Category: hours of work

Unpaid overtime is the new danger money

In Australia there is increasing pressure to work more hours than what one is paid for. Many different organisations use this fact to push for various improved benefits, in many circumstances the statistics are used in support of wage improvements.

But working beyond contracted hours will certainly affect one’s work/life balance as there are only so many hours in the day and if work dominates one’s life, family time or rest will be sacrificed. The imbalance leads to a range of negative psychological and social actions. An article in Wikipedia on working time summarises this.

“In contrast, a work week that is too long will result in more material goods at the cost of stress-related health problems as well as a “drought of leisure.”  Furthermore, children are likely to receive less attention from busy parents, and childrearing is likely to be subjectively worse.  The exact ways in which long work weeks affect culture, public health, and education are debated.”

Australia has yet to have the debate on the matter of working hours that has been seen in Europe and England but the issue exists very much in Australia, although it has yet to gain any traction.

According to a media report by the Australian Council of Trade Unions a new research report by the Australia Institute

“… found that each year, the average full-time Australian worker does 266.6 hours of unpaid overtime, or an extra six-and-a-half working weeks…. The think tank estimates that through unpaid overtime, workers are forgoing a total of $72.2 billion in wages or 6% of GDP.”

The Australian Institute report found the following

  • Forty-five per cent of all Australian workers, and more than half of all full-time employees, work more hours than they are paid for during a typical workday.
  • Unpaid overtime is more common among people who work a ‘standard’ business workday (that is, not shift work) and among white-collar workers.
  • Workplace culture is a dominant contributing factor, with 44 per cent of people who work unpaid overtime saying that it is ‘compulsory’ or ‘expected’ and another 43 per cent saying that it is ‘not expected, but also not discouraged’.
  • Across the workforce, the average employee works 49 minutes unpaid during a typical workday.
  • Full-time employees work 70 minutes of unpaid overtime on average, while parttime employees work 23 minutes.
  • Men work more unpaid overtime than women (63 minutes versus 36 minutes a day). Men with young children work a great deal more than women with young children (71 minutes compared with 30 minutes).
  • Unpaid overtime increases with income: people in low-income households work an average of 28 minutes of unpaid overtime a day compared with 61 minutes for people in high-income households.
  • When asked what would happen if they didn’t work unpaid overtime, most say that ‘the work wouldn’t get done’, suggesting that the demands placed on employees are too much for many people.
  • A majority of survey respondents who work additional hours said that if they didn’t work overtime they would spend more time with family, and many said that they would do more exercise.

The report clearly states that allowing “unpaid overtime” has a strong cost in social and individual health but there is an OHS perspective that over gets overlooked due to public health and industrial relations dominating the issue.

In a media statement from October 2009, as an example, Deloittes quoted some scientists, in support of a anti-sleep device, on statistics that have been bandied around for some time:

“…scientists equate fatigue to blood-alcohol levels: if a person has been awake for 18 hours, it’s the equivalent of having a .05 level of alcohol in their body; if they have been awake for 21 hours, it’s equivalent to a.08 level.”

There are several further examples on negative health impacts in the Australia Institute report.

It can be strongly argued that by allowing, or expecting, “unpaid overtime”, employers may be encouraging workers to travel home while impaired and that employers are creating a work/life imbalance by requiring “unpaid overtime”.   Certainly it could be argued that even during unpaid overtime, the cognitive function of the employee is less than expected, or even have the worker unfit for work.

Arguing about unpaid overtime clearly makes the debate one of money not safety or wellness or the social contract, and this is the argument’s inherent weakness.

Arguing for compensation for “unpaid overtime” is arguing for “danger money” – how much money will a worker accept in order to keep working into the unhealthy and dangerous hours beyond their regular contracted hours?  This type of argument disappeared almost twenty years ago in Australia when the Australian awards system was reformed to remove allowances in relation to working at heights, picking up roadkill, or working in excessive heat.   It was agreed that “danger money” was inappropriate and that OHS principles demanded the risks involved with these tasks be reduced rather than “paying workers” to place themselves at risk.

ACTU Secretary Jeff Lawrence, in his media statement in support of Go Home on Time Day, and The Australia Institute in its media statement on its report both underplay a major point in the debate on working hours when they argue in economic terms.  Lawrence says

“If the work demands are too much to complete in a normal working day, then employees should be paid for their extra hours, or their employer must hire more staff.”

The institute mentions wellness in passing but emphasises in its media release

“..the 2.14 billion hours of unpaid overtime worked per year is a $72 billion gift to employers and means that 6% of our economy depends on free labour.”

