statistics – Page 28 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

What’s really causing the reduction of Australian injury rates?

Elsewhere in SafetyAtWorkBlog is a summary of the recent statistics released by the Australian Safety & Compensation Council. Overall the injury trends are positive but it is worth looking at the report a little closer.

On page viii, the report says

“Due to large increases in employment, incidence rates fell 16%, from 18 serious claims per 1000 employees in 2000–01 to 15 in 2005–06 and frequency rates fell 14% from 11 serious claims per million hours worked to 9.” [my emphasis]

The ASCC has identified this particular trend, the fall in incidence rates, to labour force variations, not necessarily due to any of the enforcement policies or marketing of the OHS regulators.

Australia is currently bemoaning the loss of manufacturing industry offshore, principally to south-east asia and China. This will inevitably skew the workplace injury rates as with less heavy industry there is less work activity and less injuries.

There are all sorts of ways of measuring performance, of finding positive indicators, and indicators that are proportional are favoured – percentage reductions by specific industries, for instance.

All of this may look good for the OHS regulators and economic statisticians but those who glance over statistics for a general impression should consider that Australia is exporting a large part of its homegrown manufacturing industry. The industry that we have from overseas, such as the automotive industry, is collapsing. (There are persistent rumours that, regardless of the US bailouts, General Motors, will disappear or have its Australian subsidiaries being nationalised by the Australian government.)

Australia is, in effect, exporting those industries with the highest long-term injury rates. As the Compendium indicates (p.11) in 2007-8 the most hazardous industries remained agriculture and construction, industries that we cannot export.

National OHS Strategy

The ASCC figures differ from those used to measure the performance of the ten-year National OHS Strategy 2002-2012. The strategy set a reduction target of 40% on figures for work-related injuries with a 20% reduction by June 2007. The Compendium reports:

“Data from the recently released Comparative Performance Monitoring Report, 10th Edition shows that the 16% improvement recorded from the base period up to 2006–07 is below the rate of improvement required to meet the target of a 40% reduction by June 2012.” (p 11)

The OHS regulators have failed to meet their midway target even though the country has seen one of the most expensive safety awareness campaigns in its history and with a major reduction in the manufacturing industries. No wonder some of them are falling back on the old-school, and expensive, measures of increased inspection and more robust enforcement.

The risk of setting any target is how to account for the failure to reach it. Keep your eyes open for the preparative work by the regulators’ marketing departments on turning failure into triumph, or at least in making it into an “SEF” – someone else’s fault.

Kevin Jones

Latest Australian OHS Statistics

Below is an edited summary of the findings from the latest compendium of statistics issued by the Australian Safety & Compensation Council. The stats relate to 2006-07 primarily but with some comparative data from 2000-01 onwards. The full report is available for download as is a media statement from the Council Chairman, Bill Scales.

132 055 serious workers’ compensation claims in 2006-07 = to 14 claims per 1000 employees or 9 claims per million hours worked.

Men accounted for 68% of all serious claims

Incidence rates for male employees almost twice that of females

There were 9 claims per 1000 employees aged 15-19 years, which increased to 17 claims per 1000 employees aged 60-64 years.

“The Manufacturing, Transport and storage, Agriculture, forestry and fishing, and Construction industries had incidence rates substantially above the national rate of 14 claims per 1000 employees.”

The occupational group with the highest incidence rate of serious claims was Labourers and related workers (39 claims per 1000 employees).

Transport workers and some others had the second highest rate with 29 claims per 1000 employees.

The majority (73%) of the serious claims involved injury or poisoning (95 910 claims)

The remaining 27% (36 145 claims) were disease related.

The most common injury (41%of all serious claims leading to a serious claim was Sprains and strains of joints and adjacent muscles.

Fractures and Open wounds (8% of all serious claims )not involving traumatic amputation were the next most common injuries

The most common diseases were:

Disorders of muscle, tendons and other soft tissues (7% of all serious claims),
Dorsopathies – disorders of spinal vertebrae (6%), and
Mental disorders (5%).

23% of all serious claims involved the Back. Hand (13%), Shoulder (9%) and Knee (9%).

