research – Page 164 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

SafetyAtWorkBlog gets praise for independence

Today, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) released a four-page document criticising the campaigning techniques and statistical foundation of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU). Nothing unique in that ideological battle, however, what grabbed our attention was that SafetyAtWorkBlog is mentioned specifically.

I contacted the ACCI this morning and thanked them for reading the blog and for describing SafetyAtWorkBlog as a “respected website”. We’ll accept praise from anyone as our major indicator of success mainly comes from the steady increase in our readership statistics.

The ACCI makes considerable mileage out of a SafetyAtWorkBlog article that discusses the survey results that the ACTU released in support of some of its campaigning for further changes in the national OHS laws that are currently being drafted.

Several comments are useful in relation to the ACCI paper

SafetyAtWorkBlog obtained the survey results by requesting them through the ACTU and being provided them by Essential Media. We have a policy on any media releases that quote statistics. If the statistics are not readily available, or at least the relevant OHS parts of survey results, we do not usually report on the issues raised or we make a point of stating that the statistical assertions are not able to be verified.

The ACCI paper echoes many of the points raised in the blog article. Our main point was to question the wisdom of using statistics as support for a campaign when the statistics do not, necessarily, support the campaign objectives, or, in the least, may provide alternative interpretations.

The Essential Media report provided to SafetyAtWorkBlog could have been more detailed and the ACCI certainly wants more than we have seen. Releasing such a paper criticising the ACTU for not sharing research data puts the ACCI in a position now where it cannot deny the public release of its research data, at least, on matters relevant to OHS. The questions from ACCI have set a precedent for openness and information sharing.

Whether marching in the streets in support of an OHS campaign is effective, or warranted, or not is almost a moot point. Many of the televisions stations covered the union marches in Australia earlier this week. The 7.30 Report felt there was enough of a profile raised by the union campaign that it followed up many of the concerns raised with a long article in its show on 8 September 2009. The media exposure has been able to further raise the profile of OHS as a contentious issue that is being acted upon by government. It should raise the “seven out of ten” OHS awareness factor, quoted by the ACCI, a few points at least.

Given the criticism of the ACTU, one could genuinely ask, how the ACCI is increasing awareness of OHS matters in the community as well as its membership? It is not expected out in the streets but the occasional media release or four-page rebuttal does not have the same affect as a march of hundreds of people on the television.

In all of this to-ing and fro-ing, SafetyAtWorkBlog takes pride in its independence and as a forum for expressing views on a social and industrial issue that has only ever before been discussed by political ideologues from fixed perspectives.

Perhaps safety professionals could apply the wisdom of Oscar Wilde to safety

“The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.”

It seems to me that OHS has not been talked about for far too long.

Kevin Jones

NZ proposes new exposure levels on formaldehyde

The New Zealand of Department of Labour is continuing its negotiations on new exposure levels for formaldehyde.

The latest proposed exposure levels for formaldehyde are 0.3 ppm (8 hour TWA) and 0.6 ppm (STEL). Currently the levels in New Zealand are 1ppm (ceiling).

According to US OSHA, it’s exposure standard is

1910.1048(c)(1)

TWA: The employer shall assure that no employee is exposed to an airborne concentration of formaldehyde which exceeds 0.75 parts formaldehyde per million parts of air (0.75 ppm) as an 8-hour TWA.

1910.1048(c)(2)

Short Term Exposure Limit (STEL): The employer shall assure that no employee is exposed to an airborne concentration of formaldehyde which exceeds two parts formaldehyde per million parts of air (2 ppm) as a 15-minute STEL.

WorkSafe BC says

BC‘s current 8-hour TWA of 0.3 ppm is well below levels capable of causing adverse health effects and protects the worker from the pungent, unpleasant odour of formaldehyde.

NZ DoL is also discussing dropping there exposure levels for soft wood dust from 5mg/m3 to 1mg/m3.

The cancer risks of formaldehyde have been investigated over some time and the weight of evidence shows that this chemical is a probable human carcinogen.

Kevin Jones

Australian stun gun review report

Coincidentally after the SafetyAtWorkBlog article on the Braidwood Inquiry, the Queensland government investigation into the use of stun guns by police officers has been leaked to an Australian newspaper a day before the official release.

According to a media story in The Australian on 4 September 2009:

The joint Crime and Misconduct Commission-police review, launched after the June heart-attack death of north Queensland man Antonio Galeano, has ordered an overhaul of police training and operational policy, requiring the stun guns to be used only when there is a “risk of serious injury”.

