for the purposes of informing that media’s audience of something they may find newsworthy or interesting. Increasingly media releases are being used as a substitute for advertising.

SafetyAtWorkBlog has an editorial policy that releases advertising a product are not used as the basis for an article. One example of such a strongly commercially focussed media release is HERE. However, we read almost all media releases received and take great pains on those we “use”, to identify the original source be it a survey report, research or a court case. Continue reading “Some OHS information is very questionable”

Safety awareness ≠ safety (always)

Workplace fatalities have markedly increased in Victoria over the last couple of months. According to WorkSafe Victoria information nine people have died within the last two months bringing the current total to 27 for 2009.

Victoria has a high awareness of the need for safety in the workplace, principally due to the advertising campaigns of WorkSafe which began, in one form or another, in the 1980s when Andrew Lindberg was WorkSafe’s CEO. But clearly awareness of the need for safety is not being translated into action.

WorkSafe Victoria has become alarmed at the recent surge in deaths and issued a media release asking for things to settle down. John Merritt, executive director, has said

“With many industries now reaching their peak activity the risks are extreme as people rush to get work completed and begin to think about what Christmas, holidays and the New Year has to offer.

“The construction and manufacturing sectors are aiming to complete projects before a summer shutdown, while transport, warehousing and retailing are ramping-up to Christmas.

“With just a few weeks before Christmas and the spectre of nine deaths in two months behind us, employers and workers must lift their game and reject the urge to take shortcuts or become complacent.”

But there is nothing unique about this time of year as the same activities, the same work pressures exist each year at this time. More analysis is required of why this October and November 2009 have been particularly bad. This analysis needs to be much deeper than the market research and attitudinal studies that OHS regulators frequently undertake.

Dead men tell no tales but survivors do and perhaps it is time to investigate the circumstances of an incident in a way that is outside of the legal/prosecution motivation. Everyone has a different perspective on a workplace incident and many are less than truthful or honest in order to not incriminate themselves or because a lawyer has advised against unsupervised cooperation. Could it be possible to offer a special consideration to the witnesses of an incident, prior to the Court experience, so as to encourage accurate data of an incident that can then be issued as a safety alert?

The media releases of OHS regulators often refer to incidents that have occurred months or years ago when the circumstances are only remembered by the Courts, the company and the family of the deceased. Surely there must be some way of issuing an interim alert that does not jeopardise the prosecution? The preventative benefit would be so much more if the alert relates to an event that has occurred within the last week, for example, or while the tragedy is still being reported in the media.

In various venues throughout Victoria, John Merritt, has been showing a graph of the number of fatalities in the State in line with the National OHS Strategy leading to 2012. Earlier this year, the fatality rate was above the benchmark. Now, WorkSafe must be realising that the 2012 target is likely to be impossible.

Australia is not renowned for its OHS research. What occurs is way below that of other similar economies and the funding is abominable. It may be time to pull back on advertising expenditure and start researching the causes of the fatalities for a quick turn around of, at least interim, results. Until this occurs, regardless of regular pleas from OHS regulators it is likely that we will still be hearing of incidents like these from Victoria:

“…a 42-year-old man fell from a roof and died while installing cables for a television antenna on a house in Tullamarine.”

“…another 42-year-old man is being treated for serious burns at the Alfred Hospital after fuel ignited as he prepared to refill a generator…”

“A man has died at Werribee after being run over by the trailer of a reversing tractor”

“…a farm worker was run over by a tractor on another Werribee South vegetable farm. He suffered serious injuries to his pelvis and was flown to hospital for surgery…”

“A Lower Templestowe man, 47, died from crushing injuries after a tractor he was driving became entangled in a steel wire supporting poles for a canopy over a Wandin North orchard.”

“A 45-year-old dairy farmer died near Portland when he was hit by his tractor and an implement and suffered fatal crushing injuries.”

“A man’s head was crushed between an industrial chipper and a truck at Warrandyte North”

“A man aged in his 50s died at Bannockburn near Geelong while operating a boom lift. He was found crushed between the machine’s bucket and the roof of a building in which he was working”

What we can be sure of is that 27 Victorian families will not be celebrating this Christmas.

