Category: evidence

Root Cause is always found in decisions not things

Australian unionists are justifiably angry at the death of a worker at the construction site of a desalination plant in South Australia last week.  The worker was crushed when a beam slipped from a sling on a crane and crushed him.  The soft sling was being used so that the beams would not be scratched according to one report in The Australian newspaper.

It is hard to understand the sacrificing of the safety provided by the standard practice of chains for the aesthetics of the beams.

The media attention on the death is increased due to the incident occurring on a desalination plant site as many oppose the use of desalination plants to ease Australia’s water shortages. Continue reading “Root Cause is always found in decisions not things”

Montara oil spill report still not released and restlessness is increasing

At least one state government in Australia is becoming annoyed with the delayed release of the investigation report in to the Montara oil spill in the Timor Sea in 2009.  The Federal Government has had the final report for almost one month.

In an ABC media report:

“The Country Liberals environment spokesman Peter Chandler [said] “There’s only one reason that anyone would want to stall releasing a report [and that] is because the report’s damning of perhaps both the Territory Government and the Federal Government in this matter,”….

The Australian Greens are also pursuing the final report.

Although the report will be of direct relevance to the oil and gas industries in Australia, the international significance from parallels with the BP Gulf of Mexico leak cannot be ignored.  This resonance could also be part of the report’s delay as the government refines a media strategy for the release.

The need for cautious assessment is understandable but it is just possible that an early release of the final report will assist in the United States’ control and remediation measures in the Gulf, the prevention of similar incidents in the hundreds of existing and planned deep sea oil rigs in the US and avoid the Federal election hoo-ha that seems to have already begun in Australia.

Kevin Jones

A radicalised OHS profession may meet future social needs

The Australasian Faculty of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (AFOEM) has uploaded to the internet an hour-long discussion of their Position Statement on “Realising the Health Benefits of Work“.

Firstly  AFOEM should be congratulated for sharing such a resource.  Although the paper itself was launched in May 2010, to have access in July 2010 is a great achievement and an indication of the openness of the organisation and the importance the organisation places on the document.

Dr Robin Chase, President of AFOEM, says in his launch introduction that the dominant social perspective is that work is somehow bad for one’s health.  This is a perspective that OHS professionals will struggle to counter as they are always on the look-out for hazard, the potential for harm, risks.  Similarly HR people often are seen as providing services to assist workers in coping with workloads and workplace issues. Continue reading “A radicalised OHS profession may meet future social needs”

ICAP Congress of Applied Psychology is a neglected OHS resource

In July 2010, Melbourne Australia is hosting the 2010 conference of the International Congress of Applied Psychology.  What was an OHS consultant at this conference?  The question should be why wasn’t OHS consultants at this conference?

This conference is not about workplace safety, per se.  It is about how people think and communicate.  It provides research (some would say evidence), often about how people relate to each other at work.  The exciting content of this ICAP Conference makes the Safety In Action Conference look like a history lesson.

The conference has made the full program and the speaker abstracts online, for free.  Both are big PDF files but are excellent resources for those OHS professionals looking for the latest research into bullying, driver safety, health & wellbeing, organisational behaviour, leadership, fatigue, stress and other issues. Continue reading “ICAP Congress of Applied Psychology is a neglected OHS resource”

OHS: The Pearl Harbour Syndrome

OHS:  The Pearl Harbour Syndrome[i]

– Poverty of Expectations –

The Japanese attack on US forces at Pearl Harbour in the Hawaiian Islands on Sunday 7th December 1941 was a military disaster for the US described as a totally unforseen and unforeseeable attack.  It shocked the American people and brought the US into WWII (essentially the next day).  The element of total surprise (‘Why were our forces so ‘unexpecting’ and unprepared?’) was defended with the implication that, ‘we were still negotiating with the government of Japan and its Emperor in good faith’ and there was no state of war between the two nations.  In a speech to congress the next day President Franklin Roosevelt called it, “… a date which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan”.

Controversy surrounds various aspects of the attack[ii] but it has become synonymous with surprise and astonishment.  However, research over the years suggests that in fact it was preceded by a large number of misunderstood or ignored warnings and missed signs.   The reason these were so completely missed, according to one scholar, is because of ‘poverty of expectations’ – routine attention to the obvious and reduced horizons for imaginative projections. Continue reading “OHS: The Pearl Harbour Syndrome”

The importance of evidence in OHS decision-making

There are a couple of actions in Australia’s OHS profession that are worth linking together.  The first is occurring outside OHS as well and that is the demand for evidence-based decision making.  The second is the push by the Safety Institute of Australia and others to establish a core body of OHS knowledge.

On the first point a recent Editorial in Elsevier’s “Policy and Safety” journal summarise the recent evolution of evidence-based decision making and evidence-based polices (EBP) which gained credence through the governments of Tony Blair particularly.  The editorial states that much of this push is a management strategy

“…based on the common-sense notion that business strategies and directions are underpinned by a solid information base will be superior to navigating without reliable charts and compass.”

In some ways this “notion” may be an assumption or an ideal.  The notion is sound, as far as it goes but, according to the editorial, evidence could be better used informing policy rather than providing the foundation.  Continue reading “The importance of evidence in OHS decision-making”

School principals seek solutions to workplace stress

Recently SafetyAtWorkBlog reported on stress issues in Tasmanian teachers.  Victorian data has been revealed of stress in the education profession through The Age newspaperr on 6 July 2010.   Apparently stress claims for school principals have cost $A2.4 million since 2005.

One principal said the claims are likely to be under-reported as a stress claim can kill one’s career.

For the purposes of this blog, control measures or causes need to be identified.  The Age article said that principals have asked the Education Department to consider the following issues.  It is reasonable to assume that these have been identified by the principals as contributory factors to workplace stress. Continue reading “School principals seek solutions to workplace stress”

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