The review, to be released today and obtained exclusively by The Australian, marks the first time an Australian authority has recognised the possibility the stun guns can injure or kill, especially when fired repeatedly at a person.

Within eight hours of the story above being released, a report, again in The Australian, but by a different writer, says:

“A CMC spokeswoman said the contents of the report were yet to be released but claims the weapons would be banned were untrue.”

The confusing reports may say more about journalism than stun guns but it also indicates the extreme sensitivity about the use of these items by emergency and security officers.

SafetyAtWorkBlog will include a link to the Queensland report once it has been publicly released.

Kevin Jones

UPDATE – Report released

The Queensland report into stun gun use has been released and is now available for download.

Meditation is a proven stress reduction method for workplaces

Meditation is not on the regular agenda at SafetyAtWorkBlog. If there was time to meditate, the time would probably be spent losing weight in the gym but there is fascinating research that provides some evidence of meditation’s benefit in reducing work-related stress.

At the Safety Conference in Sydney at the end of October 2009, Dr Ramesh Manocha of Sydney’s Royal Hospital for Women will release research that

“found that after eight weeks of mental silence meditation training called sahaja yoga, occupational stress scores improved [decreased?] 26 per cent. A non-mental silence relaxation program reaped a 13 per cent gain, while a waiting list control group lifted just 1 per cent.”

The language sounds slightly “new-age” but what makes the difference in this circumstance is that the initial research was undertaken with three groups mentioned above and, importantly, with a control group.

Below is a TV interview with Dr Manocha on the first stage of research.

When looking at workplace stress, people reduce stressors but Dr Manocha says this often requires impossible organisation restructuring due to internal political pressures. These techniques can be applied on a personal level that employees can take with them through their various life-stages.

Dr Manocha then applied the meditation training in real corporate situations. According to a media release provided in the lead-up to the conference:

“In a later field trial of mental silence meditation by 520 doctors and lawyers, more than half of the participants whose psychological state (K10) scores indicated they were “at risk” were reclassified as “low risk” after two weeks of meditation.”

It’s the application of this meditation in the workplace context that gained the attention of SafetyAtWorkBlog and what will be presented at the conference. The gentle skepticism evident in the TV interview above is understandable but in a time when safety professionals demand evidence, we must look seriously at evidence when it is presented.

More information on The Safety Conference is available HERE.

Kevin Jones

Australian survey on attitudes to OHS and laws

Firstly there is an apology for having statistics dominate SafetyAtWorkBlog this week however everything became available all at once.

An earlier article mentioned some recent OHS statistics that have been released by the Australian Council of Trade Unions. Below is the SafetyAtWorkBlog interpretation of the survey report.

The survey was undertaken by an independent research firm using a representative sample of the Australian population. It was not taken, like some previous ACTU surveys, from the trade union membership exclusively. In some respects the generality makes the survey results more interesting and some more broadly relevant.

67% of respondents were not aware that the governments are coordinating the standardisation of OHS laws.

67% believe that workplace safety is important, but only 40% see it as “very important”.

85% were not aware that workplace deaths (quoted from an unreferenced Government report) are “four times the annual road toll”.

80% think more should be done about OHS. However, if this question was asked after the previous one that compares workplace death to the road toll, the high response is not unexpected. Also the report gives no indication of who is expected to do something about OHS – government? employer? individual? sea urchins?

The issue of “red tape” was specifically asked in the question. It would have been interesting to have the question remain at just its core so it was a clear agree or disagree response:

“Do you agree or disagree that employers should have to do more to protect the health and safety of their workers (even if it means more costs or red tape for their business)?”

69% said that if they are injured at work, they should be able to take court action under OHS laws against an employer.

One would have to ask the purpose of this question. Don’t people trust that OHS regulators would take legal action on the part of the injured workers?

Not all the questions in the survey report are mentioned above but lets take away the trade union context of the survey results for the moment.

OHS regulators claim that their extensive and expensive advertising campaigns are generating an increased awareness of OHS in the community. Two thirds of a population believing OHS is important is a good result but how much of this awareness has been generated by government advertising, increased media reporting of incidents, union activism or some other reason? An analysis or further research would be useful.

Workplace deaths occur more often than road fatalities. Is this a fair comparison? Driving a car on a country road is a very different activity to driving a forklift in a cold store, for instance.

