Category: risk

WorkSafe Victoria Awards winners

On 29 October 2009, WorkSafe Victoria held its WorkSafe Awards event at  the Palladium Room at Melbourne’s Crown Casino.  SafetyAtWorkBlog attended as a guest.  All the winners were deserved and there are short profiles of some of the winners below.

WorkSafe Awards 2009 004The first award was for the Health & Safety Representative of the Year, won by Phyl Hilton.  Hilton was clearly honoured by the award and in his acceptance speech acknowledged that good OHS laws are “socially progressive” – a position that is rarely heard outside of the union movement or from non-blue-collar workers.  It is an element missing from many of the submission currently being received by Australian Government in its OHS law review.

Hilton presented as genuine and his commitment to the safety of his colleagues was undeniable.  Significantly, he thanked several WorkSafe inspectors for their support and assistance.  WorkSafe would have been chuffed but the comment which reinforced safety as a partnership.

WorkSafe Awards 2009 001The Best Solution to a Health and Safety Risk was given to Bendigo TAFE for a machine guarding solution.  Guards have become an unfashionable hazard control solution and often now seem to rely on new technology.  The chuck key guard was as hi-tech as an interlock device but one that the users of the lathes, almost all young workers, would not need any involvement with.  If chuck key remains in the place, the guard is out of position and the machine cannot start.  Simple is always the best.

The combination of beer and safety is a heady mix for Australians so the keg handler had a cultural edge on the other award finalists in the  category, Best Solution to Prevent Musculoskeletal Injuries.  The keg mover and the keg stacker seemed to be two different devices WorkSafe Awards 2009 002and it would have been great to have a single device but the stacking option was particularly interesting.  Many pub cellars are cramped and being able to stack beer kegs in a  stable fashion is attractive, and sensible.  The cross-support that is placed on top of each keg was, perhaps, the standout feature.  One can almost see the staring at the top of the keg by the designers and the creative cogs turning.  The best solutions always seem to be those where one asks “why didn’t I think of that?”

WorkSafe has placed a lot of attention on safety in the horse racing industry, particularly, as injuries received by jockeys and the killing of injured racehorses are in public view and therefore are highly newsworthy.

WorkSafe Awards 2009 003The attraction of this winner of Best Design for Workplace Safety is that the inventor has looked beyond PPE for jockeys to what a jockey is likely to hit when falling of a racehorse at speed.

The OHS law drafters should take note that this innovation has come from looking at “eliminating a hazard, at the source”, an important terminology omitted from the last Australia OHS law draft.  Would there have been the same level of innovation if the racing industry had done what was “reasonably practicable”?  It is very doubtful.

This post has focussed on individual achievement and physical solutions to hazards.  The awards for OHS committee and safety management systems are not detailed here as they are more difficult to quantify but for completeness, the Safety Committee of the Year went to RMIT – School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Bundoora East, the Best Strategy for Health and Safety Management went to the Youth Justice Custodial Services – Department of Human Services, Parkville for its program in Clinical Group Supervision.

Some of these solutions need to be viewed to fully understand their merit and it is hoped that SafetyAtWorkBlog will be able to post the videos of the winners and, more importantly, the other finalists, shortly.  Certainly the other finalists in the solutions categories deserve almost as much recognition.

Kevin Jones

WorkSafe Awards 2009 005

Health and Safety Representative of the Year

Recipient: Phyl Hilton – Toyota Motor Corporation, Altona

Phyl, who works as a toolmaker at Toyota’s Altona Plant, has been a health and safety representative for 10 years. Representing 27 members in the trades department within the Press shop, he takes a leading role in identifying opportunities for safety improvements in his workplace. Using a practical and collaborative approach, Phyl has played an integral part in many initiatives, including the design and construction of weld bay facilities, the procurement of portable fume extractors and the development of press plant policies in English and Japanese. Phyl was also part of the Traffic Management Control Working Party and the Working at Heights and Trades Hazard Mapping projects. He is committed to developing and driving safety knowledge among Toyota apprentices and actively mentors and coaches fellow health and safety representatives.

Best Design for Workplace Safety

Recipient: Bendigo Regional Institute of TAFE, Bendigo

Initiative: Lathe Chuck Guard

Bendigo Regional Institute of TAFE works with students and apprentices to prepare them for the workforce. An incident highlighted the risk of an operator forgetting to remove a key from the chuck on a lathe before turning it on. Working on lathes is a normal part of work in many businesses within the manufacturing industry. The chuck can spin at 1000rpm or more and this could cause the key to fly out from the machine with high force, creating a projectile that could result in serious injury to the operator or others close to the lathe. The Lathe Chuck Guard protects the operator by refusing to close if the key is left in the chuck. The guard is interlocked to ensure the lathe can only be started with the guard closed. Having a guard assists with providing a safe work environment within the TAFE workshop. The Lathe Chuck Guard is a simple, cheap, yet effective, way of reducing the risk of projectile keys. It is adaptable for a range of lathes across industries and will benefit other educational facilities and the wider manufacturing industry.

