community – Page 22 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

OHS law and safety management

Regular readers will be aware that SafetyAtWorkBlog holds the belief that OHS legislation is not the same as managing workplace safety. Safety can be managed without recourse to law (this is what many mean when they say that “safety is just common sense”) but legislation provides some parameters in which that management occurs.

The Australian Council of Trade Unions has issued a call for tougher OHS laws and used workplace fatality statistics as the basis. Tying the two issues together serves a political purpose but avoids the fact that a range of economic, political, social and even environmental issues can affect how workplaces manage safety.

The media statement issued on 11 December 2009 says:

“A sharp rise in work-related fatalities last year shows that proposed new workplace health and safety laws need to be strengthened, not watered down, say unions.

There were 177 fatal injuries in workplaces in 2008-9, according to newly released statistics from the national regulatory body, Safe Work Australia. This is an 18% increase from the previous year…. [hyperlink added]

ACTU Secretary Jeff Lawrence said the increase in fatalities was disturbing at a time when proposed changes to Australian workplace safety laws would result in a weakening of protections and rights.

“A double-digit increase in workplace fatalities in one year is shocking,” Mr Lawrence said. “Each of these victims is someone’s partner, parent, son, daughter or friend. The Federal, state and territory governments will make significant decisions about new national health and safety laws today. If any evidence was needed that requirements for employers to provide a safe workplace need to be toughened, this is it. We urge the federal and state governments to make workers’ safety their highest priority.”

The ACTU is doing what it should by serving the needs of its members but the push for union prosecutions of OHS breaches is only one part of its social charter. The aim of improving safety can be best achieved by motivating union members and establishing a dialogue with the general community, which includes business, small and large.

Is the day far off when we may see joint statements from unions and employer groups on the issue of workplace safety? Can politics be put aside for the benefit of improving safety? Comments welcome.

Kevin Jones

Formaldehyde upgraded to human carcinogen

On 4 November 2009, the United States’ National Toxicology Program (NTP) upgraded formaldehyde to a “known human carcinogen”. This widely used chemical, principally in wood products, has been suspected of being carcinogenic for some time.

The suspicion was a major reason why, in Australia, Comcare issued a cautionary safety alert on using some shipping containers as converted accommodation. But the Comcare advice was based, and reasonably so, on a manufacturers’ material safety data sheet (MSDS).

One such MSDS selected at random from the Australian internet sites has this to say about formaldehyde:

Reported fatal dose for humans: 60-90 mL

Oral LD50 (rat): 800 mg/kg

Inhalation LC50 (rat): 590 mg/m3

Low concentrations of formaldehyde may cause sensitisation by skin contact. Formaldehyde vapour is irritant to mucous membranes and respiratory tract. Asthma like symptoms have occasionally been reported following inhalation.

Animal studies have shown formaldehyde to cause carcinogenic effects. In particular, chronic inhalation studies in rats have shown the development of nasal cavity carcinomas at 6 and 15 ppm. These cancers developed at concentrations which produced chronic tissues irritation and would not be voluntarily tolerated by humans. [IPCS Environmental Health Criteria 89, Formaldehyde, World Health Organisation [WHO], Geneva, 1989.]

Some positive mutagenic effects have been reported for formaldehyde. Available animal data do not show embryotoxic or teratogenic effects following exposure to formaldehyde.

The NTP notes that formaldehyde effects have now been identified as having a role in leukaemia and not just localised inhalation-related cancers.

The MSDS is dated 2004 and Australian OHS legislation only requires MSDS to be updated at five-yearly intervals. Of course they can be updated more frequently should the employer chose or, perhaps if the manufacturer advises them of a reclassification.

It is interesting that a 2004 MSDS still refers to WHO data that is fifteen years old and that the reference is to a non-Australian criterion. It is accepted that chemical reclassification and research are long processes but what should the updating timeline be now that the US has made this significant re-categorisation?

Perhaps the Australia classifications will gain speed given that the more compatible European re-categorisation of formaldehyde, and other chemicals, was announced overnight. The EU-OSHA website states

“Formaldehyde was confirmed as carcinogenic to humans. There is sufficient evidence in humans of an increased incidence of nasopharyngeal.”