Kevin Jones

Safety awards and the new media option

In yesterday’s article on Kerrin Rowan, mention was made of how important local community support is. A reader has drawn our attention to a front page article in the Plains Producer newspaper of 9 October 2008 (not available online)

It reminded us of the significance local newspapers have in the rewarding the achievements of local citizens and that the front page article, inversely, illustrates how almost all daily metropolitan newspapers ignore OHS and RTW award winners. There seems to be no mention of Kerrin in the online site for The Adelaide Advertiser.

But then safety awards seem not to be newsworthy. Daily newspapers seem to see safety awards as a marketing tool and throws them all in the PR basket, even those worthy of greater attention. Kerrin’s story is one of the few exceptional rehabilitation stories and yet even with this level of “human interest”, such a story is ignored.

The newspapers are happy to receive the advertising revenue for a half page ad inserted by the OHS regulator congratulating the award winners but no one in the newspaper publishers seems to see any newsworthiness in the award winners.

Perhaps it is time for the OHS regulators to give up trying for the attention of the traditional media and go Web 2.0 with blogs, Twitter and Youtube. Although, SafetyAtWorkBlog would still be looking for the human interest. Recently we did not report on some OHS award winners for OHS management systems, principally because it is difficult to describe explain such a system in an article. What could be done is to report on the significance of the award for the winners but that does not assist readers with OHS solutions, one of the aims of our blog.

OHS people and blog readers like pictures and video. They like to use the technological capacity of the internet in a combination that traditional media cannot match. OHS regulators and award conveners could do more to support the newer media by a prompt turnaround in video or images from the awards night. These are already produced before, or on, the awards nights but often take over a week, if at all, to be accessible to the media. The new media and its readers want immediacy and immediacy allows the community to share in some of the exhilaration felt by the award winners. Topicality is tenuous.

Some OHS awards have been running for over ten years but still gain no traction in the metropolitan newspapers. Our advice is to embrace the new media and see where it leads.

Kevin Jones

New Safety Institute magazine is (mostly) a winner

Finally, the Safety Institute of Australia has got its act together and has contracted someone who has produced an OHS magazine that, mostly, satisfies the needs of its members and the aims of the Institute. SIA magazine cover 001

The first edition of OHS Professional landed in the SafetyAtWorkBlog letter box this morning and, it is fair to say that the involvement of an international publishing company, LexisNexis, is all over this magazine. The format clearly owes itself to other publications in the LexisNexis Australia stable, such as Lawyers Weekly, HR Leader and Risk Manager.

By and large, the magazine seems better for not having an OHS professional as the editor. Mark Phillips places the magazine in the publishing context rather than in the past where such magazines were squeezed into the OHS context or, even worse, made to fit into some agenda of a professional association. OHS Professional is devoid of the institutional baggage and infighting that has occurred in the past in the Institute. However, this is the first edition and the Letters page is yet to be operational.

There are some tweaks that could improve the magazine or address some bugbears. There is a book review on the latest Andrew Hopkins book. The name of the reviewer is not specified and described only as “an SIA member”. Clearly identifying the author is important to establishing the independence of any review.

This is particularly relevant in this case as the retail outlet of the Hopkins book is listed as Futuremedia. The founder of Futuremedia is Kerry Wonka. The Futuremedia website lists a professional membership with the SIA and Kerry Wonka is identified as a committee member of the SIA New South Wales Division. The absence of a reviewer’s name allows for speculation that the review could be an advertorial. The simple inclusion of a name would establish additional credibility to the very good review of an important book.

Several articles would seem to be familiar to readers as similar content has appeared in other Australian safety publications such as Safety Solutions, a free trade publication that is widely circulated, and various online OHS websites. If any magazine is to survive in the modern knowledge industry it must differentiate itself from not only other magazines but other information sources. OHS Professional has the basic structure right and it would be great to see its content develop into an independent source of important OHS information that does not rely on the cycle of SIA conferences and events.

