construction – Page 33 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

Vehicle crane safety alert

The Queensland Government has issued a safety alert of the purchasing and use of vehicle-based loading cranes (VLC). The alert has originated from two deaths where the operator of the cranes were struck by the booms.

The safety advice offered by the government is sound – follow manufacturer’s instructions, provide suitable training – but it focusses on the lower order of control methods without asking the hard question – whether the design of such a crane is unsafe?

From the information in the alert it seems peculiar that such a crane should be on sale at all. Continue reading “Vehicle crane safety alert”

Occupational injury statistics for France released

France has released OHS statistics for 2007. The document is currently only available in French. My schoolboy French translation of the introduction says France is experiencing most workplace incidents in the construction industry. Continue reading “Occupational injury statistics for France released”

Big fine for Queensland Rail – big risks in rail

Almost two years ago, two rail workers died in Queensland. According to the official report into the incident:

“At approximately 1056 on Friday 7 December 2007, two QR [Queensland Rail] Infrastructure Services Group (ISG) track workers were fatally injured as a consequence of being struck by a track machine (train) at Mindi, approximately 130 kilometres south-west of Mackay.

The collision occurred when Track Machine MMA59, in the process of conducting track resurfacing work on the Down line at Mindi, commenced a routine reversing movement.

During the process, two QR Systems Maintenance personnel, working on the same track and behind the track machine, were struck and fatally injured by this track machine.

Analysis of evidence and conditions surrounding the accident revealed:

An overall lack of compliance with elements of the QR SMS at the Mindi site; and

Inadequate communication and coordination between workgroups at the Mindi site.”

On 26 November 2009, Queensland Rail was fined $A650,000 over the deaths. The fine is only $A100,000 below the maximum fine applicable. According to a media release about the fine:

“The Workplace Health and Safety Queensland investigation found that QR’s safety management systems were inadequate for managing the separation of workers and plant, particularly when both were within the same section of track between signals.

It also found that QR knew the systems were inadequate and not working because it had been highlighted to management in a series of audits.”

Not only were Queensland Rail’s safety management systems inadequate, Queensland Rail knew they were inadequate because a series of audits had told it so.

Railway in Australia and elsewhere is one of the most regulated industries. It is also one of the industries with the most prescriptive set of rules. It is a complicated business but one where hazards are known and systems are in place to control these hazards.

The extent of QR’s failure to operate safely can be illustrated by some of the many recommendations made in 2008 by Queensland Transport:

The necessity for consistent and effective Worksite Safety Briefings by ISG personnel;

Preconditions to the reversal of vehicles in accordance with QR safeworking requirements;

Responsibilities and training syllabi for ISG Resurfacing personnel;

The necessity for pre-departure safety checks on ISG trains;

Provision of safe separation and segregation between ISG track workers and trains;

ISG SMS compliance monitoring, at the local level;

Fatigue management within QR, and in particular ISG rostering;

Management of the perceived relationship between ISG and Network Control;

Awareness of the priority of safety over commercial pressures by remote ISG staff;

Distribution of safety communications and documents within QR;

Representation for relevant stakeholders in operational change management processes;

Risk and change management training for ISG operational personnel;

Safety risks presented to ISG through the permanent coupling of track machines;

The safety value to QR of an enhanced and transparent reporting system;

The management of ISG district staff relationship issues; and

ISG and Network Access radio protocol compliance monitoring.

Many elements are familiar to other investigations in rail and other industries – fatigue, on-site communication, training, segregation, document control and distribution, local compliance enforcement, transparency in reporting…..

On 10 September 2008, the QR CEO Lance Hockridge said:

“When I arrived in November 2007, I found an organisation with a safety record that was improving but not what it should be. Only three weeks later we had a very tragic reminder of this when work colleagues Jamie Adams and Gary Watkins were killed at Mindi.

“Organisations hoping to achieve meaningful change must firstly be honest with themselves – we need to confront this reality and make the changes required.”

Queensland Rail did not face the reality of problems identified by safety auditors and two workers died.