However the human leukaemia issue was discusses in the evaluation summaries:

“The Working Group was almost evenly split on the evaluation of formaldehyde causing leukaemias in humans, with the majority viewing the evidence as sufficient for carcinogenicity and the minority viewing the evidence as limited. Particularly relevant to the discussions regarding sufficient evidence was a recent study accepted for publication which, for the first time, reported aneuploidy in blood of exposed workers characteristic of myeloid leukaemia and myelodysplastic syndromes with supporting information suggesting a decrease in the major circulating blood cell types and in circulating haematological precursor cells. The authors and Working Group felt this study needed to be replicated.”

Given that wood products that contain formaldehyde are used frequently in cabinet-making it is fair to expect MSDSs and OHS guidances on hazardous substances and wood dusts would be reissued and databases updated fairly quickly. Just as important is the fact that particle boards are commonly sold in hardware and timber outlets in Australia and that Spring and Summer is often the DIY peak.

It is not hard to picture an unscrupulous media outlet generating a panic about the presence of formaldehyde in these products regardless of how the chemical is bound or whether inhalation risks are minimised.

Kevin Jones

OHS criticism needs to aim “at the source”

The e-Editor for the Institute of Occupational Safety & Health, Shaun Gibbons, has commented on the recent speech by David Cameron, the Opposition Leader of England’s Conservative Party.

In this editorial Gibbons says

“Instead of cosying up to the newspapers which perpetuate the myths that somehow health and safety is to blame for much of society’s ills, Cameron should be rounding on the media for its part in falsely reporting on health and safety issues.”

If one takes “health and safety” outside the factory fence and consider it as a social attitude or as a collective term for a range of social perspectives, “health and safety” is crucial, or rather the personal fears generated by our concerns for our own health and safety and for those of our family members are a crucial consideration in how we live and work.

David Cameron is a politician and needs the media to distribute his policies and campaign strategies so he is in his natural element.

The print media, principally, does report health and safety issues in an alarming manner but as sensation, and particularly in England titillation, is what sells newspapers, it seems pointless to blame the media for what they have always done.

It will be impossible to get the media to change their attitudes to health and safety. The struggles of Australian OHS regulators in doing so has been touched on elsewhere in SafetyAtWorkBlog. It seems clear that if traditional media cannot be changed in this area, alternate media outlets and mechanisms need to be produced that provide information that is not adequately or appropriately covered elsewhere. This blog is one example. IOSH’s website is another.

Gibbons gets closer to the core issue elsewhere in his editorial:

“…seeing through the predictable soundbites which came from his speech last week, Cameron has actually highlighted an important cultural issue that IOSH does welcome: people’s growing confusion and damaged confidence when it comes to managing day-to-day risk. With the fear of litigation at the heart of this debate, the speech did give IOSH the opportunity to make its call for us all to move away from a culture of blame to one that’s based on better ‘risk intelligence’.”

He is right in saying that society has an (increasingly) skewed perception of “day-to-day risk” but he is more correct when identifying that

“the fear of litigation [is] at the heart of the debate.”

IOSH and other safety professional organisations need to get a better understanding of the insurance and legal industries so that they are able to temper some of the extremism from these sectors that is sacrificing long-term cultural and societal health for short-term gain.

SafetyAtWorkBlog’s editor, Kevin Jones, wrote in National Safety magazine about the pernicious growth in the expansion of directors’ and officers’ liabilities insurance policies to cover the legal expenses AND fines from OHS prosecutions. Either safety organisations are unaware of the impact of these products, do not understand them or do not care, as the silence has been deafening.

Kevin Jones

Contradictions on endosulfan in fish hatchery

Earlier in 2009, SafetyAtWorkBlog reported on concerns over a possible cancer cluster near a fish hatchery in Queensland.

