According to the Toronto Police, four workers died on December 24 2009 when the swing stage they were working on collapsed. A fifth man, Dilshod Marupov, is in hospital.
Media reports have identified the five workers as migrant workers and although the swing stage was at the thirteenth floor of an apartment complex, no-one was wearing safety harnesses. Continue reading “Migrant workers’ deaths on Christmas Eve”
The Safety Institute‘s OHS Professional magazine for December 2009 included an article (originally published in an OHS newsletter from Piper Alderman for those non-SIA members) about the application of legal professional privilege using a New South Wales Industrial Relations Commission decision as its basis (Nicholson v Waco KwikForm Limited). The case received considerable attention by OHS law firms. Continue reading “Legal professional privilege and safety management”
Judith Hackett, Chair of the UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE), reviews the performance of the agency in the December podcast produced by the agency. Transcript is available online
The podcast provides a positive outlook for the HSE which one would expect. Hackett talks about the need for the HSE to dispel the myths that have been promoted throughout the media and the lack of credibility of the regulator discussed by many in the UK, such as Jeremy Clarkson. Continue reading “HSE Chair’s review of 2009”
“Common sense” is a phrase regularly used to describe workplace health and safety. More often than not the term is used dismissively. This is part of the reason that the OHS profession struggles for legitimacy and why there is a constant sense of frustration in the profession and OHS regulators. Continue reading “Safety is more than common sense”
The New Zealand Department of Labour has released a media statement about the prosecution reported on yesterday but
“The Department will not name either the parties or the specific charges until the charges reach court.”
This may be an indication of the political sensitivities of the prosecution.
A representative of the Orewa College Board of Trustees, Phil Pickford,was interviewed by New Zealand Radio on 21 December 2009. The interview is available online.
Pickford states that he is proud of the OHS systems that are in place at Orewa College and places Orewa in the top 10% of schools for OHS performance.
It is difficult for anyone to make public statements on an OHS prosecution without knowing who has been charged and with what.
From SafetyAtWorkBlog’s perspective, regardless of any action taken by the DoL, it would have been expected that both the school and the Education Department would have undertaken their own investigations in to the death of one of their own employees, if for no other reason than to stop a similar occurrence in other schools.
A TV report of the explosion from mid-2009 is available online.
A very popular posting at SafetyAtWorkBlog has been Col Finnie’s piece on taking photographs for OHS purposes. An edited version of Col’s article was published, with authorisation, in the 19 November 2009 edition of Accident Prevention e-News which is now available online.
Our thanks goes to editor Scott Williams, firstly, for reading SafetyAtWorkBlog and secondly for going through due process in seeking a reprint of the blog article.
Col has been an important addition to the small group of SafetyAtWorkBlog contributors and we hope to see more of his articles in 2010.
SafetyAtWorkBlog has not reported on the asbestos compensation problems faced by James Hardie Industries directly because in 2009, the issue is one of corporate responsibility more so than workplace safety. The reality is that asbestos kills and victims deserve compensation. The fact that asbestos companies are avoiding their responsibilities is of little surprise.
In Australia, most of the focus has been on James Hardie due, principally, to its corporate conduct to the Australian stock exchange and its prosecution by the financial regulators. But another asbestos miner and building product manufacturer is at the Australian Courts in December 2009.
In some ways, CSR Limited is the more notorious asbestos manufacturer due to its operation of the Wittenoom asbestos mine. It could be said that CSR is the James Hardie of the 1980s.
According to a media report in the Sydney Morning Herald, CSR is planning to demerge but the Federal Court has been told that the Australian Securities & Investments Commission believes that insufficient allowance has been made in the strategy for asbestos compensation.
CSR is splitting its sugar and renewable energies divisions away from the building products division where the compensation is likely to sit. The sugar business will be called Sucrogen.
For those who do watch the corporate manoeuvrings of asbestos manufacturers, CSR’s actions should be familiar but those new to the issue should look beyond James Hardie to gain fuller appreciation of asbestos and capitalism.
For a global perspective on the whole industry it is hard to go past “Defending the Indefensible” by Jock McCulloch and Geoffrey Tweedale.