The news of the record fine came at a time when the ownership of Victoria’s metropolitan rail network has changed from Connex to Metro. Victoria has a stressed rail service but has managed to avoid the controversy of Queensland Rail and RailCorp in New South Wales but this has been through luck rather than good management. The Victorian Government, and particularly the Transport Minister, Lynne Kosky, needs to read the Waterfall Inquiry report and the Queensland Mindi report to understand the personal, economic and political cost of not having a tightly managed, functional rail safety regime. Having been in power for just over 10 years, this government now owns all the Victorian problems and must account to the electorate for not fixing them.

The political risk was summarized in an editorial in The Age on 30 November 2009

“In September, a Senate report into federal funding of public transport found Melbourne’s network was badly managed in comparison with Perth’s government-operated system. A key problem was lack of accountability: it was unclear who was in charge. The consequences of the lack of an overarching transit authority to oversee the whole system are clear…..

New operators of trains and trams in new livery will struggle to deliver acceptable service unless the Government makes good its past neglect of infrastructure.”

The fact that the Victorian rail system is being privately operated will not be an acceptable shield when the first passenger train crashes with a jam-packed peak hour cargo.

Kevin Jones

Crushed finger leads to claim and Court

Regularly in OHS submissions to the government and on OHS discussion forums, safety professionals state that industrial relations should be kept separate from workplace safety issues. In a perfect world ? Possibly, but there was a court decision on 13 November 2009 in Australia that shows that this separation is not possible in the modern world.

According to a media statement from WorkSafe Victoria:

Concrete panel supplier, The Precast Company, pleaded guilty in the Dandenong Magistrates Court on Friday 13 November to failing to provide an injured worker with suitable employment as required under Victoria’s workers compensation legislation.

The Court heard that the injured worker was employed as a crane operator when he suffered a crush injury to his finger. He attended Dandenong hospital and 5 days later was certified as being fit for alternative duties.

Two weeks later, he left work early on a Friday to attend his doctor. When he returned to work the following Monday he was informed that he had abandoned his employment and had no right to be there.

At the time, the company defended its action stating the worker had not been dismissed, but instead had walked out of the workplace half way through the day without reason.

As the injured worker had an accepted workers compensation claim, The Precast Company, in dismissing the injured worker, had failed to provide suitable employment despite the worker being certified as fit for alternative duties. Under the State’s workers compensation laws, an employer is required to provide employment to an injured worker who has a capacity for work.

The company pleaded guilty to one charge of failing to provide suitable employment and was fined $2,500 without conviction and agreed to pay costs of $1,500.

WorkSafe’s own summary of court action provides more details:

The defendant company operates in the building and construction industry. It has declared annual remuneration of about $2 million and has 45 full-time employees. An employee working as a crane operator suffered a crush injury to his finger on 1 April 2008 and was issued with a certificate of capacity certifying him ‘unfit for all duties’ from 2-4 April and fit for alternative duties from 5-16 April. The worker returned to work on 7 April on light duties. He left work early to attend a doctor’s appointment and returned to work on 14 April and continued light duties. He saw his doctor on 17 April and was issued a further alternative duties certificate from 17 April -1 May.

On 18 April the worker left work around midday to attend his doctor’s later that afternoon when he was issued with another certificate. At this stage he had still not submitted a claim form. When he arrived for work on 21 April he was told that he had abandoned his employment and had no right to be there. He went home and soon after sought legal advice. He lodged a claim for compensation that day which CGU accepted.

The defendant company’s director wrote to WorkSafe stating that the worker was not dismissed but had abandoned his employment on 18 April 2008. The director was overseas on that date and his explanation is based on what other staff have told him. The foreman provided a statement to a circumstance investigator that on 18 April the worker “just walked out of the workplace half way through the day. He would not provide a reason. As far as I was concerned he was abandoning his employment at this time.”

On 23 June 2008, the date that the worker’s claim was accepted, he was issued with a certificate of capacity certifying him fit for alternative duties until 21 July. By dismissing the worker the defendant company failed to meet its obligation to provide him with suitable employment once his claim had been accepted.