The final report of the Queensland Government’s inquiry, Noosa Fish Health Investigation Taskforce, is not due until February 2010 but the Federal Government’s Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority has released a statement entitled “Endosulfan Ruled out as a Potential Cause of Noosa Fish Health Issues”. In that article APVMA states

“The Noosa Fish Health Investigation Taskforce has at this point eliminated endosulfan as a potential cause of deaths and deformities at a commercial fish hatchery at Noosa in the six events being investigated. Endosulfan was not used by the neighbouring macadamia property during the period under investigation. There was also some suggestion that because the commercial hatchery uses river water and fish from the river in its operations, pesticides in the Noosa River may have been involved in the incidents reported. However, environmental monitoring of water from the Noosa River and its feeder lakes has not indicated that endosulfan is present at concentrations that would be harmful to aquatic life.”

The ABC reports on 7 December 2009 that

“…aquaculture veterinarian Associate Professor Matt Landos says there is new evidence that endosulphan may be a factor.

“The early reports from the task force did not identify endosulphan in any residue testing and as such it was considered a less likely potential cause,” he said. “However, recent testing has identified the break-down product of endosulphan in the middle of Lake Cootharaba – in the middle of the Noosa system.”

Matt Landos is a member of the Queensland Government’s taskforce.

Kevin Jones

Tory leader calls for a “forensic examination” of health and safety culture

David Cameron, the leader of England’s Conservative Party, has spoken about the health and safety culture that he says is restricting personal and business options in England.

In the full speech, Cameron clearly outlines an ideological agenda but it is a mistake to see this as an attack on the OHS regulator. Below is an edited summary of the most relevant bits of his speech:

“In almost every area, the Conservative Party aims to remove the obstacles that prevent people from making their own decisions.

That’s why we plan a radical redistribution of power, giving control over education, housing and policing to local people.

…there is a growing sense that too many areas of our life are governed by petty rules, regulations and tick box bureaucracy that flies in the face of common sense, undermines discretion and prevents us from getting on with our lives.

We see it in our police force,… our prisons, …our schools, [and] our hospitals

[the the over-the-top health and safety culture] is… infuriating. It … stifles judgement and discretion……is a straitjacket on personal initiative and responsibility……and is a big barrier to the creation of the big society.

…something has gone seriously wrong with the spirit of health and safety in the past decade.

…it is clear that what began as a noble intention to protect people from harm has mutated into a stultifying blanket of bureaucracy, suspicion and fear that has saturated our country…

How has this over-the-top health and safety culture become embedded in our national way of life? [emphasis added]

[European] bureaucratic rules

The Labour Government

But the biggest cause of this excessive health and safety culture is the way these rules have been interpreted and used.

What is more the problem is the perception we have allowed to develop that in Britain today, behind every accident there is someone who is personally culpable……someone who must pay.

[It is encouraged by]

adverts on television

the commercialising of lawyers’ incentives to generate litigation

the rising premiums and concerns of the insurance industry.

high-profile claims and pay-outs.

This has all helped to create a legal hypersensitivity to risk, accident and injury. And this has had a direct knock-on effect on the health and safety culture.

So it is not just the regulations from Brussels, or even the distrustful, interfering government that has created this culture, or the insurance industry, ……it is that everyone’s so worried about being sued that they invent lots of their own rules on top of the regulations that already exist.

… perhaps the most damaging consequences of this excessive health and safety culture have occurred in our society.

… the health and safety culture actively undermines responsibility.

CONSERVATIVE APPROACH

First, establish clear and specific principles about when health and safety legislation is appropriate, and when it is not, so we can evaluate whether existing or future legislation is necessary.

Second, we will propose practical changes in the law to both help bring an end to the culture of excessive litigation while at the same time giving legal safeguards to those who need them most.

HEALTH AND SAFETY CHANGES

there are three particular scenarios where this is the case.

The first is when consumers have a lack of information, or are unable to understand technical information, about a product or a service they are purchasing.

The second situation in which official action on health and safety is appropriate is where there is an imbalance of power.

The third situation in which there is a case for health and safety oversight is when someone might have a clear motive – normally profit – to put someone else in danger.

That’s because keeping people safe is often more expensive than exposing them to risk.

