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Melbourne Business School takes the high road on fall prevention

Below is a guest post from long time SafetyAtWorkBlog reader, Marian Macdonald.

Workplace Access & Safety height safety consultant Aaron Carratello on a walkway built for access to HVAC equipment at Mt Eliza Business School

It was when Simon Murray put himself in the witness box and imagined what a judge would say that investing in walkways and guardrails became a ‘no brainer’.

The property and facility manager of the Melbourne Business School was faced with an important decision: whether to install extra roof anchors and static lines or shift towards more passive forms of fall prevention.

Roof anchors were cheaper initially, while the walkways and guardrails offered a far lower lifetime cost but, in the end, price was not the issue.

“A judge would ask whether we had done what was ‘reasonably practicable’,” Mr Murray says, “and if we’d only installed roof anchors and static lines to reach our HVAC equipment, the answer would have been ‘no’.” Continue reading “Melbourne Business School takes the high road on fall prevention”

The safety role of the Construction Compliance Code Unit

Recently SafetyAtWorkBlog was able to spend some time with the Director of the Victorian Government’s Construction Compliance Code Unit (CCCU), Nigel Hadgkiss. The CCCU and Hadgkiss have been in the Victorian media recently in terms of the CCCU investigation of industrial relations matters in several Grocon construction projects and some discussions with LendLease but an often overlooked, yet significant, element of the Construction Compliance Code is the occupational health and safety obligations. The CCCU has been working on early drafts of a Health and Safety Management Plan (HSMP) with which all those operating under the Code will need to comply.

Many of the questions SafetyAtWorkBlog posed stemmed from a presentation Hadgkiss made at a breakfast seminar on which SafetyAtWorkBlog previously wrote. That article is recommended for background and context.

Nigel Hadgkiss advised that since 1 July 2012 71 companies and associated companies have “signed up” to the Compliance Code with a full awareness that OHS is a key element of compliance.

OHS obligations of unsuccessful tenderers

The Code requires companies tendering for Victorian Government construction work to follow specific OHS obligations, whether they are the successful tenderers or not. In some ways this seem unfair.

Hadgkiss believes that the tenderers to government contracts are well aware of the safety obligations from the outset. From that point they are contractually bound whether they are successful or not.

Continue reading “The safety role of the Construction Compliance Code Unit”

Through Wilful Blindness I begin to see

Put your hand over your ears and start saying La La La La La La La. That is willful blindness (or, technically,deafness, but let’s not quibble).

Margaret Heffernan, author of a new paperback edition of “Wilful Blindness – Why we ignore the obvious at our peril“, discovered wilful blindness while researching the trial of the Enron executives. Heffernan says that

“Judge [Simeon] Lake was applying the legal principle of wilful blindness: you are responsible if you could have known, and should have known, something which instead you strove not to see.” (page 1)

Heffernan’s book is not simply a new book on business management. Heffernan acknowledges that wilful blindness is not limited to a workplace, person or management theory. She also says wilful blindness is not always a negative. It is this breadth of approach to the topic that increases the worthiness of her book. Continue reading “Through Wilful Blindness I begin to see”

The lobbying for “control” impedes corporate and OHS growth

“When we look at global trends it’s clear that Australia’s labour laws are not the primary cause of the contraction in manufacturing.”

Shelley Marshall, a Monash University researcher and Fair Wear Australia spokesperson made this statement at an Australian Senate inquiry on 2 February, 2012. The statement, reported in The Australian Financial Review (not available online), was used to illustrate the complexities of outworker protections under the Fair Work Act but it is, occasionally, worth looking a broader context. If one accepts that workplace safety is a subset of industrial relations laws (as SafetyAtWorkBlog does), Marshall’s comments help cut through some of the recent hyperbole from the industry associations and lobbyists about the significant economic and productivity costs of OHS law reform.

Marshall identified the extension of supply chains as affecting productivity. The issue of supply chain responsibility has an established OHS context as it relates to the issue of “control”, a matter raised as an objection to the implementation of new Work Health and Safety laws. Continue reading “The lobbying for “control” impedes corporate and OHS growth”

OHS app is attractive but may be no better than a paper system

Over the last few months I have been using my iPad to take photographs of good and bad workplace practices. These photos are usually shown to a site or business manager after a visit so that control measures can be identified. The advantage of an iPad is that no one has to squint at a small screen to try to see the hazard. I have kept my eyes open for potentially useful OHS apps for the iPad. One app recommended to me is iJSA.

iJSA, designed for the iPhone initially, is packed with features that could assist the tech-savvy OHS professional in developing Job Safety Analyses (JSA) (Job Hazard Analysis in the United States). However any app must prove to be better, more convenient and more effective than existing measures and I am not sure that iJSA does this. Continue reading “OHS app is attractive but may be no better than a paper system”

Religious wisdom on workplace safety

It is rare to visit the Bible when thinking about occupational health and safety but this week Australia’s Uniting Church, its Creative Ministries Network and the United Voices trade union released a report on the working condition of shopping centre cleaners. In the report “Cutting Corners” there are many references to the Bible’s and the Church’s thoughts and actions on labour issues.

For instance, according to the report:

“…God is ‘against those who oppress the hired workers in their wages, the widow and the orphan’ (Malachi 3:5).”

and

“…the Prophet Muhammad underlined the importance of the just wage by saying, ‘give the employee his wages before his sweat has had time to dry’.”

The Uniting Church has strong arguments to justify its involvement in social equity matters.

“Cutting Corners” was a broad report based on hundreds of telephone interviews with cleaners. The major safety-related findings of the survey were:

“The key violations borne by shopping centre cleaners constitute a litany of injustices, from low rates of pay, pay that is not commensurate with their Continue reading “Religious wisdom on workplace safety”

Employer association criticises Australia’s new Work Health and Safety laws

On 9 September 2011 The Australian newspaper reported that the executive director of the Independent Contractors of Australia, Ken Phillips, had serious concerns over the new Work Heath and Safety laws to be introduced in Australia in 2012.

Phillips has received legal advice that identifies serious shortcomings in the new laws compared to the existing Victorian OHS laws. These include eliminating the right to silence and protection against self-incrimination during incident investigations by OHS regulators. The article says that the ICA’s analysis

“…shows that the new system would also empower workplace inspectors to seize entire businesses without the oversight of a court, something that is currently not permitted in Victoria.”

It also reports that Phillips fears

“…the scheme would lead to a recurrence of what happened under the former workplace safety system in NSW where “ordinary people were prosecuted even if they had no control over the business”. Continue reading “Employer association criticises Australia’s new Work Health and Safety laws”

Category: contractor

Melbourne Business School takes the high road on fall prevention

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The safety role of the Construction Compliance Code Unit

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Through Wilful Blindness I begin to see

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The lobbying for “control” impedes corporate and OHS growth

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OHS app is attractive but may be no better than a paper system

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Religious wisdom on workplace safety

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Employer association criticises Australia’s new Work Health and Safety laws

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