Category: hazards

Accuracy on OHS laws, services and products is essential

The following article illustrates how important it is for companies to maintain accuracy when writing a media release about safety laws.  The internet allows for inaccuracies to become widely distributed and for these to gain some legitimacy through the re-publication on various OHS, magazine and news websites.

Asbestos Audits International issued a media release in early April 2012 stating the following:

“On January 1st, 2012, new Australian Model Health and Safety legislation came into effect dictating workplace buildings constructed before 2004 must have an asbestos audit. The legislation outlines building owners, building managers and property managers are responsible for these audits. Continue reading “Accuracy on OHS laws, services and products is essential”

One industry sector continues to struggle with new OHS obligations

Some companies and industry sectors are struggling to cope with a major change to Australia’s occupational health and safety laws – the removal of the employer/employee relationship.  One example of an industry struggling with the change is the sex industry, more specifically, the licensed brothels.

In many industries, and in the safety profession itself, people confuse the OHS laws of injury prevention with the Compensation laws of rehabilitation.  In Australia these are two separate sets of laws, administered, often, by different government agencies and through different mechanisms, even though to effectively manage workers business needs to operate as if the demarcation does not exist. Many industries and professionals also make the common mistake of believing that a judgement in one area of law applies to other areas.

For many years the brothel industry* in Victoria, in particular, has believed that a ruling by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) – that sex workers (or sexual service providers, the preferred term by the brothel industry) are not employees of the brothels – also relates to the OHS laws.  The argument goes that, as the ATO has said that no employment relationship exists for taxation purposes, there are no, or limited, OHS obligations on the brothel owners for the sexworkers.  This is bollocks, has always been bollocks and I have personally advised representatives of the brothel industry over many years that it is bollocks but the misunderstanding persists.  Sadly, this persistence could impede the progress of the brothel industry to comply with the new Work Health and Safety laws.

Continue reading “One industry sector continues to struggle with new OHS obligations”

The social context of OHS laws is being poorly handled

Australian lawyer Michael Tooma is mentioned regularly in the SafetyAtWorkBlog, mostly because Tooma is one of the few who consider workplace safety in the broader social context.  In The Australian newspaper on 10 February 2012 Tooma wrote that new work health and safety laws being introduced in Australia present

“…a march … into the traditional heartland of the public safety, product safety and professional liability territory, and it brings with it a criminalisation of what was once an exclusively civil liability domain.  The new laws did not invent this trend, they just perfected it.”

Right-wing commentators would jump on this and declare “nanny state” but it is vitally important to note that this trend of “protectionism”, or the “compensation culture” as described in the United Kingdom, did not originate in occupational health and safety (OHS) laws.  The OHS profession, business operators and workers will need to learn to accommodate and manage this social trend that has been imposed.

Tooma writes that ”

“…we have not had a proper debate about the incursion of the laws into nontraditional areas and its impact on the resources of firms, regulators and ultimately work safety standards.”

The debate may already be over. Continue reading “The social context of OHS laws is being poorly handled”

New research on quad bike safety remains academic in a climate of uncertain OHS reform

Dr Tony Lower of the Australian Centre for Agricultural Health & Safety (AgHealth) has released a farm safety research report of curiosity more than influence.  The report, Farm Related Injuries Reported in the Australian Print Media 2011, makes use of the media monitoring services that the centre has been using for over five years.  The accompanying media release, not yet available online, summarises some basic findings:

“According to the report released by the Centre today, the 2011 information illustrates a 60% drop in the number of on‐farm injury deaths when compared to the early 1990’s, where the average number of deaths was 146 per year. “This reduction over the past 20 years is fantastic news, however by our estimates, many more deaths can be prevented by adopting solutions which we know from the evidence work” said Dr Lower.

The study results show that quad bikes (18) were the leading cause and made up 31% of all deaths.

Meanwhile tractors (10) were responsible for 17% of incidents. Tragically, seven of the fatal cases (11%) involved children aged 15yrs and under, with quad bikes (3) and drowning (2) being most frequently involved.”

An understandable limitation of the report is the fact that the social influence of print media is much less than in previous decades and that the report misses multimedia and the new medias.  This is one of those research reports than can genuinely suggest additional research to increase the relevance of the findings.   Continue reading “New research on quad bike safety remains academic in a climate of uncertain OHS reform”

Tread carefully when speaking with the media

One of the most important professional lessons is to only talk about what you know.  I found this out personally after a disastrous pre-conference workshop many years ago where I did not understand what the workshop participants expected until I began seeing blank and quizzical expressions from the, thankfully, small audience.

On Australian radio on 14 December 2011, a geologist became embroiled in an interview on asbestos and cancer.

Ian Plimer is a well-known Australian geologist and is a professor of mining geology at the University of Adelaide.  Plimer is a controversial and outspoken critic of climate change.  The climate change debate is a fringe consideration in occupational health and safety but today,  Professor Plimer entered the debate on asbestos, a carcinogen that is responsible for hundreds and thousands of work and non-work related deaths.

On ABC Radio, prominent Australian journalist and writer on asbestos industry issues, Matt Peacock, took Ian Plimer to task about Plimer’s 2008 claim that chrysotile, or white asbestos, is not carcinogenic.   Continue reading “Tread carefully when speaking with the media”

New OHS laws could change the management of quad bikes

Dr Tony Lower has written an opinion piece in the December 2011 edition of the Medical Journal of Australia (not available without a subscription however a related media release is) about farm safety.  One statistic he quotes says:

“In tractors, rollover fatalities have decreased by 60% after the introduction of regulations requiring compulsory rollover protection structures.”

The very successful introduction of rollover protection structures (ROPS) in Australia was given a major boost by OHS regulators offering substantial rebates for the fitting of ROPS on top of the regulatory requirements.  A safety “spoonful of sugar” as it were. Continue reading “New OHS laws could change the management of quad bikes”

Inadequate risk assessment results in an injured worker and $99k fine

There is increasing attention being given to the preparation of Safe Work Method Statements (SWMS) in Australian OHS laws.  Amongst many purposes, SWMS should provide a basic risk assessment of tasks being undertaken, usually, that day.  Often SWMS are too generic by being prepared days or weeks earlier, often SWMS miss the big risks by looking at the small risks.  A New South Wales Workcover news release on 9 December 2011 indicates the potential inadequacy of risk assessment.

The media statement reports on a $A99,000 fine against Bulk Maritime Terminals Pty Limited (BMT).

“On 17 September 2008 two employees were unloading 25 to 30 bulk bags of clay powder into a tanker truck for transportation. Each bag weighed approximately 900kgs.

One employee was using an overhead gantry crane to lift each bag from the floor of the warehouse to the height of the tanker. The second employee was harnessed to the top of the tanker truck to open the spout on the bag.

After being lifted off the ground, one of the bags fell off the crane hook, knocking the operator of the crane to the ground. Continue reading “Inadequate risk assessment results in an injured worker and $99k fine”

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