business – Page 163 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

Managing on luck is not managing safety

In December 2011, SafetyAtWorkBlog reported on a serious misreading of workplace safety by the President of the Australian Hotels Association in South Australia (AHA/SA), Peter Hurley. The debate on new work health and safety laws in South Australia continues and on 7 September on radio station FIVEAA, according to an interview transcript (not available on-line), Peter Hurley continued to display his misunderstanding of OHS laws and principles even though SafeWorkSA responded at the time. The broader significance of his comments is that they could provide an example of the way that OHS myths are created through anecdote and misunderstanding.

Hurley reportedly said:

“..last year one of our hotels was subjected to some very aggressive inspectorate activity and among a myriad of other nit-picking things that we were instructed that we had to comply with was an instruction that we had to deck out our bottle shop staff in high vis apparel so if someone wandered in and wanted to have a discussion about the nuances of one vintage of Grange against another, they were going to have stand there and talk to a bloke who looked like he was working on a building site … Continue reading “Managing on luck is not managing safety”

Reliance on PPE impedes safety progress

There is an increasing call for the mandatory wearing of high-visibility clothing for motorcycle riders around the world. The reason is to make motorcyclist more visible to car drivers and other road users. This sounds logical and sensible and is, in some way, based on the prominence of high-visibility clothing in the industrial sectors of manufacturing, construction and others. But is this a matter of policy based on evidence or a broad application of logic or a “common sense”?

As the requirement for high visibility clothing has been in workplaces longer than on motorcyclists it is worth looking for evidence of the effectiveness of high visibility clothing in workplaces. A brief survey of some of the research literature has been unsuccessful in locating much research into this issue. (We always welcome input from readers on this). Wikipedia traces high-visibility clothing back to Scottish railways in the early 1960s, where

“Train drivers operating in these areas were asked their opinion as to the effectiveness of the jackets.”

It would seem the choice of high visibility clothing has stemmed from assessing a workplace, determining the dominant colour of that workplace or environment and then examining the colour wheel (above) to choose a colour of the greatest contrast, thereby providing a high visibility. Continue reading “Reliance on PPE impedes safety progress”

Shit safety campaign launched in Australia

On September 5 2012, the Tasmania Minister for Industrial Relations, David O’Byrne launched a new campaign to encourage businesses to prepare for new Work Health and Safety laws. The name of the campaign is “OH S…”.

O’Byrne’s media release explains the campaign:

“OH S… is the understandable gut reaction of any worker, manager or business owner when they hear there’s been an accident in the workplace… This campaign uses that first reactionary moment to try and promote how workplaces can be proactive on work health and safety.”

It is reminiscent of the famous line by Bill Cosby when describing a car accident and a driver’s reaction:

“First you say it, then you do it”.

The wisdom of this campaign is questionable. There could be a range of responses created in the media by various comedians, all to do with safety and shit, such as:

“Make the job safe, move that shit”.

“Don’t be a shithead with safety”.

“The top three priorities of this company is Safety First, Safety Second and Safety Turd”.

Bringing shit into the concept of safety is a challenge and could offend some of the old-guard that sees OHS as sacrosanct. But it could be that such an advertising strategy for workplace safety is necessary. Continue reading “Shit safety campaign launched in Australia”

A shaky start leads to a terrific book on incident investigation by Michael Tooma

There is one word that should not be used as an adjective in relation to workplace fatalities – impacted. Workers fall from roofs and the concrete floor has an impact on them. Workers hit by mobile plant or crushed in machines die from the impact. An impact results from the transfer of energy and this transfer of energy in workplaces can kill.

“Impacted” is used by those who do not feel comfortable differentiating between “affect” and “effect” and it is surprising to find the term used in the opening chapter of Michael Tooma’s latest book, Due Diligence: Incident Notification, Management and Investigation.

“Unless you have been involved in a serious incident, you don’t really appreciate how an incident will affect you. For every worker killed at work, there is a grieving mother, father, spouse and/or child. Their co-workers are impacted. Their friends are impacted. Management, guilt-ridden as they are in the aftermath of an incident, sometimes for good reason, sometimes not, are also personally and emotionally impacted. The tragedy touches everyone. In the midst of it all, a group of people are tasked with managing through the chaos and trying to get answers for all those impacted by the tragedy. This book is for them.”

