risk – Page 149 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

How safe is unsafe?

Across the street from an office in Melbourne, a pub is installing a roof area for entertaining. The work has gone smoothly as far as one can see but the position of the platform ladder in the corner of the roof was curious. If someone was working from the ladder and wobbled, it would be possible to not only fall a couple of metres to the roof but perhaps over the roof’s edge to the pavement two storeys below.

The worker in the front of this picture was moving to erect another platform ladder towards the front of the roof.

The second picture shows the worker on that platform ladder. Similar risks of wobbling and falling over the roof’s edge.

How safe is unsafe? There is the potential for the worker to fall from the ladder to the street some distance below but he didn’t. So was his positioning of the ladder and work undertaken safe?

Kevin Jones

The smell of ‘corruption’

Such are the warning signs

It stopped at 2.32 pm of an ordinary day. One string of events ended abruptly at the pinch point of a groaning conveyor belt when his arm was ripped off. Do you think of Swiss cheese models of risk alignment? Of complexity or failure to learn? Of the Moura coal mine disaster, the Longford oil and gas plant disaster, the Baker report and the BP Texas City refinery fatalities, of 29 miners killed in the desolate and terrorising Pike River coal mine, NZ, 2010? Do you think of precariousness lurking at work, of leadership, of productivity?

For me this was the 5^th arm I was personally aware of disappearing violently at work, generating years of withdrawal and solitude unrecorded in any OHS statistics. In that time I had also observed hundreds of missing or useless machine guards. Such a well known and easy hazard to fix. What exactly is the problem, what does it indicate about OHS generally, and what may go some way towards practical improvements? Continue reading “The smell of ‘corruption’”

NSW follows Victoria’s lead on construction industry safety code

Tower Crane In 2012, the Victorian Government introduced a construction industry compliance code intended to control industrial relations in that industry sector. Significantly, this Code included specific work health and safety (WHS) obligations. On 6 December 2012. the New South Wales Government, led by the Liberal Premier Barry O’Farrell proposed a similar code with exactly the same WHS obligations.

In Premier O’Farrell’s media release, the Minister for Industrial Relations Mike Baird made no mention of the WHS obligations. The statement focuses on containing wages, controlling potential cost blowouts on infrastructure projects and, without mention it by name, productivity. Minister Baird missed a golden opportunity to argue both the economic and moral positions; an opportunity that was not missed by the Victorian Minister for Finance Robert Clark when he announced his State’s construction compliance code in July 2012. Continue reading “NSW follows Victoria’s lead on construction industry safety code”

First look at Australia’s workplace bullying report

Australia’s Parliamentary Inquiry into Workplace Bullying has released its report that includes 23 recommendations and a dissenting report from the Coalition (conservative) committee members.

The first recommendation that most will look forward is the latest workplace bullying definition. The committee suggests:

“repeated, unreasonable behaviour directed towards a worker or group of workers, that creates a risk to health and safety”.

This is no great shake from most of the previous definitions but illustrates further the isolation of Victoria from nationally harmonised work health and safety laws as WorkSafe Victoria’s preferred definition is

“… persistent and repeated negative behaviour directed at an employee that creates a risk to health and safety.”

Regardless of which definition is “better”, Victoria will be further out-of-sync.

The Committee also recommends the Government

“develop a national advisory service that provides practical and operational advice on what does and does not constitute workplace bullying..”

This is sorely needed and will relieve State OHS regulators of the pressure and the resources. No timeline is mentioned but it is likely that the Federal Government will move to establish such a service quickly, as the recommendation is not surprising.

However, the opposition political mantra for any government initiative is how it will be funded. Continue reading “First look at Australia’s workplace bullying report”

Chronic asbestos deaths, sudden mining disasters – both indicate deep corporate problems

It is less than a week until the premiere of Devil’s Dust, a movie about asbestos in Australia and the corporate maneuverings of James Hardie Industries to minimise its exposure to compensation claims but its lessons spread beyond asbestos to politics, corporate responsibility and individual morality.

In a recent article on the movie, the depiction of then New South Wales Premier, Bob Carr, was mentioned. The politics of asbestos is well shown in the Carr depiction. The asbestos issue seemed to have little importance until a political value was placed on the issue. Carr, a Labour Party politician, then acted, met people affected by asbestos-related diseases and made clear statements of moral significance about asbestos and corporate responsibility.

Recently Crikey reminded its readers of some comments on asbestos compensation from 2007. Apparently, the now-Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party, Julie Bishop stated

“I have enormous sympathy for those who suffered asbestos-related diseases,” she said in a statement to The Australian. “There were members of the CSR executive management team who also died of asbestos-related diseases who had worked at Wittenoom.

“As one of the lawyers in the case, I acted ethically and professionally at all times in accordance with client instructions.” [link added]

There is no doubt that Bishop acted ethically and professionally in her role as a lawyer but by 2007, the issue of asbestos exposure and compensation had moved to a moral basis. Are companies who resist providing compensation for illnesses caused by their products being heartless or responsible corporate citizens? Continue reading “Chronic asbestos deaths, sudden mining disasters – both indicate deep corporate problems”

Half bored and tired to death

They both nodded in agreement when she said, “I’m half bored to death in this job, nearly had it”. Both women were freezing, sitting outside in the covered area. Their fingers blue.

The short morning break. You hurry, you panic, get a quick hot drink, a cigarette, quickly back into it. Hour after hour after hour “for the last 20 years” she said. From 5 am when she gets up to do things before rushing to work to start at 7 am. Rush back home at 3 pm to pick up ‘the youngan-whydidIdoit’ as she said of her late in life baby. She looked about 40.

Of course workplace fatalities and injuries are heart breaking tragedies. People work to earn a living, this is not a war zone. But the more common issues at work, those that grind people hour by hour for decades of their one single life are not to do with that.

They are to do with what in polite text will spawn dots. It’s to do with the daily tiredness, humiliation and wall-to-wall disrespect experienced by so many workers on a daily basis. It’s to do with that exhausting sense of, ‘I’ve just about had enough’. It’s to do with what I call F..kwit Fatigue. Continue reading “Half bored and tired to death”

Truly acknowledging failure provides a strong base for improvement

When one fails in safety management, people can get hurt or die, yet safety professionals and business executives rarely acknowledge this failure, even though companies may plead guilty in court. Instead “mistakes” are made, “deficiencies” are identified and investigations uncover “areas for improvement” but these are rarely described as “failures”.

October 13 was the International Day For Failure (IDFF), a day that is intended to provide a structure for the discussion of failure and how we respond to, and cope with, failure. The quote that most summarises the day is

“Failure is not the enemy, the fear of failure is”.

Part of the impediment for growth in safety management is that people are encouraged to deny liability for their actions. Executives receive legal advice to say as little as possible and to keep as much as possible under legal-client privilege. This is anathema to the principles of safety management that require failures to be acknowledged and for new preventive strategies to be developed. Yes, shit happens but safety management is particularly required to not let the shit happen twice. Continue reading “Truly acknowledging failure provides a strong base for improvement”

Category: risk

How safe is unsafe?

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The smell of ‘corruption’

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NSW follows Victoria’s lead on construction industry safety code

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First look at Australia’s workplace bullying report

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Half bored and tired to death

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Truly acknowledging failure provides a strong base for improvement

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