Australian Standards and OHS harmonisation

This morning in Melbourne, WorkSafe Victoria conducted a three-hour seminar on the harmonisation of Australia’s OHS laws.  The speakers and panelists were John Merritt of WorkSafe, Tracey Browne of the Australian Industry Group and Cathy Butcher of the Victorian Trades Hall.  Tripartism at its best.

The large auditorium was filled with hundreds of attendees, very few were the familiar faces of the OHS professionals who can often dominate such events.

A question was asked to the panel about the application of the Australian Standard for Plant.  The question was, basically, will the Australian Standards be referred to within the upcoming OHS regulations?  The panel unanimously said no.

This was the clearest indication yet that the rumour about Australian Standards not being given legislative legitimacy through legislation is correct.  Tracey Browne however provided the rationale.  She said

“The important thing is that as soon as we incorporate an Australian Standard in a regulation, we create a whole different legislative status of something that was never designed to be a safety regulation….

This doesn’t change the fact, though, that it is the “state of knowledge” and when you look at what you are doing in relation to what is reasonably practicable, you need to take into account all the things you know or ought to know.  So if you are [for instance] bringing plant into Australia, and that is your business, then you need to know what the Australian Standards are and make sure that’s part of your consideration.”

Standards Australia is undergoing a considerable rethink due to a big loss of funds and in response to the changing regulatory structure in all sorts of industry and financial sectors.  The challenge is acknowledged by the CEO of Standards Australia, John Tucker ,when he discusses a “new way of operating“.

Kevin Jones

Using OHS images

“A picture is worth a thousand words” rings as true for OH&S material as anywhere else. But it’s also true that using images ineffectively or including bad quality ones can detract from the quality of what you’re trying to achieve.

I ain’t no graphic designer or expert photographer, but I’ve spent a bit of time trying to pay attention to what works when using images and how to improve the quality of photographs I use in reports and the like.   This article is about the stuff I’ve learnt.

I use a few “rules” on image used in reports or any other OH&S documentation.  Here are me main ones:

  1. An image has to do work. If it’s not informing the reader I don’t use one. That is, images just to make a report pretty isn’t much chop.
  2. Make the image as big as it needs to be to inform the reader.  I’d rather have a page taken up with one image and a bit of supporting text vs. squeeze in an image that is so small the viewer has trouble working out what is depicted in the image.
  3. Use images to illustrate a piece of equipment that has a workplace-specific name.   I always defer to finding out and using the name a bit of equipment is commonly known as in the workplace.   But I recognise that it can be a mistake to assume that everyone in the workplace knows the commonly used name.   A photo of it puts the identification beyond doubt.
  4. Don’t muck about with a paragraph to describe a location in the workplace.   A photo of a location (with the shot including a readily identifiable reference point) is much more efficient that a written description.
  5. Photos of recommended PPE (with necessary explanatory text) is much better than just relying on a written description.  One thing to be very aware of though is that if the PPE is also identified through colour coding (e.g. gas cartridges for respirators) be aware that colour rendition may vary with different computers.  Always back up a shot with a clear written description if colour coding is part of the way to identify a recommended piece of PPE.

And here is some stuff on gear and techniques I use. I’m well short of being an expert photographer, but I do enjoy it as a hobby.

My two main bits of gear are a digital video camera (Sony handycam) and a digital SLR (a Canon 40D that I love to bits).

The video camera is obviously a useful tool when I want moving footage of a work process.  Comes into it’s own when putting together a wee movie and playing it back to a client to go over risk control options.  I run a Mac and iMovie is perfectly adequate for putting together movies.   Whack in some subtitles over a few frames as a prompt for hazards or risks and Bob’s ya uncle.  But the Sony has another handy use.