As a for instance, National Safety magazine (pictured right) has established itself as an independent source of authoritative OHS information under the editorship of Helen Borger. National Safety reduced its reliance on being a magazine for members of the National Safety Council of Australia and this has helped broaden its readership and to survive where many other OHS magazines, such as CCH’s OHS Magazine (pictured below) and Niche Publishing’s Complete Safety, folded.

As with other SIA publications, the enthusiasm that comes from a new source of OHS information continues to be let down by an unfriendly website. There seems to have been no coordination between the SIA’s website developer and the hard copy publishers. Anyone visiting the SIA website would be unaware that it publishes much at all. More prominence is given to its partner organisations than to the important and tangible benefits of becoming a member, such as high quality publications.

When one finally finds the link in the drop down list for SIA magazines, the only article relates to the SIA’s relationship to its previous publisher who cancelled the contract at very short notice!!

The relationship with LexisNexis Australia is crucial to building a contemporary relevance for the Safety Institute of Australia, an aim that the SIA has regularly stated publicly but the Institute is hampering these good efforts with poor online support and inadequate promotional coordination.

In this first week of November 2009, SafetyAtWorkBlog has received two SIA publications that have great potential. The sad part is that this has occurred in the week after Safe Work Australia Week, the most active OHS week in Australia. This seems a major missed opportunity for the Safety Institute and it is suggested that their promotional coordinator, whoever it may be, should be sat down and had a long talking to.

Having said this, the next edition of OHS Professional will be keenly anticipated. If it is as good as the first edition, it will be a shame it is not published more frequently.

Kevin Jones

Disclaimer: an article by Kevin Jones is in this edition of OHS Professional. Kevin also works part-time as a content provider for LexisNexis but has no involvement with the publications. Kevin has written for National Safety magazine a couple of times over the last ten years and he is a Fellow of the Safety Institute.

New approaches on OHS fines and penalties

At the moment Australian OHS professionals, lawyers and businesses are preparing submissions to the Government on the harmonisation of OHS laws. One of the areas that the Government is seeking advice on is penalties. The Discussion Paper asks the following

Q17. Are the range and levels of penalties proposed above appropriate, taking account of the levels set for breaches of duties of care by the WRMC?

Q18. What should the maximum penalty be for a contravention of the model regulations?

Q19. The intention is that all contraventions of the model Act be criminal offences. Is this appropriate or should some non-duty of care offences be subject to civil sanctions e.g. failure to display a list of HSRs at the workplace, offences relating to right of entry?

The amount of any fixed financial penalty is not a big issue in my opinion. There is an assumption that the threat of a large financial penalty imposed on one company will encourage other companies to improve safety. Is anyone seriously saying that all of the financial penalties imposed over the decades are in some way responsible for an improving level of safety in workplaces? The motivation to improve safety comes from elsewhere.

The threat of large financial penalties send companies to seek ways of insuring against having to pay a fine. Often it is cheaper to pay an insurance premium on the slim chance of being prosecuted and fined. I acknowledge that this has been a corporate and risk management approach primarily but there are cases where such options are being offered to small business.

Large financial penalties, such as the then record fine to Esso over its Longford gas explosion, are easily paid with little OHS improvement resulting from the fine. It can be argued that the negative corporate exposure from the resulting Royal Commission, a reulting class action and the media coverage resulting from its unforgivable treatment of Jim Ward were stronger motivators for improvement.

In most Australian States, there is not a crime of industrial manslaughter. This issue has faded from the political agenda but it remains very much alive in England. On 27 October 2009, the Sentencing Guidelines Council wrote the following:

“Companies and organisations that cause death through gross breaches of care should face punitive and significant fines, a consultation guideline published by the Sentencing Guidelines Council proposes today.

Fines for organisations found guilty of the new offence of corporate manslaughter may be measured in millions of pounds and should seldom be below £500,000.

The new sanction of Publicity Orders forcing companies and organisations to make a statement about their conviction and fine introduced under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act should be imposed in virtually all cases.

The consultation guideline proposes that the publicity should be designed to ensure that the conviction becomes known to shareholders and customers in the case of companies and to local people in the case of public bodies, such as local authorities, hospital trusts and police forces. Organisations may be made to put a statement on their websites.”