Employing more staff is preferable but removing the culture of unpaid overtime is far more important.   Arguing on the basis of economics, ie “being paid for their extra hours”, may expose the worker to greater risk of injury or illness at the workplace or on the way home.   Quality of life, work/life balance and personal health and safety are stronger arguments for “going home on time”, arguments supported by The Australia Institute and the Australian Greens.

Kevin Jones

Managing stress the Wall Street Journal way

When a financial newspaper or website posts an article about workplace safety, it is worth reading.  The fact of such an article does not mean, though, that safety management is the focus of the story.

A 17 November 2009 article in the Wall Street Journal, ” Workers Denied Company Help Due to Stress-Related Complaints” understandably reports on new workplace stress statistics in a way attractive to its readers.  Sadly it reports on “how can the problem be managed?” rather than the next step that OHS professionals should always take, “how can this problem be eliminated?”

The paragraph that clearly illustrates this myopia is

“Companies are now faced with critical decisions over how to tackle stress. The first step, according to Dr. Wright, is to provide workers with access to a dedicated help line service. “Picnics, parties … those things are nice to have when the times are good, but it is the fundamental things – like making sure your role fits your skills and having the support of your manager – that matters the most now.”

A help line as a first step?  The article is full of statistics that illustrate the reality of the hazards.  Talking to a sympathetic counselor throws the responsibility (blame?) onto the individual and away from the organisation.

Earlier in the article Aviva’s Dr Wright said that workers are

“…being pushed to work harder, longer hours, in roles they are often not trained for…”

He acknowledges that workload and excessive hours is a contributory factor but makes no recommendations for changing these hazards.  Dr Wright accepts the traditional wisdom that harsh economic times leads to these pressures and individuals must cope, with some assistance from the employer.

It is probably unfair to expect the Wall Street Journal to publish an article that proposes fundamental change to the corporate order on the basis of valuing the mental health of employees.  But OHS professionals and advocates, those speaking from a position of independence, must keep reminding business, and (sadly) some OHS regulators, that long-term sustainability will only come from valuing the workforce as human beings and not as cogs in the race for executive performance bonuses.

Kevin Jones

Below is a list of links to some of the reports mentioned in the WSJ article.

National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence

Aviva UK Health of the Workplace 2009 (report not found)

Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development

Summer heat, fatigue and UV – a speculative solution

Let’s pull together several workplace hazards and suggest one control measure that may address all of them at once.  Of course, the control may generate other work hazards or management challenges.

In Summer, work occurs throughout daylight hours.  The long days, and possibly daylight savings, maximise the window of productivity for workers, particularly those who work outside – building construction, housing, rail maintenance, roadworks…..  Such work can lead to the workplace hazards of excessive exposure to ultraviolet radiation (UV), fatigue, and heat stress.

Each of these hazards has its own separate advocates for safe practices, as well as the OHS regulator that provides guidance on all hazards.  This complicates the management of OHS because sometimes there are conflicting control measures or at least measures that are incompatible with the needs and desires of the workforce.  If we think of this combination of hazards as a Gordian Knot, we could solve the problem by splitting the working day into two sessions on either side of a sleep break or, as the November 2009 edition of the Harvard Health Letter calls it, a nap.

The Harvard article, “Napping may not be such a no-no”, discusses the good and bad of napping and the tone of the article seems to look at this control measure mainly for office-based or administrative tasks.

“[Robert Stickgold, a Harvard sleep researcher] says his and others’ findings argue for employer policies that actively encourage napping, especially in today’s knowledge-based economy.  Some companies have set up nap rooms, and Google has “nap pods” that block out light and sound.”

The article suggest a couple of suggestions

“Keep it short. A 20- to 30-minute nap may be ideal. Even just napping for a few minutes has benefits. Longer naps can lead to grogginess.

Find a dark, quiet, cool place. Reducing light and noise helps most people get to sleep faster. Cool temperatures are helpful, too.

Plan on it. Waiting till sleepiness gets so bad that you have to take a nap can be dangerous if you’re driving. A regular nap time may also help you get to sleep faster and wake up quicker.

Don’t feel guilty! A nap can make you more productive at work and at home.”

But sometimes SafetyAtWorkBlog likes to extend a solution to the bigger picture.

In Australia, the peak period for extreme levels of UV is between the daylight savings hours of 10.00am and 1.00pm, or 3.00pm in some instances.  If an outside work site suspended work for three hours, the employees could have lunch and rest, or sleep, in the shade.  Depending on the location of the work site, some could even go home for that period.

