Duty of Care – Page 75 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

Quad bike manufacturers withdraw from the safety campaign

The Weekly Times newspaper can feel justifiably chuffed that it has played a significant role in changing some of the attitudes on the safe operation of quad bikes.

It’s front page article on 23 November 2011 reports on a considerable backdown by quad bike manufacturers in Australia on the issue of rollover protection structures (ROPS) or crush protection devices (CPDs). (The cartoon is very funny also) Motorcycle manufacturers have been supporting a campaign and website through the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) but even recent media releases (FCAI MOVES TO DE-BUNK ATV ROLL-OVER PROTECTION MYTHS ) have been removed from the FCAI website and the FCAI spokesperson has been “directed by ATV makers not to discuss the issue” according to the Weekly Times. FCAI’s 2010 position paper on quad bike safety continues to be accessible.

New CEO

SafetyAtWorkBlog has been told that there is industry speculation that the sudden change in policy direction is due to the September 2011 appointment of a new CEO, Ian Chalmers. Continue reading “Quad bike manufacturers withdraw from the safety campaign”

Work-related suicide gains some fresh media recognition

On 4 November 2011, Victoria’s 7.30 program broadcast a heart-rending story about the suicide of a woman who, her mother believes, took this action after suffering chronic pain due a work-related incident and being given insufficient support from her employer and workers’ compensation bodies. The story of Rebecca Wallis (spelling uncertain) apparently generated sufficient communication to the Australian Broadcast Corporation for 7.30 to undertake a follow-up and more broad look at the relationship between workers compensation and suicide.

One of the people interviewed in the 11 November 2011 program was John Bottomley of the Creative Ministries Network. Bottomley has published several research reports on work-related deaths and suicides. The figures he mentions in the report, that around 30% of the work-related suicides identified in his research had a “work injury or work-related mental illness” as a contributory factor, are included in the online publication from 2002, “Work Factors in Suicide“. What is not mentioned is another statistic in his report:

“Nine people (8%) were on workers’ compensation when they committed suicide.” (page iii) Continue reading “Work-related suicide gains some fresh media recognition”

Australia risks OHS ridicule in the media

The Sunday Herald-Sun ran an article that would not have been out-of-place in the English tabloid newspapers. The article, “Safety regulations taking the fun out of schools”, indicates many of the confused lines of responsibility that English articles include.

In Victoria, the safety requirements of government schools are determined by the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD). The OHS regulator, WorkSafe, has some influence but far less that DEECD. (The only really school-related OHS document from WorkSafe Victoria was released in 2008)

The Sunday Herald-Sun article states, in some pictures not in the online version, that the Victorian Principals Association has been told of OHS regulations that require teachers to “put on mask, surgical gloves to apply a band-aid”. Continue reading “Australia risks OHS ridicule in the media”

Social obligation is lost on some

In response to the Weekly Times’ articles on quad bike safety and the mandatory use of helmets, one letter writer in this week’s edition of the newspaper wrote:

“More state lunacy… Accidents happen, legislation cannot stop this. Free people have the right to decide such things for themselves.”

The letter writer has a strong belief that accidents happen and that nothing can be done to stop the harm, particularly through the application of legislation. This view is in the minority but is still spoken in some social circles, although the volume of such statements may have reduced over time.

The statement shows a misunderstanding of the cause of accidents and there is always a cause, or several. It is no longer socially acceptable to concede a workplace death as an Act of God or “shit happens”, although only recently in an expensive rail safety seminar, “shit happens” was said repeatedly. The letter writer’s statement is one of hopelessness, the antithesis of the values of the safety profession and OHS regulators.

Philosophers can argue the point more effectively but if one is to concede that “accidents happen”, that “shit happens”, then one should also not expect to be covered by workers’ compensation or compensated if injured in a public footpath or seek financial restitution if assaulted at a crowded nightclub or in a dark alley. What outrage would be felt if one was to lodge a workers’ compensation claim and the insurer’s response was “accidents happen, good luck with your disability”.

The “nanny state” epithet is short hand for lazy thinking, social ignorance and selfishness.

Safety often involves investigation, perhaps even “CSI:Safety” – Grissom in a fluoro vest. We must seek the root cause, in loss prevention terms, or contributory factors in the modern OHS and risk management context. From analysis comes insight and from insight comes prevention.

It is hard to imagine that anyone who may have lost a loved one in an industrial, or agricultural, incident could have written this letter to the Weekly Times. It is slightly easier to imagine that there are people in society who just do not care about the welfare of others and they write occasionally to the Weekly Times about the “nanny state”.

Kevin Jones

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”

Individual accountability – the Great Leap Backward (and into a legislative maze)

Col Finnie, formerly WorkSafe Victoria’s Principal Legislation Officer, looks at what the notion of individual accountability might look like if it was incorporated in the Work Health and Safety Bill, all done with his tongue firmly jammed in his cheek

It’s a good thing new perspectives about getting Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) right are tossed around. We love that sort of thing in OHS-World. But this sort of stuff, that used to be called “blue sky thinking”, needs the next step: head out of the clouds, feet on the ground and working out whether that ostensibly good idea will actually work, how it will work, and what will be the consequences. That reality-check can have that ostensibly interesting notion turn into no more than a puff of an idea; I think individual accountability is like that.

It seems that individual accountability is being touted as a contemporary “issue” for OHS. The context of the tout would appear to be that OHS will be better if everyone takes more direct responsibility for OHS in the workplace, i.e. everyone was more accountable for “how things are done” around a workplace. And yep, accountability and responsibility are different things, but not by much; clearly ya can’t be held accountable for stuff in the absence of any responsibility for that stuff at all. Continue reading “Individual accountability – the Great Leap Backward (and into a legislative maze)”

Is the trickling down of safety information sufficient?

A recent article in the Journal of Health Safety Research & Practice (JHSRP) quoted the findings of some research into construction and safe design by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). One of the NIOSH recommendations listed was that “… the trickle-down concept is appealing.” The “trickle-down concept” may be appealing in many areas of policy, practice and the advocacy of leadership but its effectiveness is questionable.

It has become a mantra of some areas of the safety professional that safety can only be improved when introduced from the top. A whole sector of safety leadership sellers has been created on this belief and an important element of the salesmanship is that good safety practices will trickle-down. This sounds logical but it is necessary to analyse this concept, a concept that originated well outside of safety management.

Trickle-down has been described as a marketing concept, which seems based, partly, on envy. Wikipedia says that, when applied to fashion,

“…this theory states that when the lowest social class, or simply a perceived lower social class, adopts the fashion, it is no longer desirable to the leaders in the highest social class.”

If this can be applied to safety leadership, it may be that by the time the leadership values reach the shopfloor workers, the leadership advocates, the executives, may be no longer interested. The transience of trickle-down should be considered when leadership is applied. How can safety change be sustained through leadership? What can keep leadership fresh and relevant? Continue reading “Is the trickling down of safety information sufficient?”

Category: Duty of Care

Quad bike manufacturers withdraw from the safety campaign

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Work-related suicide gains some fresh media recognition

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Australia risks OHS ridicule in the media

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Social obligation is lost on some

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

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Individual accountability – the Great Leap Backward (and into a legislative maze)

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Is the trickling down of safety information sufficient?

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