The Council recommends a minimum financial penalty and a publicity order that has teeth. More on the publicity order is below.

Council member Lord Justice Anthony Hughes clearly states the purpose of financial penalties and it is not preventative. He said in a media statement

“Fines cannot and do not attempt to value a human life – compensation will be payable separately in these cases. The fine is designed to punish and these are serious offences so the fines imposed should be punitive and significant to reflect that.”

Penalties as a Percentage of Turnover

Hughes says that the Council rejected a Sentencing Advisory Panel proposal that I believe should be floated in the current debate on penalties in Australia, even though it is likely to be similarly rejected.

The Panel recommended the following

“In order to achieve an equal economic impact on offending organisations of different sizes, the proposed starting points and ranges for offences of corporate manslaughter are expressed as percentages of the offending organisation’s average annual turnover during the three years prior to sentencing. The relevant turnover is that of the company convicted of the offence or, where the offending organisation is a holding company, the consolidated turnover of the group of companies of which it is the holding company.”

Here is the penalty table

Manslaughter table

Lawyers argue extensively about the use of manslaughter in relation to deaths in workplace but the public jumps across the legalese by repeatedly asking how the death of their loved one is not manslaughter when the actions of a director or company led directly to the death? No level of legal explanation is going to counter this need for accountability, some would say revenge.

Similarly the penalty rate listed in the table above is easier for the public to understand conceptually compared to a judge’s or lawyer’s explanation of why a financial penalty for a workplace death was less than the maximum.

Sentencing options are complex and SafetyAtWorkBlog has no legal contributors but on 30 October 2009 within a public discussion period on national OHS laws and at the end of Safe Work Australia Week, it seem thats penalties imposed from a percentage of turnover may be an attractive concept to many safety advocates and one that needs to be considered in the Australian context.

Publicity Orders

On the issue of publicity orders, many Australian jurisdictions have had this option for a while. Indeed, the issue of enforceable undertakings is getting a broader hearing after some of the recent actions by Comcare against John Holland Group and others.

It is always important to look at the most recent actions and decisions in OHS law and regulation from outside one’s own jurisdiction so that innovations are not overlooked. It seems that the Sentencing Advisory Panel has looked at lots of jurisdictions in making the following requirements.

The Sentencing Advisory Panel listed specific requirements of a publicity order to be applied within a specified timeframe:

a quarter-page advertisement in a local or regional newspaper, in the case of an organisation operating in one area; or

an eighth-page advertisement in three specified national daily newspapers, in the case of an organisation operating nationally; and

an eighth-page notice in a relevant trade publication; and

a prominent notice in the organisation’s annual report (also in electronic format where applicable); and

where applicable, a notice on the homepage of the organisation’s website for a minimum period of three months.

The panel also closed a possible (out) for offending companies.

” The making of a publicity order does not justify a reduction in the level of fine imposed on an organisation for an offence of corporate manslaughter.”

The ads on home pages, local newspapers and trade publications (if there are any) seems very reasonable but the media option that may be most influential is the inclusion in the company’s annual report. Acknowledging a workplace death and expressing regret in an annual report is admirable but “a prominent notice in the organisation’s annual report” goes straight to the shareholders who often have the ear of the corporation. Just look at the influence being applied by them at the moment on executive salaries.

Now is the right time for Australia to consider alternative OHS penalty options.

Kevin Jones

Union opposition to Australia’s OHS laws – new radio campaign

On 14 September 2009, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) released a series of radio advertisements that call on the government to not reduce the occupational health and safety conditions of Australian workers.

An article about the ads with interviews with the major political players is available on ABC Radio for a short time.

Conflict

There are several issues raised by the ads and the interviews. Jeff Lawrence of the ACTU says that the new harmonised OHS laws will reduce conditions across Australia. For “across Australia” read “New South Wales”. The proposed OHS laws will create the most change for unions in New South Wales. This state had the most extreme duty of care in any State and always had the most to give up. This was always going to be the point of conflict.