The work day could still be as productive by starting early and finishing late, basically inserting a rest break of several hours into the middle of the daytime shift.  There is evidence in the Harvard article that productivity could be increased as a result of the rest break.

iStock_000004187454 construction siestal

On quick reflection, this scenario is a fantasy because the ramifications of such a change are huge, and OHS is unlikely to achieve any structural cultural change of this magnitude, but it remains an attractive fantasy.  The attraction is the logical simplicity but, of course, logic is often bashed around by reality and below are some of those realities:

  • Expanded work hours for a construction adjacent to a residential area working on the 9 to 5
  • Deliveries of supplies to be rescheduled to the two work periods
  • Would the split shift continue on cloudy and cool days or during Winter?
  • Would the portable/temporary lunch sheds now need to include a bunk room for all employees on a work site?
  • In a bunk room, would one person’s snoring becoming an occupational hazard for everyone?
  • Can plant be “paused” for the lunch break?
  • Can a concrete pour be interrupted for a lunch?

Lists of other problems or challenges are welcome through the blog’s comments field below.

Such a structural or societal control option (or fantasy) should be discussed, debated or workshopped as what may not work in the grand scheme may allow for changes, or tweaks, on a smaller scale.  Often the best OHS solutions come from speculation which can lead to the epiphany of “why do we do it that way?”

Of course, some countries are way ahead of the rest of the world in managing these workplace hazards by already having a culture that embraces the “siesta“.

Kevin Jones

ng may not be such a no-no

 

23rd suicide at France Telecome in 18 months

Adam Sage has been following the suicides that have occurred in France Telecome for some time.  On 23 September 2009 in the TimesOnline (a week later in The Australian newspaper??), Sage provides a useful summary and cogitation on the “cluster”.

But although this number of suicides in one company should be alarming, it is not really a cluster as the suicide rate for Telecome’s employees was only slightly above the national average of 14.7 per 100,000 people.  Sage reports that France is a country with a high comparative suicide rate.  The relevance to SafetyAtWorkBlog is that Sage goes on to identify work-related factors that contribute to suicides.

He quotes a sociology professor who says the French “define themselves by their professions”.  The risk with this basis for identity is always when the demand for the profession declines, one needs to redefine and this is not easy.

Sage finds a psychoanalyst who says that his patients feel isolated at work and have no support mechanisms.

A suicide prevention expert says that often a problem at home is the suicide trigger with someone who is feeling stressed at work.

Sage provides a potted history of the privatisation of France Telecome and speaks to a current employee bemoans the loss of camaraderie.

What is surprising about this article is that it seems France, and particularly France Telecome, are way behind other Western nations in having control measures in place for employee support programs and change management.

It is not as if France is ignorant of workplace stress issues or that workplace suicides have only occurred at France Telecome.  A major reason for its experiment with the 35-hour week was to

“…to take advantage of improvements in productivity of modern society to give workers some more personal time to enhance quality of life.”

In January 2008 (well before the current financial crises), the Institute for Economic and Social Research published “Workplace suicides highlight issue of rising stress levels at work “.  After some suicides at Renault and Peugeot it assessed the issues, acknowledged the trade union assertion that

“…excessive isolation of workers due to high workloads and fierce competition leads to a malaise in companies and thus call for a reflection on choices of work organisation.”

The article also reported

“The French Democratic Confederation of Labour (Confédération française démocratique du travail, CFDT) welcomed the ‘recognition of psychological factors being the cause of an occupational accident’ as it ‘opens the way to taking into account a form of suffering and malaise that, until now, has been minimised by companies’.”

A longer-lasting improvement will only come if this recognition is built on by all social structures in France.  Perhaps it should look across the channel at how the Health & Safety Executive and the corporate sector have responded to the report by Dame Carol Black – “Working for Health” – calling for an integrated approach to health management involving work, public health, health promotion and other elements of social capital.

France Telecome held an extraordinary Board meeting on 15 September concerning its suicide rate.  It made the following commitments:

  • “The national health, safety and working conditions committee (CNSHSCT) will be meeting on Thursday next week in the presence of Jean-Denis Combrexelle, the Ministry’s Director General for Employment.
  • To stop the phenomenon from spreading, it has been decided to immediately put in place a freephone number to promote dialogue. Psychologists from outside the company will be available to listen to and talk with any employees who may be having difficulties.
  • The first meeting for the negotiations on stress will be taking place on Friday September 18. On this occasion, the employee representatives will appoint an external consultancy to conduct an audit of the situation within France Telecom.
  • These negotiations will focus on the prevention of stress and psychosocial risks in the event of geographical or professional mobility among staff. To address this issue, a forward-looking employment and skills management (GPEC) system will be set-up with a view to offering employees and their direct managers visibility over their professional development and support.”