[REVIEW]

I have asked Lord Young to lead an extensive review on this subject for the Conservative Party. He has a track record of deregulation and cutting bureaucracy. He also has experience in the legal profession and will judge these issues with the care and attention they deserve. And he will look at everything from the working of the Health and Safety Executive, to the nature of our health and safety laws, litigation and the insurance industry.

There are some specific questions I have asked David Young to investigate urgently.

The first question is: how can we best protect what are effectively ‘Good Samaritans’?

In Australia, concern about the effect of increasing payouts for medical negligence led to a full review of civil liability. Its final report concluded that when an individual is acting in good faith – as a Good Samaritan – and takes reasonable actions to help someone, then they should not be found negligent.

Second, can we help alleviate some of health and safety oversight that currently burdens small, local and voluntary organisations?

Third, do we need a Civil Liability Act?

I know the over-the-top health and safety culture that has grown in our country in recent years provokes a lot of understandable anger. But anger itself is not solution. Instead we need a forensic examination of what has gone wrong and the steps we need to take to put it right.”

Cameron’s speech has some valid points even if the ideological path that he has followed to get here may be unpalatable.

What separates this from a Jeremy Clarkson rant is that he is not targeting any one particular bureaucracy or social group. He acknowledges that there are a range of social factors that have, over time, created what he believes is an “over-the-top health and safety culture”. Cameron may have chosen extremes to illustrate his points but most OHS professionals would not be averse to a review of OHS laws particularly if such a review included other social structures that make their lives difficult but over which they have no influence.

Along the way, the chance for the political boot up the jaxy of the regulators and the unions, and those dreadful Europeans, will be irresistable for the Conservatives, but if planned for occupational health and safety may salvage some useful tools.

It must be remembered that the Conservatives are not in power in England but even from here in Australia, the Prime Minister Gordon Brown looks like a dead man walking.

Some commentators have already responded to the “outrageous” suggestions in Cameron’s speech. More union response similar to this from Grahame Smith, General Secretary of the Scottish Trades Union Congress, can be expected.

“The families of the tens of thousands of workers who have been killed and maimed at work will find these comments deeply offensive. David Cameron has sent a chilling message to the working people in the UK that any future Conservative Government will attack the health and safety laws that trade unions have spent decades fighting for.

“This is not about draconian legislation. This is about the failure, or unwillingness, of employers, community groups and others to grasp the very basics of our health and safety system.

“We have witnessed what poor regulation has done for our finance sector and the economy. We do not want to see this attack on health and safety legislation having a similar catastrophic effect on human lives. Our economy will recover. Individuals killed at work and their families never recover from the consequence of poor health and safety regulation.

“We would say to David Cameron if you want to learn about the true consequences of health and safety failures read Hazards Magazine and come to Scotland and meet families who have lost loved ones due to health and safety failures by employers. Don’t subscribe to the trivial nonsense which is churned out by sections of the media.”

Smith is correct to remind Cameron to not rely on the media from which to develop policies, particularly the English print media. Smith comparison of OHS legislation to financial market regulation is also valid. Legislation should never be used as a blanket control mechanism but requires targeting.

Another union, Prospect, had this to say

On behalf of 1,650 HSE inspectors, scientists and other specialists, Prospect negotiator Mike Macdonald said: “There is a world of difference between petty bureaucracy enacted under the label of health and safety and HSE regulation designed to prevent deaths in the workplace.

“Measures aimed at preventing death and injury at work run the risk of being overshadowed by inappropriate obsessions by local authorities with minor issues that are often an excuse for withdrawing services on the grounds of cost. Given the importance of health and safety to the British economy and UK businesses we would welcome any changes that boost workers’ safety as well as business competitiveness.

“But confusing the two continues to perpetuate a negative image of health and safety regulation and masks the bigger picture: as the figures for 2007/08 show 32,810 employees were exposed to fatal and major injuries at work.”

If (when) the Conservatives come to power in England, Cameron and Lord Young will need to structure an inquiry that is inclusive and designed to be constructive. Many people will approach such an inquiry with decades of suspicion and many memories of despair and disappointment. In many ways the laws require a rationalisation, not a revolution and this is what Cameron needs to “sell” as he gets ready for the next election, due in the first half of 2010.

