Category: government

In ROPS we trust

Roll Over Protective Structures (ROPS) are a standard safety design feature on many items of agricultural equipment from tractors to quad bikes.  But ROPS do not prevent a rollover, only minimise the risk of injury from a rollover.

The Workplace Health and Safety Queensland has issued a safety alert over a tractor ROPS that failed.  The background for the safety alert is:

“A 180 hp tractor towing a 7.8 tonne trailer was travelling at approximately 20 km/h along a single lane bitumen road.  To enable a vehicle to pass, the tractor was driven to the side of the road which was corrugated with a sharp drop off and steep drain nearby.  When driven back onto the road, the attached trailer slipped down the steep incline into the drain pulling the rear of the tractor sideways.  This caused the tractor to roll over, which resulted in the failure of the ROPS fitted to the tractor.  The driver suffered fatal injuries.”

Kevin Jones

The politics of the insulation debacle become clearer

The debacle of the Australian Government’s insulation job creation scheme faded when the scheme was cancelled suddenly by the Government earlier in 2010.  Attention was always going to return at various stages as investigations into the deaths of young insulation installers begin but Parliament resumed earlier and the Opposition attacked.  The attack has led to the release of correspondence between the Minister responsible for the debacle, Peter Garrett, and the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd. (A good example of the role of an effective Opposition in ensuring open government)

The newspapers on 28 May 2010 have focused on the fact that the Prime Minister was aware of the serious occupational health and safety deficiencies of the system months before serious action was taken on the scheme.  However, the correspondence also indicates that Garrett was not inactive on the safety risks in 2009 as many critics allege. Continue reading “The politics of the insulation debacle become clearer”

Is illiteracy a big safety risk?

In a couple of years all Australian States will probably have OHS laws which require active consultation on workplace safety matters.  But how effective will the consultation be if a noticeable part of one’s workforce struggles with literacy?

For many years OHS included a gentle and steady push for OHS information to be provided in Languages Other Than English (LOTE).  Many OHS regulators had Codes of Practice providing guidance on how to communicate safety issues to workers who cannot speak or write English.

The Australian Industry Group (AIGroup) has been running a project on improving workplace literacy for some time.  AIGroup sees literacy as a major impediment to productivity and safety.  The ACTU sees the risks posed to one’s safety predominantly.  On 26 May 2010, AIGroup’s CEO Heather Ridout wrote in The Australian newspaper (not available online) about the project and the workplace risks.  A report from the literacy project has found that “low levels of literacy and numeracy were an issue for”:

Labourers and process worker 45%
Apprentices 25%
Technicians 23%
Administrative staff 17%
IT staff 13%

Continue reading “Is illiteracy a big safety risk?”

“We will trust but we will verify” – upcoming lessons from the Gulf of Mexico

The mass media is full of reports on legal action being taken on behalf of shareholders in BP over the continuing oil spill from the former Deepwater oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico.

An Australian video report was broadcast on 25 May 2010 and a composite article has appeared in The Australian on 26 May 2010 as well as elsewhere. Many outlets are mentioning the law suit (Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority and Robert Freedman v Anthony B Hayward et al, Court of Chancery for the state of Delaware, No. 5511) but no details of the suit are publicly available at the moment.

Although safety is mentioned as one of the bases for the suit, it is likely that environmental impact will get prominence over occupational safety and that impact on stock value will be of the most concern.   The shareholder outrage mentioned in some of the articles seems to focus mostly on the financial impact on BP share value rather than any moral outrage on environmental impact or dead and injured workers.

BP CEO Anthony Hayward has acknowledged the substantial  “reputational risk” but his comments are almost always reported surrounded by financial bad news.   Continue reading ““We will trust but we will verify” – upcoming lessons from the Gulf of Mexico”

OHS needs plain language, consultation and corporate engagement

An earlier article today provided a reminder of a County Court judge’s criticism of OHS management-speak in a 2004 decision concerning the death of Robert Sergi on a rail bridge construction project near Geelong.

In response to some of the safety initiatives outlined to the Court by the lawyer for Leighton Contractors Ross Ray SC, Judge Gebhardt said:

“Mr Ray pointed to an array of safety initiatives introduced by his client and a welter of documentation was tendered.

I gained the impression from the documents tendered that some form of managerial “hocus pocus” bewitched the company which sought to satisfy the needs and interests of workers with hierarchical and self-serving layers of bureaucratic “bubble-squeak/’ what Mr Ray described as “complex speak”. When the language is destroyed, reality fades and there is no basis for sound and sensible communication.  Workers are not instruments, but participants and conversation with them should occur on that basis.”

It is fair to expect that a judge would have come across a large amount of legal jargon through their career and that this could be an advantage in trying to translate management-speak but clearly, in the above situation, this is not the case. Continue reading “OHS needs plain language, consultation and corporate engagement”

Important OHS court decisions go unreported

On 20 May 2010 a Victorian magistrate fined an employer over $A500,000 following a workplace prosecution.  Almost all of it went to charity, according to WorkSafe Victoria.

There are several issues raised by Magistrate Vandersteen’s decision:

  • Why to charity?
  • Why the particular charities?
  • Why not allocate the funds to OHS-related organisations or initiatives?
  • Why does the Magistrates’ Court not make court decisions publicly available?

The workplace incident that started this case was that in August 2008, a 40-year-old man had his arm ripped out of the socket when it became tangled in an unguarded post peeler.   He was taken to hospital by an emergency ambulance helicopter where his life was saved. Continue reading “Important OHS court decisions go unreported”

New OHS Codes and Regulations for Australia

On 20 May 2010, SafetyAtWorkBlog mentioned the “challenge” of harmonising OHS approaches to bullying and harassment.  This morning Safe Work Australia provided a list of the Code of Practice and Regulations that are being developed as part of the OHS harmonisation process:

Model Regulations

  • “Licences – general e.g. asbestos and high risk.
  • Workplaces –first aid, personal protection equipment and emergency management.
  • Plant – general.
  • Chemicals – inorganic lead, asbestos, labelling, safety data sheets and major hazard facilities.
  • Other hazards – manual tasks, Continue reading “New OHS Codes and Regulations for Australia”
© Workplace Safety Services P/L (ABN: 68091088621) and SafetyAtWorkBlog, 2008-2025. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Kevin Jones and SafetyAtWorkBlog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Concatenate Web Development
© Designed and developed by Concatenate Aust Pty Ltd