Didier Lombard, France Telecom’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, has set a tight timeframe for improvement.  On 15 September 2009 Lombard said

“December’s France Telecom will not be the France Telecom of today.”

Kevin Jones

UPDATE 30 SEPTEMBER 2009

Agence France Presse has reported a 24th suicide associated with France Telecom.  According to the report the 51-year-old male jumped to his death from an overpass onto a busy highway.  His suicide note to his wife expressly referred to the work environment as a reason for his action.

 

Public Comments – Fishing and Legionnaire’s

WorkSafe Western Australia has two documents currently open for public comment.   One concerns a draft code of practice  for the prevention of falls from commercial fishing vessels.  The other may have a wider appeal as it is a draft code of practice for the prevention and control of Legionnaires’ disease.

man_overboard coverThe man overboard code is an example of established hazard management and risk control options for a niche hazard in a niche working environment, however, it is often in these areas where procedural and technical processes are most easily recognised.  The draft code is in a format, and has a degree of clarity, that encourages discussion and examination.

Readers may find some useful information for those workers who work alone or in isolation, for those who need to undertake tasks at nighttime and in intense darkness, and for those workplaces that require a strict induction for new workers.

LEGIONNAIRES__Public_comment coverSimilarly, the Legionnaire’s code of practice builds on established risk management concepts and shows that businesses still need to prevent legionnaire’s infections even if there is a regulatory/licensing system in place for cooling towers.

On a formatting note, both these draft codes could have benefited from the regulators embracing more of the Web 2.0 concepts.  The PDF files do have some hyperlinks for some more information or emails but there could be a lot more effort put in to making the drafts a hub for the documents’ references.  For instance, mentions of legislation could lead to online versions so that those commenting online can flick back and forth from reference to topic.

[Just imagine how much more helpful a code of practice with such functionality could be to a small business – wiki + blog+ safety = better compliance]

In the Legionnaire’s draft there are tags on page 36 that could lead to the online text of the Acts referred to.  The tags are a good idea but could use increased functionality.

Lastly, the Legionnaire’s code references eight Australian Standards and publications.  It is a reasonable expectation that, for this hazard, industry submissions will be the majority and those parties already have the Standards.  However, if a broad consultation is required, many interested parties may find purchasing these Standards a substantial cost burden,  which SafetyAtWorkBlog calculated to be at least $A390 for the PDF versions.

Kevin Jones

Working Hours and Political Scandal

Over the last month or so, Australian politics has been scandalised by a senior Treasury official admitting to faking an email that implied political favouritism by the Australian Treasurer, Wayne Swan, and the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd.

Godwin Grech is the public servant who has admitted faking the email and there are many reasons he has put forward, and journalists have endlessly speculated on, for his actions.  SafetyAtWorkBlog will discuss a minor element of the “Ozcar affair” that has been almost entirely overlooked – OHS.

Since the scandal broke in a Senate inquiry, Godwin Grech kept a fairly low profile and was last reported to be receiving treatment in a Canberra psychiatric facility.  It has been reported that Grech has a history of physical health problems and it has been reported, in an investigation into the affair by the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO), that administering the scheme was taxing on Grech.  The report says

“The under‐resourcing of the implementation phase of the policy placed at risk the anticipated policy outcomes. It also placed a considerable workload on Mr Godwin Grech, the Treasury official primarily responsible for the development and implementation of the policy measure, particularly in light of his medical condition.”

It needs to be noted that additional resources were offered to Grech to assist in administering the scheme. But Treasury was also criticised in the report.

“There were no indications that these matters, or Mr Grech’s medical condition, were given due weight in the implementation planning and delivery.”

Grech admitted to the ANAO that he had not informed his employer, the Department of Treasury, of his ongoing struggle with depression.

“What senior Treasury management did not know – as I have only very recently discovered – was that I have also been suffering from chronic clinical depression for some years, dating back to at least 2003. This had not been treated.”

Page 100 of the ANAO report has Grech quoting the OHS Act’s employer obligation to “take all reasonably practicable steps to protect the health and safety at work of [its] employees’”, and then lists his working hours required by the scheme.

“My work on the Oz Car program required me to work between 75‐85 hours per week including on weekends from late October 2008 until the onset of my bowel obstruction in early February 2009. My hours varied from 60‐70 hours per week from late February to June 2009.”