Best Solution for Preventing Musculoskeletal Injuries

Recipient: Cherry Constructions and Workright Safety Solutions, Seaford

Initiative: Keg Handling System

The Keg Handling System is a mechanical aid system to assist the hospitality industry. It consists of a keg lifter, trolley, ramp and stack safe crosses and is used for handling beer kegs. Keg handling has been a major issue in hospitality for several decades and is traditionally done by hand without the use of mechanical aids. The Keg Handling System seeks to improve the way kegs, which can weigh up to 67kg, are handled and reduce the risk of injury. The keg lifter can lift a keg, manoeuvre it into position and lower it to the floor or on top of another keg with minimal effort from the operator. The trolley can pick up a keg from any position so that it doesn’t have to be moved to meet the trolley. It has a locking device so the keg is fixed to the trolley. The stack safe crosses allow the kegs to ’nest‘ into each other, stopping them from toppling. The major risks associated with handling beer kegs are musculoskeletal injuries to the back, shoulders and arms, and crushing injuries. The automated and easy-to-manoeuvre system is readily used in small spaces and by a range of staff. This design can also be adapted for other industries to aid in lifting and transporting many items including gas bottles, oil drums and even large pot plants in nurseries.

Best Design for Workplace Safety

Recipient: Racing Victoria (Flemington), Dan Mawby and Delta-V Experts (North Fitzroy)

Initiative: Running Rails

Running rails have been a safety issue in the racing industry for many years, causing serious injuries to jockeys and horses involved in collisions. Track staff have also been hurt due to the manual handling required to set up and move rails. Designed and invented by Dan Mawby, tested by Delta-V Experts and used by Racing Victoria, this new lightweight durable UV-rated plastic running rail is a welcome replacement for the solid aluminium rails currently in use. The major improvement is that the horizontal rail doesn’t break from the impact of weight-bearing objects – instead, it elevates, springs and bends on impact. The design and flexibility of this rail system also has the ability to steer a horse back on track should light contact be made, therefore avoiding injury. The new Running Rail is in place at Flemington and Caulfield Racecourse and some training facilities.

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

Nice comparison on Directors’ complaints

In the Australian Financial Review in October 2009  there was an opinion piece (not available online) from the CEO of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD), John Colvin, expressing concerns about the accountability of directors under legislation including the proposed OHS laws in Australia.

According to a report by Adam Schwab in the Crikey newsletter of 23 October 2009 (also not freely available online), Colvin wrote in the AFR:

“There are more than 660 state and territory laws which impose personal liability on individual directors for corporate misconduct. That is, a director is liable because he is a director, even when he may not have had any personal involvement in the breach…”

Schwab writes

“The AICD noted, the NSW courts have taken a hard-line enforcing the deemed liability laws.  According to AICD data, between 2004 and 2008, 144 company directors were found guilty of OHS offences, of which 115 of those prosecutions occurred in NSW.”

Schwab then provides a comparison of risk that I wish I’d thought of:

“That means the proportion of directors convicted over these so-called onerous laws is 0.0068%.  To compare, there is roughly a 0.04% chance of someone being struck by lightning.  Therefore, based on the AICD’s own data, company directors are six times more likely to be hit by lightning than to be prosecuted.  It also shouldn’t be forgotten, directors’ liabilities are almost always covered by indemnity insurance and most prosecutions result in a mere financial penalty.

While the NSW OHS laws result in occasional harsh results, to extrapolate one set of allegedly ill-advised laws across the country is much like a cry of wolf.”

This perspective will be an important one to remember when considering the submissions being lodged with Safe Work Australia on the OHS model laws by 9 November 2009.   The corporate submissions particularly but also those from the OHS law firms that spruiker the exposure of company directors ruthlessly whenever OHS and accountability is discussed.

Some of us remember the “glory days” when industrial manslaughter was widely considered in some Australian States. (There is a noticeable absence of controversy of the industrial manslaughter law that is operating in the Australian Capital Territory)

Also important is the point that Schwab makes about indemnity insurance for Directors and Officers, a matter that has been discussed elsewhere in SafetyAtWorkBlog.

The amount of “get-out-jail-free” options available for directors should encourage more attention to alternative, non-financial penalties for breaches of OHS law.  Over the last 24 hours the United States has been talking about replacing executive cash remunerations with stocks so that director’s incomes are reliant on the share price of the corporation which, in turn, relates to the quality of leadership from the director.

As long as Australia’s principle OHS penalties involve money, directors can buy their way out of trouble.  If Australia’s Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, can face an entire country and apologise for the bad behaviour of others, and the bad policies of other governments in relation to the interaction with indigenous peoples, why should company directors not have a similar obligation when their poor management of a workplace kills someone?  If corporate executives are that keen on leadership, let’s see them apply some of the leadership that Rudd showed, and accept responsibility when they should.