When the things I want to shoot don’t demand high quality images and I’m wanting to avoid stopping during an inspection to take notes, I use the vid camera to shoot and describe the issues or location via voice.   That is, the camera is used to capture images and to take dictation on the issues. Trick with that is to keep camera movements slow.   Next step is back at the desk. Download the movie to iMovie.   Take any notes needed from the audio track and then take still grabs from the movie clips.  The still grabs from the movie are what make it important to keep movement of the camera slow and steady.  Too fast and still grabs will be blurred.

My Sony handycam is about 6 years old.   It doesn’t have a still shot option. More modern ones do.  That can be a substitute for lifting still grabs off the actual moving footage of course.

For high quality images, or in situations where I can’t expect good lighting I use the Canon 40D with a relatively small focal length range in the zoom lens fitted to it (24mm to 85mm).  The “point and shoot” digital still cameras obviously can produce wonderful quality images.  But it was a work gig that revealed their weaknesses.

I was at a workplace a few hours drive from home and the manager was accompanying me during the inspection and photo shoot.   I had my partner’s very good “point and shoot”.

Every shot had to count.   There were no options for a repeat visit.  Plus I felt I had to shoot quickly, just by virtue of having the manager there; didn’t want him to be wasting time.   The point-and-shoot was too slow to manually over-ride auto shots. And I often needed to do that to make sure lighting or details I needed were what I wanted.

The higher end digital still cameras are better designed and laid out to allow quick manual over-ride, or at very least allowing manual setting of critical settings like “film” speed and depth of field.

And here are some simple tips on how to improve the quality of photographs, particularly in the context of how to get good control over what information you’re trying to convey in the shot.   I’ve included some “f’rinstances” to illustrate the tips.

In OH&S World we’re mainly shooting “documentary” images.   We are after objective informative images.   This is much harder to do well than it might seem.   Our wonderful eyes and brains do a huge amount of work to make what we want to see clearer.   It’s important to appreciate the camera doesn’t do that. What it sees you get.  Practice shooting objectively. A good practice thing is to crawl around your car and shoot something you want to concentrate on.   Check the shots and see how simply pointing and shooting will often miss the key bits of information.   I try and constantly remind myself that a photo is like a good bit of writing.   I ask myself, what is the critical bit of information in the scene I’m looking at, and how can I make sure that bit is a feature of the shot?

This is where the trend to make us camera buyers believe we can have a camera make a clever shot is a bit of a deception.  It’s important to understand the core principles like depth of field, rules of composition and proper use of lighting to make sure a shot conveys the information you want it to.  That is, all the traditional skills in photography are important.

Here are some examples of what I’m on about.  The examples are hand-held shots of bits of me car. I used my Canon 40D to take the shots in various modes, including full auto.

“When you think you’re close enough, take a step forward”.

Can’t remember where I read this tip about how important it is to get close to the important feature of your shot; it’s a beauty to keep in mind every time you’re composing a shot.   It’s also a tip that reminds us that our brains can trick us into thinking we have nailed the important feature.  Our brains tell us, “Good, that looks clear”, and when we look at the shot later we often find the important feature is much less prominent than we originally thought when he pushed the shutter button.   What’s in the frame is what really matters and bigger is better.

Shocker top - wide viewShocker top - close up

Let’s say we are interested in the type and quality of the top anchor point of a shock absorber.   The shot on the left shows it’s still there, but not much more.   Zooming in with control over focus point makes the key information bold.  Notice how this also throws bits around the main feature go out of focus; a good way to make your main subject even more prominent.   This business of what is or isn’t in focus in front and behind the focus point is called “depth of field”, it’s an important photographic principle to have a basic working knowledge about.  Your camera manual will have stuff on depth of field and there are plenty of web sources on how depth of field works. (The manual is that wee book you got with your camera.   You know, that thing you, like all of us, just scanned through when you first got your camera!)  I also plonked the close-up shot in a basic photo editor program (in this instance the bog-simple iPhoto, and straightened the original shot up to make it easier to view).  Having a basic digital photo editor and management program can be a real life-saver. Start with a simple one.  Once you get the hang of it, it’s likely you’ll see all the benefits and will be tempted to use more advanced ones like Adobe Lightroom or Aperture.  And be assured; even the pro quality ones are not that tricky to use.