These are the only public details available at the moment but clearly effective communication was not occurring between the employee and the company. Sometimes circumstances that involve safety become a more complex industrial relations issue which may lead to Court, no matter how hard you try to compartmentalise them.

Coincidence or unique perspective?

Since the end of the end of the public comment phase on Australia’s national model OHS laws, Safe Work Australia has been daily uploading submissions to their website. Within the last lot of uploads was a block of around 100 submissions, all of which are marked confidential and have, apparently, been submitted by individuals.

One confidential submitter shares his name with a person who has been associated with some peculiar industrial relations behaviour. In August 2009, during a heated industrial dispute concerning work on the West Gate Bridge, a trade unionist pleaded guilty to dangerous driving and to carrying a piece of pipe without lawful excuse, according to one media report.

A person with the same name is also listed in an order issued by the Federal Court of Australia in March 2009 that places restrictions on several people in relation to the West Gate Bridge project and the premises of contractor John Holland.

It is not possible to determine if this is a coincidence because the submission is confidential and submissions do not include contact details. But if it is the same person, it is a shame that the OHS submission is not publicly available because a person who may have been involved in an intense industrial dispute and who may have been legally restrained would surely provide an interesting perspective on the relationship between OHS and industrial relations.

It is relatively easy to determine the politics of organisations that make submissions but when lodged by individuals political perspectives or professional connections cannot be determined, even when the submission is not confidential. That such a large number of confidential submissions have been lodged is curious but due to due process, it is likely to remain so.

Kevin Jones

Where is the evidence of OHS misuse for IR purposes?

The mainstream press has dipped into some of the submissions to the Australian Government on its harmonisation of OHS laws. Kirsty Needham reports on the submissions in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Needham reports on basically the submissions of the Australian Chamber of Commerce & Industry and the Australian Council of Trade Unions – the ideological opposites on safety regulation. She quotes ACCI’s David Gregory:

“There is no doubt that health and safety has been used as an industrial relations issue on plenty of occasions … we want to put reasonable boundaries around those entitlements.”

This position is always attached as a myth by the unions but it is an accepted fact in the minds of employers, OHS professionals and many workers. The Royal Commission into the Building and Construction Industry in 2003 found that

“in the building and construction industry throughout Australia, there is…..widespread use of occupational health and safety as an industrial tool.”

“The types of inappropriate conduct which exist throughout the building and construction industry include….the use by a union of occupational, health and safety (OH&S) issues as an industrial tool, intermingled with legitimate OH&S issues;”

“Occupational health and safety is often misused by unions as an industrial tool. This trivialises safety, and deflects attention away from real problems. Unions have a legitimate interest in the safety of their members. This should not be altered. However, the scope for misuse of safety must be reduced and if possible eliminated.”

“Misuse of non-existent occupational health and safety issues for industrial purposes is rife in the building and construction industry. Genuine occupational health and safety hazards are also rife.”

A major source of evidence for the repeated statement of fact is mentioned in the final report from February 2003 was an “OH&S case study (Tas).”. SafetyAtWorkBlog is trying to obtain more details on this.

One example of the evidence that is readily available relates again to the Royal Commission. The Commission undertook an investigation into industrial disputes a the construction site of The Age newspaper in Tullamarine. The Commission reports

“the evidence from Mr Judson [Wayne Judson is a Director of Probuild] will be that during the negotiation of the project agreement (which was a period where any industrial action between Probuild and the unions would have been unprotected) there were many occasions when safety walks and OH&S issues were used as a device by the unions to pressure Probuild and Fairfax to agree to the project agreement and nominated shop stewards.

The potential misuse of OH&S raised, not of course for the first time in this Commission, is a very serious matter. To misuse OH&S debases the currency of safety. ‘Crying Wolf’ often enough on enough sites creates the risk that no one knows whether a safety claim is about something real and important or whether it is simply a means of supporting the latest industrial demand.”