Kevin Jones

Dusty switchboard safety alert

The Northern Territory’s WorkSafe authority issues safety alerts infrequently so each new one is worth considering.  The alert released on 20 October 2009 concerns dust in exposed switchboard installed in remote locations.

sa0200907_000The alert is worthy of attention for several reasons but one is that electrical work in isolated locations can often be less safe than similar tasks closer to urban areas.  Some tradespeople in remote locations do only what they deem is necessary which is not always safe.

The other issue is identified in the alert itself.  Dust in electrical circuits can be a hazard in many circumstances and should be considered when installing switchboards.  The environment in which the electrical work is to be undertaken is an important consideration not only for the worker or tradesperson but also for the occupant of the house or the user of the article of plant, in the longer term.

Sometimes real bulldust is a greater hazard than political “bulldust”.

Kevin Jones

CFMEU, IPA, Gretley Mine – political lessons

Readers outside of  New South Wales may vaguely remember that in 1996 four miners died in a coalmine in the Hunter Valley 0f New South Wales.  They may also remember that the was some press about the prosecution of some directors of the mining company.  It was one of those incidents and court cases that should have gained broader attention that it did.

As OHS stakeholders in Australia ponder the ramifications of the Government’s proposed Safe Work Bill, it is important to also ponder the legal legacy of the Gretley mine disasater.  It may provide non-NSW and non-mining readers with a better understanding of the resistance to the new harmonised laws from the mining industry in both New South Wales and Western Australia.

Cover ARTAndrewVickersOpinionPiece091009On 15 October 2009, Andrew Vickers of the Construction Forestry Mining & Energy Union used the Gretley saga as a justification to call for the harmoinised legislation and support systems to allow for variations to meet the special needs of the mining sector.

cover PHILLIPS 5.04925E-210RETLEYOn the other side of political fence, Ken Phillips of the Institute of Public Affairs, a conservative thinktank, produced a document about the politics of the Gretley saga.  The publication was supported by a video, available below. Phillips’ paper is a useful illustration of business’ opinions of the unions and New South Wales’ OHS legislation.  This legislation is a centrepiece to the ACTU and union movement’s concerns and opposition to many elements of the current draft Safe Work Bill.

Prominent sociologist, Andrew Hopkins, has written about the OHS management issues raised by the disaster and its aftermath.

SafetyAtWorkBlog believes that these political and safety resources can provide a primer to many of the issues being discussed in the current debate on OHS laws.

Kevin Jones

Changing weather conditions can present unexpected hazards

In the south-east corner of Australia, a drought has existed for over a decade.  This week in Melbourne, it has rained on and off for several days, changing the way the community is feeling.  Farmers are happy, owners of rain water tanks are happy, gardeners are happy, even commuters who have to relearn how to drive in the wet are less complaining.

Some months ago, I spoke to a mother whose two-year-old daughter had never seen a heavy rainstorm, thunder or lightning.  Early last year, a colleague and I looked out of an office building window on a 13th floor and saw smoke swirling round the city.  It turned out to be rain but we had not seen rain for so long that we mis-identified it.

This morning, I was removing money from an automatic teller in the street and I was dripped on from the leaking roof of the bank for the first time ever.  A local chemist had buckets on its floor to catch drips from the ceiling that they had never seen before.

Yesterday, 15 October 2009, a concrete pumper at a housing development site in Coburg sunk in some mud just enough to swing the pump’s hose into a worker, killing him.  Other media reports say that a stand of the pumper may have malfunctioned.

There are always many lessons from workplace deaths but one to be taken from this incident is that external factors to the actual tasks in hand must be considered.  Those factors, in this case weather and soil stability, can change within a work period and this variability of environment must be watched and anticipated.

Mud on a construction site is not a new hazard.  But if a hazard is not always  present or regularly encountered, it is easy to give it less attention.

Kevin Jones

Mobile phone cancer link still unclear

A new research study into the possible health effects if using a mobile phone remains inconclusive.  According to a report in the Journal of Clinical Oncology,

“The current study found that there is possible evidence linking mobile phone use to an increased risk of tumors from a meta-analysis of low-biased case-control studies.  Prospective cohort studies providing a higher level of evidence are needed.”

Basically this is saying there is a bit of evidence but more research is needed.  In the context of cancer risks from using mobile phones, status quo remains.

Although only the abstract of the research is available online for free, a long discussion is available at Australia’s ABC website. The significant issue in this article is that “high quality” research found evidence of a possible cancer link and “low-quality” research found none.

If one is not a medical researcher, as SafetyAtWorkBlog is not, this research provides no practical guidance for the reduction of risk.  In fact, it goes some way to fostering the layman’s suspicion of research.

If one has the task of minimising the (perceived) risk of receiving cancer for workers using mobile telephones, this study is useless.  In reducing the increasing concerns from staff about this occupational hazard, this study is useless.  The research does indicate that, at least, research is continuing but it adds nothing to the state of OHS knowledge needed to manage the potential hazard.

“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”* seems to fit the situation of mobile phones and cancer.

Kevin Jones

*  Both Carl Sagan and Donald Rumsfeld have used this phrase.  Allocate credit to whichever you choose

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