Full auto shooting isn’t really that handy

It can be a temptation to have full auto shooting “rusted” in position on your camera photo mode dial.   Fine for the happy-snaps of barbies and parties, not so good for documentary type photography. Full auto mode is not your friend: the “P” mode is.  Lots of cameras have this priority mode as a selectable option; it allows you to manually adjust some of the most critical shooting controls like depth of field (via aperture control – also called “f-stops”) while leaving the camera to make it’s own decisions about other less important adjustments.

Muffler - autoMuffler - focus and AV control

Here is an example of how full auto can be a real pain. I’m up close to the muffler.   Let’s say our interest is in the general quality of the critical welds in front of the muffler. (PS: It’s a diesel, hence no catalytic converter.)   The shot on the left is with all guns blazing – full auto.   Notice how the flash creates distracting shadows and the auto selection of focus points mucks up the key information needed.   The shot on the right was done in “P” mode. I had control over focus, depth of field and whether I wanted to use flash or not.  (I’ll say more about use of flash in the next tip.)  With only a very small amount of knowledge I was able to quickly decide what settings to use and the result is a sharper depiction of the 2 front welds.   Many cameras have selectable spots in the viewfinder or viewing screen that locates the primary focus point or points.   This can be handy, but like full auto, the convenience can be a bit of a trap.  I find that at least half of the time when doing work shots (and even fun stuff) it’s better to focus manually. It allows me to compose the shot for maximum effect , a very important thing.  I can put the key feature where I want it in the viewfinder frame and decide what other things I need in the shot to make the shot do all the work I need it to do.   That is very tricky and time-consuming to do when the camera is making it’s best decision on what needs to be in focus.  A good habit is to look at each part of the scene separately; that applies whether you are peering into a conventional viewfinder (which I tend to prefer over using my LCD viewing screen) or looking at your larger LCD viewing screen.   By systematically looking all over the different bits of a framed scene we can be sure we don’t have irrelevant or distracting things in the frame before shooting.

Natural is best – flash with caution.

Natural light is always better than a light generated by a flash, unless you’re in a studio with total control over the light and colour effects.  A flash will tend to flatten out shapes, distort colour reproduction and mostly just look awful.  As a general rule, set your camera to flash off: it’s a good way to look to ways you can use other settings to make best use of naturally available light, and that includes shots in what may seem to be dark situations.

Cable boot - full autoCable boot - no flash high speed + compositionUni joint - flashUni joint - natural light

The top line of shots have the cable boot as the primary feature.  The shot top left is the full disaster.  Auto on, flashing blazing away, no real concern for composition.   The flash has slammed a huge shadow on the top part of the image, the colour of the boot is not natural (and a bit of reinforcement wire has found it’s way into frame, distracting a viewer).  The shot to it’s right was done in P mode.  I used a high ISO setting (the higher the ISO the more light the camera sensor absorbs, with big shots that will come with a degradation in detail.  For smaller sized shots that degradation is not very noticeable.)  In the absence of flash the cable boot is seen in its more natural colour.   No severe shadows also means the viewer is able to put the cable boot in context with the rest of the bits around it.   As an aside, notice how the top right shot is up in the upper third of the frame?   This exploits the weird principle of “thirds”.   It was discovered a long time ago that by dividing an image into thirds, vertically and horizontally, we generate natural points of interest. Don’t ask me why, it just is.   This is nice for arty-farty shots, but it’s also real good for documentary shots.   It means we have multiple points in a frame where the viewers eye will want to go to naturally.