Manual handling mechanisms (Body stressing) were the cause of 41% of all serious claims, with:

lifting objects (18%)
handling objects (15%)

The most common mechanism was Falls on the same level (13%).

Non-powered handtools, appliances and equipment represented 26% of all serious claims.

Over the period 2000-01 to 2005-06, the number of serious claims decreased 6% from 144 740 claims to 136 575.

“The Agriculture, forestry and fishing industry recorded the highest time lost from work of 4.6 working weeks in 2005-06 but due to the lower salaries in this industry, it recorded one of the lowest median payment amounts ($5100 in 2005-06 compared to the all claims median of $6100). The highest median payments were recorded in the Mining industry ($10 400 in 2005-06).”

Compensated Fatalities

Preliminary data show that in 2006-07 there were 236 compensated fatalities = an incidence rate of 2.5 fatalities per 100 000 employees.

Of the fatalities, 91% were male employees.

Over the period from 2000-01 and 2005-06, the number of fatalities fell 21%.

Industry

The Construction industry recorded the highest number of fatalities (50).

Transport and storage industry = 45 fatalities (of which 31 were in Road freight transport).

Mechanism of injury or disease

A third of the fatalities (81) were due to Vehicle accident

33 deaths due to Long term contact with chemicals or substances,

19 due to Being hit by moving objects and

18 due to Being hit by falling objects.

Safety Interviews

A couple of weeks ago I conducted interviews with several speakers in the Safety In Action Conference to be held in Melbourne, Australia at the end of March 2009. The finalised videos are below.

Helen Marshall is Australia’s Federal Safety Commissioner who has a challenging job monitoring major government construction sites.

Dr Martyn Newman is a a fascinating speaker on the issues of leadership and emotional intelligence and how safety professionals can benefit for applying these concepts to their corporate aims.

Jill McCabe is a recent member of WorkSafe Victoria who provides quite startling survey information on the attitudes of supervisors to workplace safety.

Barry Sherriff is a partner with law firm Freehills and was recently also one of the review panellists into Australia’s OHS law review. Since this video, the final report of the panel has been publicly released and Barry will be discussing harmonisation at the Safety In Action conference.

John Merritt is the Executive Director of WorkSafe and a strong advocate of workplace safety.

Although part of my job is to help promote the Safety In Action conference, I have tried to provide a resource that will not be temporary and is actually useful to safety professionals everywhere.

Tip: Use the high quality YouTube settings if you can. It makes these much easier to view but does not improve the appearance of the interviewer.

Kevin Jones

Absence management survey results

On January 8 2009, the Mercer’s 2008 Pan-European Health & Benefit Report was released. It had some useful information about the causes of workplace absenteeism in Europe. The information was compiled in 2008 so is as current as can be but also occurred in a period of severe economic unrest.

As with all studies, the applicability to other nations and regions is up for debate but the data is a great starting point for discussion on managing these issues in workplaces.

According to the available report information

“Musculoskeletal conditions were identified by 78 percent of respondents as the cause of most long-term absences. Thirty-one percent specifically referenced lower back pain and 47 percent other musculoskeletal conditions. Stress and mental health issues (52 percent) and cancer conditions (20 percent) were also featured amongst the highest disability causes.”

By looking at policies and practices in the multi-jurisdictional structure of Europe, the demographic variations and management initiatives may be applicable elsewhere.

As Steve Clements of Mercer says

“Absence management remains haphazard at best. Targeted absence management policies and procedures are by no means universally applied, and even the ability to quickly and accurately measure absence remains fairly poor. Many employers offer a broad range of health-related benefits, but their presence is driven by recruitment and retention, and it appears there is only sporadic evidence of integration of these benefits within a broader employee health and wellness or absence management agenda. At a time when cost is under the microscope, employee absence remains under-managed and presents a great opportunity for savings and improved productivity.”

Kevin Jones

Australian 2008 workplace statistics

Every year newspapers and organisations undertake a “year in review”. OHS regulators are no different. As more statistics become available of the next few weeks, SafetyAtWorkBlog will provide the latest OHS statistics for 2008. The most recent are below.