Kevin Jones

Union continues pressure on asbestos as an urgent public health issue

Following on from Asbestos Awareness Week, an ABC media report on 3 December 2009 says that the Australian Workers Union is continuing to apply pressure to the Tasmanian Government and Cement Australia for testing of former employees and local residents for exposure to asbestos.

An epidemiological study of former employees has been agreed to by the company and is being conducted by Monash University. Dr Yossi Berger of the AWU wants the study to be expanded to residents.

The logic is sound, particularly in Railton where the entire community has been exposed to asbestos production and products over decades. Asbestos should be considered as more than a work-related hazard.

The union position on this pernicious substance received recent support from Matt Peacock’s book “Killer Company” that brought to the public’s attention the issue of asbestos bags being used in carpet underlay over many years. Peacock says that cases of mesothelioma that just appear without any direct link to asbestos-handling , use or manufacture could come from unsuspecting exposure to asbestos in seemingly innocuous sources, such as underlay.

The union must be fairly confident that the results of any study will provide incontrovertible proof of the spread of the asbestos hazard, so that there can be some “oomph” behind a broader public campaign. As mentioned at a recent Asbestos seminar, the evidence may exist but it needs to be translated into a format that the national decision-makers will accept and cannot contest. Then large-scale improvements are possible.

Kevin Jones

Australia’s Go Home on Time Day

November 26 2009 was Go Home On Time Day in Australia. The intention of this day, organised by The Australia Institute, was to highlight the difficulty many workers face in a achieving this seemingly simple task. The Australia Institute’s expresses the aims this way:

The typical full-time employee is working 70 minutes of unpaid overtime a day, which equates to 33 eight-hour days per year, or six and a half standard working weeks.

Across the workforce, the 2.14 billion hours of unpaid overtime worked per year is a $72 billion gift to employers and means that 6% of our economy depends on free labour.

Converting unpaid overtime into full time jobs would create 1.1 million new jobs

Unpaid overtime harms our health, our personal relationships, our communities and our workplaces

The work/life balance advocates would say not doing unpaid overtime as a regular part of the job is an important balancing technique.

The Australia Institute has provided SafetyAtWorkBlog with some statistics from the special day’s 20,000 registered participants which may illustrate some of the difficulties of achieving that work/life balance.

Over 55% of registered participants managed to leave work at the contracted time on 26 November 2009. Of those who could not, almost 70% said they could not because they “had too much work to do”.

Of those who went home on time, these were the most common activities:

Spent time with family/played with kids
Exercised/went to the gym
Household jobs/chores
Caught up with friends
Walked the dog

Those who admitted to working unpaid overtime (1836) gave the following reasons

To get the work done	86.5%
Because my boss/employer expects it	28.8%
To help colleagues	23.1%
To ensure my job is safe/secure	21.6%
To demonstrate how hard I work	14.2%
Because everyone else does it	13.6%

There seems to be only one genuinely positive and collegiate reason, to help colleagues. The others indicate job and personal insecurity, unreasonable workloads or bad time management on behalf of employees and employers.

The statistics are of mostly curiosity value but are further indications of the social structural problems that contribute to increased work mental health risks. Of those who signed up but could not get away from work, a couple of reasons given were

Boss knew I was trying to go home on time and loaded me up.
Management laughed.
My Boss said I was not to say the words out loud.

These days are intended to raise awareness of specific issues in society and Go Home On Time Day is a worthwhile addition but as with Asbestos Awareness Week, at some point awareness must move to action.

Kevin Jones

Category: community

OHS law and safety management

Like this:

Formaldehyde upgraded to human carcinogen

Like this:

OHS criticism needs to aim “at the source”

Like this:

Contradictions on endosulfan in fish hatchery

Like this:

Tory leader calls for a “forensic examination” of health and safety culture

Like this:

Union continues pressure on asbestos as an urgent public health issue

Like this:

Australia’s Go Home on Time Day

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: