OHS – Page 482 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

OHS advertising

WorkSafe Victoria is marketing well by tweaking their OHS advertising messages to fit the economic or seasonal requirements of workers and workplaces. In mid-December 2008, the “Homecoming” ads have been updated to provide a more obvious link to people working during the holiday season.

John Merritt, CEO of WorkSafe, tries to link their two ongoing campaigns – Homecomings and young people at work in the media statement that accompanies the TV release of the ads. He said, on 15 December 2008,

“Employers at this time of year need to take exceptional care to ensure their people are properly trained, supervised and working in a safe way.

“This is particularly true of industries where there are many people taking jobs straight from school or university.

“With the working environment to become more frantic in the next couple of weeks, now is the time to ensure every workplace has the systems and procedures in place to minimise risk.”

This is true but does not seem to fit the media scheduling. The television ads began airing this week but

“The campaign will also run on radio, be shown on outdoor billboards and in cinemas from Boxing Day”

It seems odd to stagger the campaign through the first half of the summer break when the people taking on seasonal jobs, particularly in retail, are starting work prior to Christmas.

Also, previous campaigns aimed at young people have been criticised by some who say that television is not necessarily the best medium to communicate with the target age group. Others see the ad as advocating the wrong approach

John Merritt mentions in his statement above that now is the time for reviewing and updating safety systems and procedures. It could be argued that, in a practical sense, this is unlikely to occur so close to Christmas, when companies are winding down or operating frantically to beat the Christmas deadlines.

Many school leavers began their new, and first jobs, throughout November. This would have been the time when safety inductions were conducted and any other training provided.

The campaign certainly has considerable value and it is heartening that WorkSafe has committed to keeping the Homecoming campaign fresh but occasionally the communication strategy seems to hiccup.

For this posting, SafetyAtWorkBlog contacted WorkSafe to include a copy of the ad in this blog and other online OHS publications. This option wasn’t available at the time 0f posting and the video has yet to appear on YouTube. The posting will be updated when video is available.

Kevin Jones

Deaths in isolated work camp from tropical storm

It is relatively easy to manage a workplace in an urban environment. The buildings stay in one place, the neighbours are almost always the same and the weather bureau provides plenty of warnings. But in isolated areas, particularly in Australia, it seems the work environment is often more exposed. Certainly this was the case in mid-March 2007 when Cyclone George hit a railway construction camp killing several workers and injuring twenty.

The camp accommodation of demountable units, called dongas, were supposedly cyclone-proof. At the time, the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union said that administrative staff were evacuated but construction workers were directed to the dongas.

The owner of the worksite, Fortescue Metals Groups said on 11 December 2008 that it will fight 40 charges brought by Worksafe WA under the West Australian Occupational Health and Safety Act.

According to one media report:

“The charges include the failure to provide a safe work environment, failure to design and construct temporary accommodation and other buildings capable of withstanding a cyclone and failure to properly instruct and train workers.”

The installer of the demountable buildings, Sunbrood, had all charges dismissed.

The court case will continue in Western Australia in February and March next year.

Injury Reporting Rates

Government OHS policies are, more often than not, based on statistics. The most common statistic is workers’ compensation claims as they are trackable and involve money. Another is fatality data.

Many countries have an obligation on employers to notify the proper authorities if a serious injury has occurred. We know that in some countries injuries and deaths are under-reported. In the legal, and illegal, coal mines in China, sometimes workplace deaths are actively disguised, ignored or denied.

Just this week, a Vietnam news service reported on the lack of injury reporting identified by the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs’ Labour Safety Department, in Vietnam.

The report says that “only 7,000 companies reported work-related accidents” for 2008 and that this equates to only 10 per cent of the reportable accidents. Using the mathematical calculation skills of SafetyAtWorkBlog (an Arts graduate) that means that over 60,000 workplace injuries are not being reported.

Earlier this year a more explanatory article appeared which estimated 500 deaths each year form workplace incidents.

Perhaps there is some hope that if the government is aware of the lack of reporting, it can accommodate this in its national programme on labour protection, safety and hygiene that aims for a reduction of at least 5% in work incidents by 2010.

OHS impact of the Fair Work Australia Bill

Over the next few weeks, many Australian law firms are running information seminars on the government’s Fair Work Bill. This legislation will change the way that workplaces are managed, particularly in the area of personnel management.

The overlap with OHS will come through the increasingly contentious issue of “union right of entry”. Frequently unions request access to a site in order to investigate an OHS matter. This is a legitimate part of the tripartite consultative structure that underpins workplace safety.

Given that the National Review into Model OHS Law has already flagged Victoria’s OHS Act as a useful template, it is worth noting that Victoria went through the same right-of-entry concerns in the development of its 2004 OHS Act as the Fair Work Bill is generating now.

Victoria established a system of licensed union OHS delegates through the Court system in 2005. Earlier this year the CEO of WorkSafe Victoria, John Merritt said

the ARREO system had been working well since it was introduced in mid 2005.

Mr Merritt said only eight matters involving ARREOs have been reported to WorkSafe since this section of the Act (Part 8 – Sections 79 to 94) took effect in mid-2005.

In seminars prior to the 2004 Act, workplace lawyers, some who have gained considerable prominence since, warned that “the sky was going to cave in” once unions gained this level of access. It didn’t, but the law firms gained some new clients. This type of scaremongering is being repeated currently in the Australian press at the moment.

Yes, under the Fair Work Bill, unions can access a broader range of company data than ever before, including salary information of senior executives, as asserted in The Australian Financial Review, but there are considerable safeguards and limitations in place within the legislation. These safeguards have worked in relation to Victoria’s OHS laws and they will in industrial relations.

In terms of safety management, the establishment of a cooperative relationship with employees is the best way to minimise union involvement. It is also the best way to minimise the visits of the OHS regulators.

Remember that those who complain loudest are those with the most to fear.

Kevin Jones

“Pilgrim’s Plague” and workplace absenteeism

Last year, Sydney Australia hosted World Youth Day (WYD). In some ways Australia had not seen such a large influx of people from so many countries for a single event before. The Sydney Olympics had a high proportion of locals attending and the 1956 Melbourne Olympics never had the infrastructure to provide so many overseas visitors.

For several months after the 2008 World Youth Day, it was rumoured that the level of absenteeism in workplaces was very high. At the time of WYD there were several reports of quarantined pilgrims and the risk to public health of the Sydney population was assessed. (Peter Curson, professor of population and security in the Centre for International Security Studies at the University of Sydney wrote a discussion piece on this)

There were reports of influenza and viral gastroenteritis amongst pilgrims who were required to be quarantined.

The Medical Journal of Australia has released a report into the impact of World Youth Day on the emergency departments of hospitals (MJA 2008; 189 (11/12): 630-632). This study found minimal impact in this sector of the hospital care.

However, SafetyAtWorkBlog is not aware of any research having been done on the impact of World Youth Day on workplace absenteeism. The EMJA study correlates World Youth Day with hospital admissions but it would be useful to see a comparative study of workplace absenteeism in the weeks after WYD, during the incubation period of influenza in particular.

World Youth Day did seem to overlap with the existing flu season in Australia’s winter but those statistical peaks are well-established and it would be interesting to see if those peaks had increased just after World Youth Day.

If there were a correlation, cost estimates for hosting the event may need adjusting to include the reduced productivity due to the “pilgrim’s plague”.

Leading from the top on impairment

Advocates of safety culture regularly profess that it must be lead from the top of the corporate structure down. This applies a false definition of leadership. Leadership is innovation, understanding and support regardless of one’s position on the corporate ladder.

It is true that professing leadership and corporate goals should be supported by the appropriate actions but that is often the avoidance of hypocrisy rather than seeking active change. It must be acknowledged that leadership can also come from below – in the mail rooms, the cellars, the janitors and from the shopfloors.

Workers in many industries are subjected to random drug and alcohol tests. Often these apply to those workers who operate machinery or drive transport vehicles. And rightly so. These workers must undertake their tasks without any impairment of their cognitive functions. Impairment is a concept that the Australian union movement has struggled with for well over a decade mainly because in the industrial relations world this is close to being “fit for work” and how does one define that? It also has some relationship to “blaming the worker”. In occupational health and safety, it is seen as looking after one’s self whilst looking after others and the obligation to do this has existed for decades in OHS legislation.

Impairment is commonly discussed now in terms of driving while drunk or stoned or while using a mobile phone. But long before this there was “impaired judgement”. As well as being fit-for-work, people needed to be fit-to-think.

On 4 December 2008, the New South Wales Health Minister (and former Industrial Relations Minister) John Della Bosca rejected a proposal from the Rail, Bus & Tram Union (RTBU) to “to make breath-test kits available on a voluntary basis to MPs wanting to check their blood alcohol levels before they turn up for late night votes.”

It is reported that the RTBU secretary Nick Lewocki has said

“All rail workers are subjected to random drug and alcohol tests, an infringement on their personal lives that they are told is necessary due to the safety critical nature of their work. But driving the state is every bit as safety critical, and decisions our politicians make on issues as diverse as health, education and transport policy do affect public lives.”

Ignoring the political devilment of the RTBU, the comment focuses on being unimpaired when making decisions, regardless of the occupation, work task or corporate position. The Minister has been put in a difficult position where he can’t be seen as responding to union naughtiness but there is merit in leading from the top and making breath-test kits available. They are not suggesting random testing or mandatory testing but it is reasonable to expect important decision-makers to be fit-to-think and fit-to-decide.

Perhaps drug testing in the workplace would not be seen as the contentious issue it is if it had already been introduced in the boardroom. The gesture would not be as empty as the corporate leaders may think particularly leading into the season when sauce and ganders were traditionally eaten.

The insidiousness of “reasonably practicable”

WorkSafe Victoria recently released a guideline, or clarification, on what it considers to be the issues surrounding “employing or engaging suitably qualified persons to provide health and safety advice“.

SafetyAtWorkBlog remains to be convinced that such a process will lead to better safety outcomes in the small to medium-sized enterprises at which this program is aimed. The OHS legislation clearly states that the employer is the ultimate decider on which control measures to implement to address a workplace hazard. This is echoed in the WorkSafe guideline

“It is important to note that employing or engaging a suitably qualified person to provide OHS advice does not discharge the employer from their legal responsibilities to ensure health and safety as required under Part 3 of the OHS Act. This duty cannot be delegated.”

A business manager will weigh up the advice sought or given from a variety of sources and make a decision. A good business manager will take responsibility for the good or bad results of their decision. But they need to have a clear understanding of their obligations and Victoria’s legislation could be confusing.

The guideline says that

“Employers are expected to take a proactive approach to identify and control hazards in the workplace before they cause an incident, injury, illness or disease.”

This reitereates one of the safety principles in the 2004 OHS Act

“Employers and self-employed persons should be proactive, and take all reasonably practicable measures, to ensure health and safety at workplaces and in the conduct of undertakings.”

But the principles are not legislative obligations. As Michael Tooma writes in his “Annotated Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004”

“… it is the intention of the Parliament that the principles be taken into account in the administration of the Act.”

The principles are there for judicial colour and community reassurance but with no real impact.

The obligations on an employer, the section that determines the actions and plans of the business owner or managers, are, as well as general duties:

“Duties of employers to employees

(1) An employer must, so far as is reasonably practicable, provide and maintain for employees of the employer a working environment that is safe and without risks to health……..

(2) Without limiting sub-section (1), an employer contravenes that sub-section if the employer fails to do any of the following-

(a) provide or maintain plant or systems of work that are, so far as is reasonably practicable, safe and without risks to health;

(b) make arrangements for ensuring, so far as is reasonably practicable, safety and the absence of risks to health in connection with the use, handling, storage or transport of plant or substances;

(c) maintain, so far as is reasonably practicable, each workplace under the employer’s management and control in a condition that is safe and without risks to health;

(d) provide, so far as is reasonably practicable, adequate facilities for the welfare of employees at any workplace under the management and control of the employer;

(e) provide such information, instruction, training or supervision to employees of the employer as is necessary to enable those persons to perform their work in a way that is safe and without risks to health. “

The “as far as is reasonably practicable” insertions allow business considerable flexibility in arguing the validity of their decisions after an incident but hamper the employer in being “pro-active” – (a hateful and lazy piece of business jargon).

The impediments to “pro-activity” can be seen in the general duties of Section 20 where

“to avoid doubt, a duty imposed on a person…to ensure, as far is reasonably practicable, health and safety requires the person –

(a) to eliminate risks to health and safety so far as is reasonably practicable:…..”

This contrasts with the objects of the, same, Act which states that one of the aims is

“to eliminate, at the source, risks to the health, safety and welfare of employees and other persons at work:…”

It is strongly suspected that a crucial element of OHS legislation and management will likely disappear and this is to eliminate hazards “at the source”. Outside of the objects of the Act this aim is not mentioned anywhere else in the legislation. “Reasonably practicable” will erase this important social and moral clause.

Eliminating something “at the source” encourages research into new ways of eliminating hazards by placing an obligation on us to determine the source. “Reasonably practicable” encourages us to research control measures until it is practicable to do so no more. That is a half-quest that solves nothing. What if Frodo was asked to dispose of the ring in Mordor only if “reasonably practicable”? The story would have been a novella instead of a classic trilogy.

Employer associations are lobbying for increased workplace flexibility. That has nothing to do with the health and safety benefits of the employees but rather the health and safety of the balance sheet. “Reasonably practicable” similarly focuses on business management and not safety management.

The battle against this insidious weakening of the OHS profession is not lost. Heart should be taken from the preparedness of governments to roll-back unpopular legislation such as some industrial relations initiatives. Hindsight can be an important motivator for change.

Recent fatalities data may sway some in government that OHS regulators are achieving their social and operational targets but OHS professionals know that fatality rates are not an accurate indication of the success of safety initiatives. New workplace hazards are appearing regularly and many of the new ones don’t result in death but lead instead to misery and an incapacity to live a healthy life or to work again in a chosen profession.

“Reasonably practicable” allows businesses to try, in differing degrees, to eliminate the hazards, such as psychosocial hazards, of its workforce and then shift them to social security and disability benefits. And why not? It seems that corporations can serve their clients and stakeholders “as far as is reasonably practicable” and then expect a bailout from government over their mismanagement. Immorality applies to much more than economics.

Category: OHS

OHS advertising

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Deaths in isolated work camp from tropical storm

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Injury Reporting Rates

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OHS impact of the Fair Work Australia Bill

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“Pilgrim’s Plague” and workplace absenteeism

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Leading from the top on impairment

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The insidiousness of “reasonably practicable”

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