Consultation

The ads can also be seen as an admission that the in-house tripartite negotiations are not going the way the union movement wanted. The Australian Government has persisted with the tripartite consultative structure for OHS. Each party – government, unions and employers – are supposed to have an equal(ish) say in changes to the OHS law. The new radio ads, and the recent street protests, could indicate that the unions are not being listened to to the extent they wanted.

It could be that the union movement want to add colour and movement to the negotiations but it is an expensive method and one that does not have the same traction as their Your Rights At Work campaign that contributed to the fall of the conservative governemtn of John Howard, regardless of what the advertising sellers say.

The government of Prime Minister Rudd was always seen as sympathetic to big business. This is a legacy of the consensus politics of the Hawke/Keating period. The traditional voter base for the Labor Party has been eroding for years and the only way it has been able to retain or regain government over the last 25 years has been to broaden its appeal to the middle classes.

A great example of this was the fall of the government of Jeff Kennett in Victoria. The Labor Party began wooing the rural conservatives, a sector that Kennett had almost dismissed (except for the occasional search for the best vanilla slice). This action undercut the Liberal Party and National Party heartlands.

The ACTU is also trying to talk with the heartlands of workers but it needs to assuage concerns about the industrial relations changes. The community is fearful that the unions are asking for too much. The Government is aware of this and that is why the mantra of the Prime Minister and Industrial Relations Minister, Julia Gillard, is all about “restoring the balance”.

Reporting

The radio report this morning also indicates a deficiency in the Australian media. There are no reporters in the mainstream media who specialise in OHS. That’s understandable as OHS is often a niche area, a subset of industrial relations. But this also means that OHS is always considered in terms of industrial relations because this is the information base from which reporters and journalists draw.

This is noone’s fault, in particular, but as you listen to the radio podcast, the IR “tone” is always there, both in the journalists and the subjects interviewed.

Perhaps the media sees no value in OHS without the IR perspective. Perhaps it is because today’s report was always going to be about industrial relations with an OHS twist. If this is the case, where are the OHS advocates who can comment without industrial relations baggage? Where are the humanists, the realists, where is the OHS voice?

Kevin Jones

New safety campaign – making the invisible visible

The last week of October each year is Safe Work Australia Week. This theme is enacted in each State with their own resources and events. WorkSafe Victoria is one of the more active of the state regulators and 2009 seems no different.

On 13 September 2009, WorkSafe Victoria will launch a new campaign of graphic advertisements but what makes these different is the injuries result from “simple” work activities. They are not in high-risk industries where workers may perform high-risk tasks. These ads concern the (mis)use of an office chair, lifting a bag from a pallet, not using the stairs, slipping on a wet floor and lifting a person.

There has always been the challenge of how to generate interest in manual handling injuries as they are internal or invisible, and cumulative. WorkSafe has done well by illustrating the physical consequences of what many dismiss as “taking a fall”. In fact, the images that are less confronting than the noise of the bones breaking or the hernia appearing.

WorkSafe’s Executive Director, John Merritt, describes the campaign this way

“There’s no ‘blood on the floor’ or spectacular images on the nightly TV news or in the morning paper, yet the consequences of these injuries are enormous for individuals, their loved ones and their employers.

“For business, the average cost of treating these people through Victoria’s workers compensation system averages $45,000 per claim.

“Individuals lose quality of life and many, the capacity to work for at least a short period, some require surgery or have permanent pain and never fully recover.

“For employers productivity is cut, there may be staff replacement costs, retraining and safety improvements to be made after the event. Industries lose people permanently.

“Identifying and preventing these issues has benefits for all.”

Merritt also provides the statistic that 60% of all reported workplace injuries* – more than 17,000 a year in Victoria – involve manual handling.

The new campaign is graphic but it is hard to see how the total costs – social, personal and business – could have been described better. Having a worker clutch their lower back and grimace with pain has been seen in campaigns and images repeatedly for decades and a new approach was needed. Making the invisible visible should help.

Kevin Jones

* Based on Victorian Workers compensation claims where people are off work 10 days or more and / or medical treatment costs in excess of $520.

Category: advertising

Some OHS information is very questionable

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Safety awareness ≠ safety (always)

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Safety awards and the new media option

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New Safety Institute magazine is (mostly) a winner

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