The bottom 2 shots are focusing on the universal joint in front of a differential.  These are trying to show the “flattening” effect of a flash. Both shots are pretty much in focus.   But see how the left one, by filling all shadows detracts from the form of the universal joint?   If it’s important to depict the shape of something it will almost always be vital that you shoot without the flash.  A simple tip when in dark situations, apart from cranking up your ISO speed to shoot, is to exploit the nice thing that light travels in straight lines.  Depending on the size of the thing you’re trying to photograph of course, nothing more than a bit of reflector can direct some useful amount of light on your subject.   With the car bits topics I’ve used here, an A4 white sheet of paper on a clipboard would be all I needed to almost double the amount of available light.  None of the shots I’ve used were done using that technique but I think you get me drift. Experiment with it.   Grab a clipboard with an A4 white sheet on it (even with print on it, it will be better than nothing).   You’ll be surprised at how much extra light you can direct onto a subject with that simple reflector. Keep it as close to the subject as you can.

There is one less commonly known use of a flash that can be very handy.   That’s when shooting outside in daylight.  We can’t always control where we shoot from and that may mean that the thing we want to feature has the sun behind it.   If the thing you want to shoot is in shadow and you can get within the effective range of your flash (usually only about 3 or 4 metres in daylight) turn your flash on and check the shot.  This is called using “in-fill” flash.   With a bit of experimenting you’ll see that by keeping a good distance away from your subject the harsh flash light will disperse a bit and you’ll get a nice bit of light to lessen harsh shadows.

Well, that’s it.  To sum up the photography bit:

  • Semi-pro digital cameras give you more control over your shot, but a “point and shoot” can be made to work well – if you learn it’s abilities and experiment.
  • Closer and bigger is best with images.
  • Take control over depth of field, focus points and ISO speed as a bare minimum. It lets you make the important features of your shot stick out, and that means your image works harder to inform the viewer.
  • Your on-camera flash is more likely to ruin a shot when you are relatively close to your subject. However, using a flash outside in daylight can work in your favour when used as “in-fill” light.

Col Finnie
fini:OHS

SafetyAtWorkBlog becomes a LexisNexis top blog

On 26 October 2009, SafetyAtWorkBlog was informed that it has been considered “a LexisNexis Top 25 Blogs for Workers’ Compensation and Workplace Issues – 2009, in the Best International Blogs category”.

The site coordinator of LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation Law Center, Robin Kobayashi, provided this overview of the importance of the Top 25 Blogs:

The Top 25 Blogs contain some of the best writing out there on workers’ compensation and workplace issues in general.  They contain a wealth of information for the workers’ compensation community with timely news items, practical information, expert analysis, practice tips, frequent postings, and helpful links to other sites.

These blogsites also show us how workplace issues interact with politics and culture.  Moreover, they demonstrate how bloggers can impact the world of workers’ compensation and workplace issues.”

Specifically on SafetyAtWorkBlog, LexisNexis says

“Safety at Work Blog from Australia recognizes that workplace safety is both a business and social issue where workplace safety, human resources, industrial relations, organizational behavior, environment, quality management and social or psychological issues converge.

Safety at Work Blog seeks to break down the barriers of each discipline, providing thought-provoking blogs on a wide variety of topics from workplace safety to workers’ compensation to politics and much more.”

SafetyAtWorkBlog and all our contributors thank LexisNexis for this unexpected honour and are very proud.

We encourage all SafetyAtWorkBlog readers to look at the other top blogs that are listed HERE.

Kevin Jones

Why have a SafetyAtWorkBlog?

Some people have mentioned to me that they find blogs a mysterious thing.  It’s a media that is gaining attention from mainstream media, in fact, most mainstream media have embraced blogging to supplement the “official” media content in newspapers, journals and on television.  Some blogs have become an important source of news and commentary feeding into the mainstream media.

SafetyAtWorkBlog does not provide all the safety news that is happening in Australia or elsewhere.  In fact nobody is.  But what we can do is select those items of news that we think have a broad appeal to safety professionals.