Some of Commissioner Cole’s comments on the debasement of safety are sound but the “evidence” is from the builder and may not constitute the reality, only opinion in a submission to an investigative body. The Commissioner carefully labels the issue “a potential misuse”.

SafetyAtWorkBlog would say that the fact of misuse of OHS issues for industrial purposes may be an example of the establishment of a fact through “crying wolf”, to use the Commissioner’s term. The frequent statement of a belief does not establish a fact.

Also, to some extent, the construction industry hogs the OHS limelight in much of the tripartite consultation. This is because of the industrially charged nature of construction in Australia and the fact that construction sites are usually highly visible to public. The construction industry is an important economic driver but perhaps this prominence is masking some of the other OHS issues that the Government needs to consider.

As the Australian Government proceeds in its harmonisation of OHS laws and as it reads the hundreds of public submissions, there should be a red flag on each mention of the misuse of OHS for industrial purposes so that assertions are not misread as facts.

Kevin Jones

Behavioural-based safety put into context

Yesterday Associate Professor Tony LaMontagne spoke at the monthly networking meeting of the Central Safety Group in Australia. His presentation was based around his research into job stress and its relationship with mental health.

LaMontagne was talking about the dominant position in personnel management where negative thoughts generate a negative working environment, one of stress, dissatisfaction and lower productivity. SafetyAtWorkBlog asked whether this was the basis for many of the positive attitudinal programs, or behaviour-based safety programs, that are frequently spruiked to the modern corporations.

He said that this was the case and that such programs can have a positive affect on people’s attitudes to work. But LaMontagne then expressed one of those ideas that can only come from outside an audience’s general field of expertise. He said that the limitations of such programs are that they focus on the individual in isolation from their work. He wondered how successful such a program will be in the long-term if a worker returns from a “happiness class” to a persistently large workload or excessive hours. The benefits of the positive training are likely to be short-lived.

This presented the suggestion that positive training programs, those professing resilience, leadership, coping skills and a range of other psychological synonyms, may be the modern equivalent of “blaming the worker”. The big risk of this approach to safety is that it ignores the relationship of the worker with the surrounding work environment and management resources and policies. Even the worker who is furthest from head office does not work in isolation.

It is unclear what the positive training programs aim to achieve. Teaching coping skills provides the worker with ways of coping with work pressures, but what if those pressures are unfair or unreasonable? What if those pressures included bullying, harassment, excessive workloads? Will the employer be meeting their OHS obligations for a safe and healthy working environment by having workers who can cope with these hazards rather than addressing those hazards themselves?

Professor LaMontagne reminded the OHS professionals in attendance yesterday that the aim of OHS is to eliminate the hazards and not to accommodate them. He asked whether an OHS professional would be doing their job properly if they only handed out earplugs and headphones rather than try to make the workplace quieter?

Recently SafetyAtWorkBlog received an email about a new stress management program that involves “performance enhancement, changing the way people view corporate team dynamics”. Evidence was requested on the measurable success of the program. No evidence on the program was available but one selling point was that the company had lots of clients. This type of stress management sales approach came to mind when listening to Professor Montagne.

When preparing to improve the safety performance of one’s company consider the whole of the company’s operations and see what OHS achievements may be possible. Think long-term for structural and organisational change and resist the solutions that have the advantage of being visible to one’s senior executives but short on long-term benefits.

And be cautious of the type of approaches one may receive along the lines of programs that can change

“…high performance habits so employees can operate at 100% engagement and take their achievement to the next level while achieving a healthier culture in the workplace”.

Kevin Jones

Note: Kevin Jones is a life member of the Central Safety Group. The CSG is just finalising its website (http://www.centralsafetygroup.com/)where information of forthcoming meetings will be available.

Category: construction

Vehicle crane safety alert

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Occupational injury statistics for France released

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Big fine for Queensland Rail – big risks in rail

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Crushed finger leads to claim and Court

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Coincidence or unique perspective?

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Where is the evidence of OHS misuse for IR purposes?

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Behavioural-based safety put into context

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