More should be done about workplace safety but would the respondent take on the responsibility themselves? A clarification of this response would have occurred by comparing it with the employer question above, without the red tape distraction. But what would the union movement had said to a response that may indicate an overall happiness with how employers manage safety?

The Australian trade union movement has continued its campaign against the operation of harmonised OHS laws by marches on 1 September. The first draft of the harmonised OHS laws will be available in a couple of weeks. Around a month after that is Safe Work Australia Week. The next two months promise to be a busy period of heightened debate (or lobbying and spin) on OHS laws.

Kevin Jones

SafetyAtWorkBlog would like to thank the ACTU for making the survey report available and we look forward to many more surveys from unions and employer groups that hopefully clarify people’s attitudes and approaches to safety.

I’m left handed. Am I safe?

Recently a New Zealand OHS discussion forum carried a request for people to participate in research to determine whether “handedness” – whether one was left- or right-handed – could be a contributory factor in being injured at work.

The survey period has closed. Robyn Parkin, the researcher, and SafetyAtWorkBlog agreed not to post about the research until now, as Robyn wanted to survey New Zealanders. Robyn describes her research project as looking at

“…whether New Zealand companies consider handedness as a potential contributing factor for accidents, and if so, what size companies are more likely to consider this factor”

Robyn is concerned that the design of workplaces, workstations and plant may not have considered the way a left-handed person, for instance, may operate a machine, or whether the emergency stop can only be reached with one’s right hand.

Left-handedness exists in around 10% of the population and there are many OHS or community designs that accommodate the needs a similar small minority. As with many other reseacrh projects, Robyn’s investigation into the potential role of handedness at work causes all of us to look at our own workplaces from a fresh perspective. And that has got to be good.

Robyn is happy to discuss her research with others by email.

Kevin Jones

Australian Statistics – Part 4 – Shiftwork

Safe Work Australia has released four statistical reports into worker health in Australia. These are important and useful reports that will assist many companies and safety professionals to better address workplace hazards.

The last of the four statistical reports looks at shiftwork.

The impact of shiftwork on work-related injuries in Australia

The main findings of this report are summarised below:

In 2005–06, 16% of Australian workers worked under shift arrangements yet they had 27% of the work-related injuries.

Shiftworkers had higher rates of work-related injury than non-shiftworkers.

Incidence rates

Shiftworkers: 114 injuries per 1000 shiftworkers

Non-shiftworkers: 60 injuries per 1000 non-shiftworkers

Frequency rates

Shiftworkers: 69 injuries per million hours worked

Non-shiftworkers: 35 injuries per million hours worked

Female shiftworkers had higher frequency rates of work-related injury than male shiftworkers. This finding is counter to the rates of work-related injury in male and female non-shiftworkers.

Shiftworkers

Female: 81 injuries per million hours worked

Male: 62 injuries per million hours worked

Non-shiftworkers

Female: 31 injuries per million hours worked

Male: 37 injuries per million hours worked

Female shiftworkers were particularly at risk of work-related injuries in Clerical, sales and service occupations, while male shiftworkers were particularly at risk in Labourer and related worker occupations.

Both shiftworkers and non-shiftworkers were more likely to incur work-related injuries during their first six months of employment than after their first six months of employment. Furthermore, a greater proportion of injuries that occurred to shiftworkers occurred in the first 6 months of employment than occurred to non-shiftworkers in the same initial period of employment.

The frequency rate of work-related injuries that occurred to shiftworkers is negatively related to normal working hours: Shiftworkers that worked only a few shifts per week had considerably higher frequency rates of work-related injury compared to shiftworkers (and non-shiftworkers) whose normal working hours were between 35 and 40 hours per week.

Shiftworkers who worked less than 30 hours per week were typically young (less than 25 years old) and large proportions worked in Elementary clerical, sales and service worker, Intermediate clerical, sales and service and Labourer and related worker occupations.

High incidence rates of injury were not due to lack of Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) training. More shiftworkers received OHS training than not, and a greater proportion of shiftworkers received OHS training than non-shiftworkers.

Category: research

SafetyAtWorkBlog gets praise for independence

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NZ proposes new exposure levels on formaldehyde

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Australian stun gun review report

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Meditation is a proven stress reduction method for workplaces

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Australian survey on attitudes to OHS and laws

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I’m left handed. Am I safe?

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Australian Statistics – Part 4 – Shiftwork

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