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Missed opportunity for making the business case on safety culture

Recently the UK’s Health and Safety Laboratory (HSL) released its second white paper on safety culture. This paper is called “Making the Case for Culture” and outlines the three arguments for a workplace safety culture – legal, moral and financial – from which a safety business case can be built. Financial seems to get the most attention but this is perhaps because it is the element that is argued the least and the one that can get the greatest attention from company executives.

The document seems a little thin but it could be put that the simplicity of the presentation in a booklet designed to provide safety culture guidance is an advantage. It could also be argued that it is primarily a promotional pamphlet for the HSL’s very useful safety climate tool .

Continue reading “Missed opportunity for making the business case on safety culture”

You can lead a stressed horse to water……

England’s Trades Union Congress (TUC) released results of a survey of union representatives on 24 February 2011 that shows that workplace stress is

“now by far the most common health and safety problem at work.”

Even taking into consideration the inherent bias of such union surveys of reps, the figures are significant. The 24 February 2011 media release states:

“Nearly two thirds (62%) of reps say that stress is in the top five problems faced by the workers they represent and more than a quarter of reps (27%) pick out stress as the hazard at work that most concerns them. Another recent report from the British Academy states that the global economic downturn is to blame for the soaring stress levels due to the sharp rise in job strain and job-insecurity; both determinants of work-related stress. In the last 2 years, work stress levels rose by more than 4%, compared to the previous rises of 0.1% from 1992 to 2009.” [link added]

So what can be done to reverse this trend?

If the global economic downturn has generated increased stress levels, OHS practitioners and activists need to look at the big picture and begin pushing for better economic health – an action that, outside of the union movement, hardly ever gets a mention.

If OHS principles are based around the need to eliminate hazards then OHS professionals should be strong advocates of sustainable development where the mental health of workers needs as much support for sustainability as the environment receives, if not more. Continue reading “You can lead a stressed horse to water……”

Is capitalism anti-safety? Systemic failures in oil industry

The Wall Street Journal and other media around the world have reported on systemic failures of the global oil industry and government regulators identified by the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling. These articles are based on the release of a single chapter, Chapter 4, of the final report due for release on 11 January 2011.

A media release from the Commission includes the following findings from Chapter 4

“The well blew out because a number of separate risk factors, oversights, and outright mistakes combined to overwhelm the safeguards meant to prevent just such an event from happening. But most of the mistakes and oversights at Macondo can be traced back to a single overarching failure—a failure of management. Better management by BP, Halliburton, and Transocean would almost certainly have prevented the blowout by improving the ability of individuals involved to identify the risks they faced, and to properly evaluate, communicate, and address them.”

“. . .the Macondo blowout was the product of several individual missteps and oversights by BP, Halliburton, and Transocean, which government regulators lacked the authority, the necessary resources, and the technical expertise to prevent.”

“The blowout was not the product of a series of aberrational decisions made by rogue industry or government officials that could not have been anticipated or expected to occur again. Rather, the root causes are systemic and, absent significant reform in both industry practices and government policies, might well recur.”

“What we. . .know is considerable and significant:

each of the mistakes made on the rig and onshore by industry and government increased the risk of a well blowout;

the cumulative risk that resulted from these decisions and actions was both unreasonably large and avoidable; and

the risk of a catastrophic blowout was ultimately realized on April 20 and several of the mistakes were contributing causes of the blowout.”

The significance of these quotes is that the Commission is critical of an industry and not just a single company. Continue reading

Mining company trial set over cyclone deaths

Further to the SafetyAtWorkBlog article about the prosecution of Fortescue Metals Group, The Australian newspaper reports on 28 April 2010 that the trial will start tomorrow.

The article states that

“Lawyers for the Department of Commerce — prosecuting the case through WorkSafe — successfully argued the site was not a mine and was instead a camp for workers constructing a railway to transport iron ore.”

The company was arguing that the site was a mining support site and that its contractors were responsible.

Interestingly the Magistrate, Joe Randazzo, wants a definition of “safe refuge”. This may lead to a reconsideration of the use of dongas, or temporary accommodation units, in areas of extreme weather conditions. There is the potential for safety improvements from this case and not just a punishment.

Kevin Jones

Workplace skin cancer risk remains high

The July 2004 edition of SafetyATWORK magazine contained an interview with Sam Holt the CEO of Australian company Skin Patrol. The fascinating service of Skin Patrol was that they travelled the outback of Australia with a mobile skin cancer testing unit. That is a big area to cover but with the increasing incidence of skin cancer and the acceptance of ultraviolet exposure as an OHS problem, the service seemed timely.

(The interview is available HERE)

SafetyAtWorkBlog was contacted by Skin Patrol in early December 2009 as it was releasing the findings of a survey of 1,000 outdoor workers. Its survey has these key findings:

2.5 times the national reported incidence of malignant melanoma

One in 10 patients had a lesion highly suspicious of skin cancer

26% of patients were diagnosed with moderate to severe sun damage

70% of patients diagnosed with a lesion suspicious of skin cancer were aged 40 years or greater

Over 90% of workers who attended the Skin Patrol clinic because they were worried about a particular spot or the condition of their skin had not had their skin checked in the past 12 months prior to the onsite clinic.

The company’s media release also states:

“The incidence of melanoma for all Australians currently sits at 46 in 100,000, however for those that work outdoors that figure jumps to 100 in 100,000.”

The risks from exposure to ultraviolet are well established and our understanding of the risks have changed considerably within one generation. The Australian culture has changed to one of sun-worshipping to one where the wearing of hats is enforced at school, hard hats have wide brim attachments, and outdoor work is undertaken in long pants and long-sleeved shirts. Occupational control measures have been introduced.