The sentiment is correct and true but read the paragraph aloud and it sounds absurd. And why the overuse of “impacted” when a perfectly suitable word, “affect”, was used in the first sentence?

And this clumsy opening does the book a disservice. Tooma has repeatedly stated that this is a safety book written by a lawyer and not a legal book written about safety. This is a major change from a major Australian OHS publisher. It is a recognition that the readership is not lawyers feeding on lawyers but people wanting to understand workplace safety. Continue reading “A shaky start leads to a terrific book on incident investigation by Michael Tooma”

Safety culture change through a regulatory-based market mechanism

In late August 2012 at a breakfast seminar, the Director of Construction Code Compliance, Nigel Hadgkiss outlined the 1999 Victorian Code of Practice for the Building and Construction Industry, which complements a 1997 National Code, and recently released implementation guidelines being imposed on many Victorian construction companies by the Liberal Government. The Code and implementation guidelines are ostensibly about industrial relations or, as Australia is increasingly calling them, workplace relations but do contain some interesting safety elements.

An intriguing element of the Code and guidelines is the introduction of a workplace culture through contract obligations and how this may affect workplace safety.

Hadgkiss stated, according to a copy of his presentation, that

“Where a party tenders for public work called for after 1 July 2012, the party is required to comply on any subsequent privately funded work.”

This quote means that any company that applies for a Victorian Government contract, of specific costs and other criteria, must comply with the Code. Any client is entitled to impose their own contractual conditions. The obligation that “the party is required to comply on any subsequent privately funded work” means that even if the contractor or party fails to win the contract it tendered for its management of any subsequent project, even one from non-government funding, must also comply with the Code.

One of the four priority elements of the Code is occupational health and safety, so OHS requirements will spread from principal contractor, or tenderer, to contractor, sub-contractors and sub-sub-contractors like a virus or an “ITI”, an industry-transmitted infection. Continue reading “Safety culture change through a regulatory-based market mechanism”

Inside Australian PM’s political problems is a nugget of workplace safety

Prime Minister Gillard (centre) and others at Government House Canberra in March 2012

The Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, has been under intense media pressure over an issue concerning her conduct as a lawyer around 17 years ago.

It involves legal work for unions, her personal relationship at the time with a union official who has been described as “dodgy” and of most relevance to this blog, workplace safety.

Missed in all the debate is that the workplace safety issue seems to support the assertions of many in the business and industry associations that OHS is frequently used by trade unions as an excuse for action in other areas. These other areas are usually industrial relations but in this instance OHS was used to mask a unionist’s alleged misuse of member and industry funds. Continue reading “Inside Australian PM’s political problems is a nugget of workplace safety”

Principled pragmatism – Human Rights included in OHS Due Diligence

On 16 August 2012, Australia’s Workplace Relations Minister, Bill Shorten, said in Parliament, in relation to new asbestos management initiatives, that”

“On 14 March this year, in my first ministerial statement on workplace health and safety in this place, I said that every Australian who goes to work should return home safely. I know both sides of the House endorse this universal human right and today I reaffirm our commitment to this principle…” (page 13, Hansard. emphasis added)

It is very common to hear safety professionals and company executives echo the statement that workers should return home in an uninjured state. But few would be aware or, perhaps, agree that this is a human rights statement.

Following an earlier blog post, one reader has pointed us to the United Nations Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights that were released in 2011. According to the author, John Ruggie, these principles:

“… highlight what steps States should take to foster business respect for human rights; provide a blueprint for companies to know and show that they respect human rights, and reduce the risk of causing or contributing to human rights harm; and constitute a set of benchmarks for stakeholders to assess business respect for human rights. Continue reading “Principled pragmatism – Human Rights included in OHS Due Diligence”

Category: business

Managing on luck is not managing safety

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Reliance on PPE impedes safety progress

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Shit safety campaign launched in Australia

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A shaky start leads to a terrific book on incident investigation by Michael Tooma

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Safety culture change through a regulatory-based market mechanism

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Inside Australian PM’s political problems is a nugget of workplace safety

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Principled pragmatism – Human Rights included in OHS Due Diligence

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