The amount of hours expected is phenomenal and there is little surprise that health problems or poor judgement occurred on this hazard alone.

However, what Grech fails to quote in the information to the ANAO is another section of the OHS Act 1991 – Section 21

“Duties of employees in relation to occupational health and safety

(1) An employee must, at all times while at work, take all reasonably practicable steps:

(a) to ensure that the employee does not take any action, or make any omission, that creates a risk, or increases an existing risk, to the health or safety of the employee, or of other persons (whether employees or not) at or near the place at which the employee is at work; ……”

Employees have a legislative obligation to not put themselves at risk. It would be interesting to know why Grech took on more than was healthy for him.

This dichotomy of choice is a crucial but difficult one for all employees in all industries.  When is it the right time to say no more or to ask for help or to say something is unsafe or unhealthy?

A further complexity to employment relations comes when industrial relations legislation specifies a maximum amount of working hours.  The Australian Government’s very recent Fair Work Act 2009 specifies maximum weekly hours of 38.  So what does this say about the employer’s OHS obligations to  civil servants, such as Godwin Grech?

The Fair Work Act says (Division 3, Section 62 (1))

“An employer must not request or require an employee to work more than the following number of hours in a week unless the additional hours are reasonable:

(a) for a full time employee—38 hours; or
(b) for an employee who is not a full time employee—the lesser of:

(i) 38 hours; and
(ii) the employee’s ordinary hours of work in a week.

Employee may refuse to work unreasonable additional hours.”

In May 2008, the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, said the following about public service workloads:

“I understand that there has been some criticism around the edges that some public servants are finding the hours a bit much ….. Well, I suppose I’ve simply got news for the public service — there’ll be more.  This Government was elected with a clear-cut mandate.  We intend to proceed with that.  The work ethic of this Government will not decrease.  It will increase.”

Godwin Grech could be considered one example of the Rudd Government work ethic.

In this political scandal OHS is an oblique and fringe issue but its existence cannot be ignored and it raises legitimate questions about how a Labor Government, the traditional friend of the worker, manages the safety of its employees.

Kevin Jones

Complacency and arrogance are the problems with mine safety in Australia

The signs are not good for the future of BHP Billiton’s safety program.  At the Diggers & Dealers conference in Western Australia on 5 August 2009, Ian Ashby, the President of BHP Billiton Iron Ore expanded on his statements some months ago about the poor safety practices at the company’s Pilbara worksites.

According to one media report, Ashby has said that BHP’s safety performance was  “generally showing improving trends”. He also said

“We’re looking for systems to eliminate these tragic events….. There hasn’t been any epiphany but we need to increase the intentionality and focus.”

Ashby specified two particular occupational hazards

  • traffic management, and
  • “fatigue management to prevent excess working hours”.

In April 2009, Ashby identified the following safety areas as those requiring attention:

  • Reduce site access;
  • Improve contractor management;
  • Enhance existing strategies to prevent excess working hours;
  • Move rail operations from the Mine Safety and Inspection Act to the Rail Safety Act;
  • Enhance traffic management standards, and;
  • Suspend all non-essential work outside daylight hours

Ashby’s presentation to the conference is now available for download.

Pages from diggersAndDealersMiningForumPresentation cover

The concern for the future safety performance of BHP Billiton comes from Ashby statements that, according to the press report, “the root of the problem was a poor attitude towards safety in the Pilbara region.

“There is an element that I don’t like to dwell on, but there is a complacency generally in the Australian workforce and a bit of an arrogance. I think some of that is quite manifest in the Pilbara.”

Ashby must have read the comments by Warren Edney about the lack of “safety brainwashing” in relation to the Pilbara miners. [SafetyAtWorkBlog has tried to clarify Edney’s comments with his employer, Royal Bank of Scotland]

The machismo of mine workers and new mining employers may be part of the issue but, as has been pointed out before, a similar Australian company in the same industry sector in very similar geographies – Rio Tinto – does not have anywhere near the same amount of fatalities even though it draw from the same worker demographics.

The OHS issue at BHP Billiton seems to be developing into a classic study of safety versus production.

It may be useful to note the report in the business section of The Age newspaper entitled “China taking all the ore we can ship: BHP“, a  report generated from the same presentation by Ian Ashby at Diggers & Dealers’.

Kevin Jones

© Workplace Safety Services P/L (ABN: 68091088621) and SafetyAtWorkBlog, 2008-2024. 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