The Queensland Division of the Safety Institute of Australia regularly produces a newsletter/magazine of consistent quality and the November 2010 edition is available online.
This edition includes an article by Warwick Pearse on the Montara oil spill. Pearse did not have the luxury of access to the final reports or government’s response but he makes sound recommendations.
‘Why is the most important reason for good workplace health and safety standards not at work at all?’ asks the Homecoming advertisement by implication. Because the injured or killed worker will leave his/her family behind, or harm them if they are injured or killed. S/he needs to think about them and the workplace H&S standard; about their pain and the OHS standard. About them and his/her possibly unsafe behaviour at work so s/he can return home in one piece; return to them. And the imagery is of a patiently waiting young boy, waiting for his father at the front of the house holding a ball. How desperate, lost and lonely that little boy would be if his father (in this case) was killed at work. Your heart goes out to him and thereby an emotional driver has been activated. And, in truth, tragically, such occasions do happen, too often.
Then the father appears and the boy smiles from ear to ear, we can feel the happiness permeating the ambrosia of human wellbeing. Father has come home safe and sound, boy is happy, family is whole, healthy and safe. I can’t remember, does mother peak smilingly from behind the corner as dinner simmers in the kitchen? Your heart swells. Good advert wouldn’t you say?
It’s very hard to change people’s behaviour. It’s hard to get people to effectively achieve sustained improvements in anything. Therefore, haven’t the marketers achieved a lot with this series of advertisements?
Let’s see: first, are there likely to be any OHS improvements at work as a result of any of these ads? I haven’t seen any, have you? Think hard, what exactly has changed?
Secondly, have managers been touched by these ads so that they will now rush out and make dramatic OHS improvements? Continue reading “WorkSafe’s Homecoming Advertisements”
On 24 November 2010, the Australian Government finally released the investigation report into the 2009 Montara oil spill in the Timor Sea that has similarities to the oil rig explosion of BP in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.
The Energy & Resources Minister, Martin Ferguson, has sat on the report since the Board of Inquiry presented its findings in June 2010 even though there could have been industry-wide safety and design lessons. Significantly, the report was released after the recent Federal election and, according to the Minister’s media release, has found :
“At the heart of this matter is the failure of the operator and the failure of the regulator to adhere to this regime. Montara was preventable. If either – or preferably both – PTTEP AA or the Northern Territory Designated Authority had done their jobs properly and complied with requirements, the Montara Blowout would never have happened.”
For those readers in America and the Gulf of Mexico, these words may echo what they have heard only a few months ago.
The Government response supports the Report’s finding states:
“…that PTTEP AA’s widespread and systemic procedural shortcomings were a direct cause of the Montara incident. In addition, the Report identified concerns relating to the integrity of the remaining wells (H2, H3, H4 and GI) at the Montara Wellhead Platform. The Commissioner concluded that PTTEP AA did not achieve proper control of any of the five wells at the Montara oil field, and that PTTEP AA’s internal systems were insufficient to achieve a high quality of assurance in respect of well operations.” [link added] Continue reading “Montara oil spill report finally released”
In mid-November 2010, a gymnasium in Queensland was fined A$70,000 following the death of a 19-year-old Michelle Maitland. Ms Maitland fell and hit her head on a part of the floor that was not covered by a safety mat. The case has been regularly reported in Queensland media since the death in June 2009 and the reports provide additional details of the fall and the hazard control measures that could be considered.
Workplace Health & Safety Queensland was unable to provide SafetyAtWorkBlog with details of the case or comment as the gymnasium has lodged an appeal against the judgement.
This tragic death is the latest illustration of a challenge that businesses and OHS regulators have faced regularly – the line between public liability and occupational health and safety law. Businesses have applied a rule of thumb where injuries related to work activities are OHS matters but risks presented to customers or visitors who are in the workplace have been dealt with through public liability insurance. The Maitland case shows that businesses may face an insurance payout as well as an OHS prosecution.
The significance of this demarcation will greatly increase with the introduction in Australia of new laws that redefine a “workplace” as wherever work is being undertaken. Continue reading “The intersection of OHS and public liability becomes more urgent”
Scandinavia has been the region of choice for many OHS and industrial relations reforms but now something has come from the other side of the world, New Zealand, which should excite OHS professionals.
The Department of Labour (DoL) has released a “self-help diagnostic tool” to identify safety culture. The DoL Workplace Services Group Manager, Maarten Quivooy, says
“One of the best ways to improve a safety culture is to start measuring it. This tool gives businesses the guidance they need to understand what’s working well and where there is room for improvement…
“It can be used by any industry or business that is motivated to improve its health and safety performance. Ultimately it will help a business make a start diagnosing its culture and, most importantly, planning for change. Building a better safety culture builds a better business.”
The basis of the tool is a short survey which includes 24 simple questions that will generate important discussions individually but could provide a fairly decent indication of a company’s safety culture if the workplace honestly completes it. Continue reading “New safety culture diagnostic tool”
Australia’s OHS awards season has concluded with many of the same challenges it had in 2009.
Most States have harmonised their awards categories so that the national OHS awards in March 2011 are fairer but the worth of some categories, listed below, remains in question.
“Category 1: Best Workplace Health and Safety Management System
a. Private Sector
b. Public Sector
Category 2: Best Solution to an Identified Workplace Health and Safety Issue
Category 3: Best Workplace Health and Safety practice/s in Small Business
Category 4: Best Individual Contribution to Workplace Health and Safety
An employee, such as a health and safety representative
An outstanding contribution by an OHS manager or a person with responsibility for work health and safety as part of their duties”
The category of most concern is “Best OHS Management System”. For several years many OHS and media people have asked “why should a company receive an award for what they should already be doing?” Continue reading “Australian OHS Awards need a review to stay relevant”
The recent conference of the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) gave considerable attention to corporate social responsibility (CSR). It could be argued that this shows the ASSE is years behind many others but it could also be argued that CSR has a practical longevity in workplace safety that may have faded in other CSR areas.
A recent article in Health Education, “Workplace health promotion within small and medium-sized enterprises” may provide some clues for forward planning on mental health, wellbeing and OHS. The authors* write:
“There needs to be a clear distinction between activities focused purely on internal business management and those with a wider public health impact. Consideration needs to be given to human resource policies and procedures, as these are beyond employees’ personal control, yet have a direct and indirect effect on their working life and the smooth running of the business they work for.”
This should give greater confidence to HR practitioners that the “soft sciences” of human resources are an important element of corporate wellbeing and profitability but there is also a clear indication from the article that various organisational elements need to “play well” with each other in order to achieve the potential benefits; Continue reading “CSR and public health”