Category: construction

Nail gun incident results in $25k fine and lifelong blindness

Western Australia recently prosecuted a company over an incident where a worker was blinded in one eye by a nail that ricocheted from a nail gun.  According to a WorkSafeWA media release:

“The injured contractor was using a nail gun to attach steel holding straps to roof timbers. The nail gun had been purchased 12 months earlier, and came with an operating manual that provided safety instructions.

One of the safety instructions was that the nail gun was “for use with timber to timber fixing or materials of similar or lesser density”, but Mr Vlasschaert and the contractor had been using the nail gun to attach steel straps for 12 months without incident.

On the day of the incident, the contractor had experienced several ricochets where the nail had failed to go through the steel straps and instead flew into the air. Mr Vlasschaert asked him if everything was alright, and contractor said it was, so he had been left to carry on the work.

Soon after this conversation, the contractor was struck in the eye by a nail that had ricocheted, resulting in the permanent loss of sight in his left eye.”

The worker mistook his sunglasses as safety glasses.  Protective eyewear was available in the employer’s car at the domestic building site.

This prosecution, which resulted in a $A25,000 fine, highlights several relevant OHS issues. Continue reading “Nail gun incident results in $25k fine and lifelong blindness”

Politicians are exploiting proposed OHS laws for their own benefit

South Australia’s Industrial Relations Minister, Rob Lucas, stated in the Adelaide Advertiser on 3 October 2011 that

“The Liberal Party has always supported strong work safety laws which protect workers at work sites.”

This may be the case within the limitations of that sentence but the conservative political parties have not always been supportive of the basis for safety management, the creation of evidence through authoritative research.  According to a 2003 submission by the Australian Council of Trade Unions

“After the election of the Liberal/National Coalition in 1996, the Federal Government decided that:

  • the NOHSC budget must be cut by $5.9 million each year;
  • a further 5% cut was imposed across the board; and
  • redundancies had to be covered from within the NOHSC budget.

This represented a cut of $6.6 million (35-40%) to the NOHSC annual budget……

The April 1996 NOHSC decision on allocation of its $14 million budget cut OHS research and information, and education and training. National standards work was also decreased. These areas are central to a national approach to OHS.” [emphasis added]

Around the time of these severe budget cuts Australia had begun moving to a system of national uniformity in OHS.  The impact of this political decision hamstrung the research efforts of NOHSC just as the uniformity momentum was increasing.  As the National Research Centre for Occupational Health and Safety Regulation has written

“A notable development in standard setting in Australia during the 1990s was the movement towards national uniformity in standards in regulations and codes of practice. The process was overseen by the former NOHSC, which in 1991 established a tripartite National Uniformity Taskforce, which identified several key first order priorities for achieving national uniformity: plant, certification of users and operators of industrial equipment; workplace hazardous substances; occupational noise; manual handling; major hazardous facilities; and storage and handling of dangerous goods.

NOHSC developed standards in the first six of these areas, and the jurisdictions were well on the way towards adopting these standards by the end of 1996, although it should be noted that jurisdictions were quite inconsistent in their adoption, particular in choosing whether to implement the standards in regulations or codes of practice, in their drafting styles and, in some cases, the substance of provisions. The national uniformity process was not complete when the Howard government came to power in 1996, and that government first significantly down-sized and then abolished NOHSC, with the result that the move towards national uniformity slowed dramatically after mid-1996.”

Rob Lucas seems to ignore the history of his own party’s decision. Continue reading “Politicians are exploiting proposed OHS laws for their own benefit”

OHS objectors get support from South Australia parliamentarian

The last seven days has seen many of the conservative speakers express concerns or objections to the Australian government’s close-to-completed process for harmonising workplace safety laws.  Although one may not agree with the objections, in most cases there is some ideological sense.  On 15 September 2011, South Australia’s shadow Minister for Industrial Relations (IR), Rob Lucas, launched a broadside attack on the OHS laws but with dubious claims.

Lucas’ media release states that

“There is growing opposition to Labor’s proposed bill from industry and business organisations such as Business SA, Master Builders Association, Housing Industry Association, Motor Trade Association, Self Insurers of SA and the Australian Hotels Association.