Of course, particularly in the construction industry, principle contractors still struggle in a getting compliance with the UV-protection policies but that’s the case for many OHS policies.

Skin cancer risks through high UV exposure are well-established OHS Issues but the reality still does not mean that controlling the hazard is easy to manage. Culturally we still want to have a tanned complexion even if it is sprayed on. Tanned skin is still synonymous with good health even though the medical evidence differs.

Skin cancer risks in the workplace are simply another of those workplace hazards that are ahead of the non-workplace culture and that safety professionals need to manage. The attraction with this hazard is that there is no disputing the evidence.

Kevin Jones

Working in heat – still contentious

Australians associate working in hot conditions as outside work although the occupational hazard of heat is just as relevant in bakeries and foundries. OHS regulators and safety lobbyists often try to include too much in their heat-related strategies – heat stress, skin cancer, hydration, dust, and a range of other hazard combinations related to specific industries.

What the community and many workers want is a defined unsafe temperature limit. Some will remember being allowed to take their school ties off when the temperature reached 38 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit). But OHS legislation, more often than note, focuses on the system of work and this allows for work in excessive temperatures as long as the system can ensure this is safe.

Legislatively, this position is understandable but it is not what people want or expect.

The issue was raised recently at the Trade Union Congress in September 2009 in England in a discussion on working temperatures. Pauline Nazir, representing the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers’ Union, said

“The question is why there is no maximum temperature and why has the Health and Safety Executive and the Government have consistently dodged calls for similar protection for those who work at the higher levels of temperature? It is a big question for a big organisation, but one that the Health and Safety Executive has failed to answer logically despite years of pressure. While they have failed to act, workers suffer the consequences, year in and year out.

It seems illogical that we have regulations that limit the temperatures at which cows and pigs can be transported around the country, but offers no protection other than the general health and safety legislative offerings. It is true that if you move livestock in Britain, there is a maximum level of 35 degrees Centigrade within the carrier, but poor old human beings can regularly carry out physical and strenuous work at temperatures that far exceed these levels. Why have we failed to get the Health and Safety Executive to act?”

The variety of factors contributing to excessive heat at work is probably the reason for lack of progress on the hazard. There are many organisations advocating prevention of harm from working in heat but they all have their own funding models, costs, agendas and “sub”hazards. Nazir’s call for the Health & Safety Executive to do something sounds unfair but the common activity she is referring to is working in heat so it is not unreasonable to expect an OHS regulator to coordinate resource and, perhaps, research.

Coordinated safety action is expected of business operators to ensure these hazards are controlled but that operator would need to read up to a dozen brochures, codes, guidances or policy statements to get close to achieving a situation that employees would consider safe.

It may never be appropriate for an OHS regulator to state a defined (un)safe temperature (the hygienists would argue safe working conditions) but what can be achieved is guidance that pulls together the multiple hazards and control measures so that achieving a safe workplace is as easy as can be.

WorkSafe Victoria has started along this path with a (thin) guidance and more generic terms of discomfort and illness but there is a need for a much more comprehensive guide.

Kevin Jones

UPDATE: 9 October 2009

A reader has pointed out a podcast by the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety from the July 2009 that explains some of the justification for not issuing a specific working in heat benchmark.

The safety of “green” jobs

At the Australian Labor Party conference currently happening in Sydney, the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, announced a program to create “green” jobs or jobs from the renewable energy and environmental sectors.

The program sounds a lot like the previous (Conservative) government’s Jobs for the Dole scheme – same unemployment sector different focus. Rudd’s program is more “Jobs for the Globe”. The environment needs all the hope that it can get but will the participants of the green job scheme gain marketable skills or is it a case of keeping idle hands active?

Regardless, there is an OHS context to environmental initiatives.

The United States seems to be well ahead of Australia in this policy area. The NIOSH Science Blog reports on the US programs which are supported by OHS initiatives at the planning stage. The blog lists the types of green jobs in the US:

installation and maintenance of solar panels and generators;

construction and maintenance of wind energy turbines;

jobs related to recycling;

jobs related to the manufacture of green products; and

jobs where green products are used in traditional fields such as agriculture, healthcare, and the service sector

In a media release not yet publicly available, Kevin Rudd has listed the Australian green jobs in his “National Green Jobs Corps”:

Bush regeneration and planting native trees

Wildlife and fish habitat protection

Walking and nature track construction/restoration; and

Training and hands on experience in the installation of energy efficiencies for buildings.

Huh?? One out of four for marketable skills.

There are several apprentice initiatives which may provide better skills but the Government will need to generate considerable growth in the renewable sector so that the skills gained can be applied.

• Revegetating bushland

• Constructing a boardwalk over vulnerable wetland

• Retrofitting energy efficient lighting and plumbing

Rudd said at the ALP Conference that

“The practical job-ready skills included in this training will include:

Training electricians in the installation of solar energy;

Training plumbers in the installation of water-recycling, plumbing systems; and

Training workers in the booming home insulation industry and the retro-fitting of buildings to reduce energy consumption”

It would have been visionary for the Prime Minister to mention the broader social benefit from also making sure that the young workers in this new sectors will be safe. It could have been done as the NIOSH blog reports.

And the NIOSH initiatives show that OHS professionals and associations need to be active in reminding governments and business that OHS does not take a holiday.

Kevin Jones

Category: climate

Missed opportunity for making the business case on safety culture

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You can lead a stressed horse to water……

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Is capitalism anti-safety? Systemic failures in oil industry

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Mining company trial set over cyclone deaths

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Workplace skin cancer risk remains high

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Working in heat – still contentious

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The safety of “green” jobs

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