Also, in Australia, there are only a handful of writers and journalists who specialize in writing on OHS issues and there are many events, conferences, seminars, talks, podcasts, books and other information sources that fall under the radar of mainstream media.  It is in this niche that SafetyAtWorkBlog exists.

Commentary

Blogs were original a web-based log or a web diary where people can put down their thoughts of the day.  But they have become so much more and the feature that is most overlooked by readers is the capacity to comment on the articles posted to a blog.

There is some resemblance to “Letters to the Editor” in traditional media where issues can be raised but, more importantly, readers can comment on the news of the day or the thoughts of columnists, and can clarify inaccurate opinions.

The ability to respond to articles is very important to SafetyAtWorkBlog because we do not know everything about our profession.  OHS is a discipline that continues to evolve just as rapidly as new hazards appear.  The expert who says they know everything is a fool, the smart professional learns all the time.  That is one reason why people read SafetyAtWorkBlog but the blog can be so much better when readers provide their own opinions, particularly if what is said in the blog is wrong in some way.

The best example of reader comments in this blog was the response from Peter Sandman to a piece on a book by Cass Sunstein.  Sandman says

“…a few comments in the review, though flattering to me, are misleading about Sunstein.”

He goes on to list the article’s shortcomings.  One comment from Sandman was then disputed by another reader, Thomas Durkin.

This dialogue showed a terrific level of opinion and provides a better understanding of Sunstein and his place in US politics and government regulation than the solitary review that generated the comments.

News

SafetyAtWorkBlog is not an OHS news service, one can get that from hundreds of news aggregators (the bane of Rupert Murdoch) on the web.  SafetyAtWorkBlog provides commentary and opinion on things that are happening in the OHS world.  If the opinion is wrong or the logic has severe shortcomings or the content is inaccurate, blogs provide the opportunity to correct the information or to balance the opinion.

We have ALWAYS encouraged people to comment on articles we post.  If we can start a debate or help clarify an OHS concept, that’s great.  But if you have something to say about what we say, email it in or post a comment.  Unless it is defamatory or nasty or rude, it will be included and any points made will be genuinely considered and pondered on.

Kevin Jones

Asbestos and corruption as a case study

Australia has been a major supplier of asbestos to the world for decades.  It has also been a major corporate beneficiary of the revenue for the sale of this poisonous material.

The latest situation in Melbourne is a good example of all that is wrong with asbestos and worker exposure.  According to reports in The Age newspapers in late October 2009, a property developer has allegedly offered $A57,000 to a safety officer on a hospital redevelopment project, allegedly, in order to turn a blind eye to the issue of asbestos at the site.  According to the newspaper reports, some in the industry have described this payment as a bribe.

In February 2006, the developer received a report from an independent consultant advising that asbestos be removed prior to demolition.  The developer removed most but not all.  It is in this patch of remaining asbestos that two workers dug through the concrete with a jack hammer and concrete saw, generating considerable dust from the concrete and the asbestos.  The workers were not wearing any protective masks.

Australia is dealing with the corporate immorality of James Hardie Industries, although there is much more that can be down.  Wittenoom is closed and has almost disappeared.  Companies are required to have an asbestos register for their properties.  Tasmania is to become free of asbestos by 2020.  There is a lot of activity, so much that the control of this poisonous material should not be handled in an ad hoc manner.  Governmental vision is required to commit to the removal of asbestos and the clean-up of contaminated sites.

It is an easy moral call for governments – the toxicity of asbestos is indisputable, the public health risks are known.  But it will cost.  Governments are in a similar bind as with climate change policy – decades of prosperity at the same time as not considering the health legacy of that wealth.

There is no such thing as an emissions trading scheme for asbestos.  It is suspected that, if at all, the government will need to apply surcharges or tax incentives for companies to support any initiative.  This always flows back to the consumers paying ultimately.  Anti-asbestos advocates can rightly feel angry at the fact that companies have benefited greatly from knowingly selling a toxic material, and  the same companies are likely to benefit again through the clean-up.  This may simply be the price we must pay for living in a society based on capitalism.  God help the new “capitalist” nations like China.