“The Liberal Opposition believes this bill is a massive full frontal assault on subcontractors and small business in SA which will lead to significant increases in house prices,” Shadow Industrial Relations Minister Rob Lucas said.

“For example, the HIA have estimated the new laws will increase costs by $12,000 for a single story construction and approximately $20,000 for a double story construction.”

The $A20,000 claim has been used by the HIA in the past in South Australia .  A former (Labor) IR minister, Paul Caica, was confronted by the claim in 2008.  The costs seemed to concern the provision of scaffolding on domestic construction sites for work above two metres but no clarification was made publicly.

In May 2011, SafetyAtWorkBlog investigated the $A20,000 claim.  The claim  was quoted at the time by Rob Lucas in a media statement.  The blog article in May said:

“On looking for the evidence on the potential business costs, an HIA spokesperson has advised SafetyAtWorkBlog that no figures were provided by the HIA to the minister for this media statement.  The spokesperson said that the cost figures may have been extracted from earlier submissions to government.” Continue reading “OHS objectors get support from South Australia parliamentarian”

Alarmism and confusion over Australia’s OHS harmonisation process

The Australian Financial Review (AFR) on 13 September 2011 is muddying the waters on objections to Australian harmonised OHS laws.  The Victorian Government would support a delay to the introduction of the laws until, according to previous media reports, the release of the Regulatory Impact Statement (RIS) on the new laws.  The AFR is reporting (not available online without a subscription) that the government

“…will not endorse the regulations until the federal government releases a cost-benefit analysis.”

It is understood that an RIS is not the same as a cost-benefit analysis even though costs and benefits are part of an RIS.

Australia’s Office of Best Practice Regulation (OPBR) states that an RIS has seven (7) key elements:

Free October 2001 safetyATWORK magazine

SafetyAtWorkBlog evolved out of an online publication, safetyATWORK.  In 2001, safetyATWORK published a special edition of the magazine focussing on the OHS issues related to the collapse of the World Trade Centre (WTC) in September 2011.  That special edition is now available as a free download through the cover image on the right.

The magazine contains:

  • an article by Lee Clarke on planning for the worst-case scenarios;
  • an interview with Peter Sandman,
  • an article by me, Kevin Jones,

and other articles concerning

OHS will eventually need to address the big climate change impacts

The latest edition of the Journal of Occupational Medicine (JOM) (Vol 61. No 5 Aug 2011) includes a short article on the occupational impact of climate change, an issue that must be addressed in the work context and one that places additional challenges for those involved with safe design.

The JOM article lists the following hazard categories that are likely to affect workplaces and activities:

  • “Increased ambient temperature (global warming) and resultant climate changes,
  • Increased air pollution (resulting from increased temperatures, ozone levels and airborne particles),
  • Ultraviolet (UV) radiation,
  • Extremes of weather (resulting from global climate change),
  • Vector-borne diseases and expanded habitat,
  • Industrial transitions and emerging technologies,
  • Changes to built environment.”

It is unlikely that employers will try to tackle climate change through OHS considerations as there are far more important economic pressures.  OHS, in this context, can only be reactive but several of the issues mentioned above are likely to substantially change work methods and planning. Continue reading “OHS will eventually need to address the big climate change impacts”

Concerns increase as Australia’s OHS law changes loom

Conference organisers IQPC started its two-day Safety in Design, Engineering and Construction conference on 16 August 2011.  The most prominent speaker on day one was Barry Sherriff of law firm, Norton Rose.  Sherriff spoke about OHS harmonisation‘s impact on the Australian construction industry.

Over time Australian labour lawyers generally have moved from saying that Victorian companies have little to worry about from the new laws expected on 1 January 2012 to quite alarming suggestions of challenges to do with contractor management and consultation.  Part of this modification of advice may be due to the increased analysis of company OHS systems.  Sherriff said that he has been surprised how many companies ask for advice about compliance under the new laws and yet are not complying under the existing OHS laws.

On the issue of consultation, Sherriff identified the “coordination of activities” and managing the “flow of information” as a critical element in the new OHS model laws.  But he stressed that such obligations have existed in OHS laws in many Australian States for sometime but are now more overtly stated. Continue reading “Concerns increase as Australia’s OHS law changes loom”

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