Kevin Jones

SafetyAtWorkBlog hopes to finalise a podcast with journalist and author, Matt Peacock, by the end of this week.  Peacock is the author of Killer Company

Safe Work Australia Week 2009 begins

The last week of October 2009 is Safe Work Australia Week.  The federal OHS authority sets an overall framework for the States’ OHS promotional activities.

A media statement in support of the week, reiterated the statistics –

“More than 260 Australians die as a result of work related injuries and over 135,000 are seriously injured every year.”

Below is a list of the links for each Australian State’s acitivities.

SWAW_generic_WEB

Not all employers are the same

Recently SafetyAtWorkBlog reported the umbrage that the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) felt about executive accountability, particularly in relation to OHS legislation.  On 25 October 2009 the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) provided an example that should stop generalisations about employer associations , at least for a little while.

Below are extracts of the significant statements made by ACCI and attributed to its CEO,  Peter Anderson:

“Safe Work Australia Week [is] an opportunity for employers and employees to step back and review their approach to ensuring safety within their workplace.

It is essential that at regular intervals time is taken to step back and take a fresh look at the bigger picture of workplace safety. Safe Work Australia Week presents an ideal opportunity to do so.

Company Boards and Senior Executive teams should regularly review their organisation’s strategy, culture, systems and commitment to workplace safety and make adjustments where needed. Safe workplaces are driven from the top.

However, managers, supervisors and all employees also need to take individual accountability for workplace safety. Workplaces with the best safety records have a culture of clear and shared accountability for safety from the first year apprentice to the Chief Executive.   This is built on the empowerment and obligation of all employees to openly discuss workplace safety, report hazards and incidents, and collaboratively find the most appropriate ways of managing risks.

It is important that in the midst of the current debate about harmonised OHS legislation, the focus on day-to-day workplace safety does not slip.   Legislation is not going to drive further improvements in OHS outcomes in Australia – people’s actions will.   Governments and industry must look for ways to further provide small business in particular with the tools, information, advice and encouragement to effectively manage the challenges and complexities faced in ensuring workplace safety.”

The risk with any national week of special day is that the focus is on a specific moment rather than seeing the issue being raised as one that is relevant for an entire year.  This is very much the problem with Safe Work Australia Week but it is not alone.

Significantly, ACCI makes a clear statement about executives being involved with the management of safety in their workplaces – the attitude and approach of “proactivity” the OHS model legislation is aiming at.

Equally significantly, ACCI discusses the individual accountability of everyone in a company for OHS.  It specifies the elements in support of accountability

  • open discussion or (OHS regulators would say) consultation;
  • hazard and incident reporting; and
  • collaboration.

ACCI is on familiar turf when it says legislation should not be the motivation for change on OHS but employers and other commercial organisations must realise that self-regulation has never been more of an unpopular concept than in the wake of the global financial crisis.  No one can trust business to do the right thing by shareholders, investors or employees.  They want government to make business accountable.

The capitalist ideology says that the wealth created by business is shared with the masses through social and financial structures.  ACCI is trying to rebuild the capitalist structure into a nice, friendly, warm and comforting capitalism because if it cannot, the government will impose social obligations on them.  If the ACCI and other commercial bodies can do this, it will be impressive but the question can be asked why capitalism became so ruthless in the first place and did various employer associations advise companies to act cautiously and keep capitalism in line with the social obligations everyone has?

Workplace safety is an easy indication of the heartlessness of capitalists – increase profits by rushing production and encouraging shortcuts in safety; or not taking the time to train workers well enough that they can work without being harmed.  But if capitalists are willing to try again and NOT follow the same pathways that have been shown to lead to economic destruction, then they should have our support.

Kevin Jones

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