Western Australia

According to a media release by WorkSafe WA:

“In 2005/06, WA recorded 12 traumatic work-related deaths and 25 in 2006/07. There were 27 fatalities in 2007/08. In addition, every year around 19,000 Western Australians suffer an injury or illness serious enough to have to take time off work.”

Eleven of these fatalities have occurred since 1 July 2008

Victoria

According to information provided to SafetyAtWorkBlog by WorkSafe Victoria:

There were 21 work-related deaths in calendar 2008 compared with 22 in 2007 and 29 in 2006.
Deaths in 2008 occurred in building construction (four), transport and agriculture (three each), timber, electrical linesmen (two each). There were also fatalities involving forklifts, the meat industry, retail, firefighting, roadworks, warehousing and manufacturing (one each).
The 10 year average is 28.4 deaths/calendar year. There were 39 fatalities in 1999, the highest in that period. Lowest was 2004 with 18.
The 5 year average is 24 with a high of 30 in 2004, the highest in that period.
29,087 [WorkCover] claims last financial year compared with 28,550 in the previous. There were 77 life threatening injuries in the last financial year compared with 66 in 06/07.

Kevin Jones

UPDATE – 7 January 2009

A spokesperson for WorkSafe WA has told SafetyAtWorkBlog that WorkSafe’s statistical experience varies from that in Victoria in the context of workplace injuries over the Summer break. January is historically a month with a low rate of workplace injuries. This may be due to the number and type of West Australian industries that close down for January or that workers are on leave for around two weeks in January.

Statistics on workplace injuries are notoriously difficult to compare from one Australian State to another and SafetyAtWorkBlog would argue OHS would be seen as more directly relevant by the community if statistics accurately reflected the level of work-related injuries and illnesses rather than being based on workers compensation claims and fatalities. It certainly would change the strategic targets and enforcement processes if illness was accurately assessed.

Various Federal governments have promised to attend to statistical incompatibility over decades and it is hoped that the potential national consistency of OHS laws may also resolve the need for accurate and relevant workplace statistics.

Managing Safety After A Vacation

On 4 January 2009, the Sunday Age contained a curious article based around some quotes from Eric Windholz, acting executive director of WorkSafe Victoria. The article reports Eric as saying that when workers return to work after a holiday break they can be careless.

“People come back, they’ve taken their mind off the job, they’ve had a well-earned holiday and sometimes it takes them a little while to do the basics of making sure they’re working safe….. Recommissioning their equipment, starting plant, starting at construction sites again, people may not have their minds on the job and they get hurt.”

WorkSafe has advised SafetyAtWorkBlog (and provided the original media statement) that

Safe Driving and OHS management impacts

SafetyAtWorkBlog has always been critical of those OHS professionals who try to explain OHS in comparison with driving. They are different processes in different environments with different purposes and different rules.

However, there is a section of overlap and this relates to those whose work environment is transport and driving.

Worksafe Victoria has released a “Guide to safe work-related driving“. This is essential reading for fleet managers, in particular, but good fleet managers would already have OHS as part of their driving policies.

For those of us who have not known how to interpret OHS obligations for our company vehicles, WorkSafe has issued these clarifications:

purchasing and maintaining a safe and roadworthy feet
ensuring employees have the relevant appropriate driver licences
scheduling work to account for speed limits and managing fatigue
providing appropriate information and training on work related driving safety
monitoring and supervision of the work related driving safety program.

In this type of workplace, workers seem to have as many obligations as employers but WorkSafe has listed for following as employee duties:

holding a current, valid drivers licence
abiding by all road rules (eg speed limits)
refraining from driving if impaired by tiredness or medication
reporting any incidents required by the employer’s program
carrying out any routine vehicle checks required by the employer.

There are many areas of contemporary life where the OHS obligations can seem absurd but work-related driving has always been a neglected area of workplace safety. Every time SafetyAtWorkBlog receives notification of traffic incidents, the emergency services are asked whether the vehicle was being used for work purposes. Unless it is a bus or a chemical tanker, the question is rarely asked or the information recorded at the scene of the crash. As a result, the data on work-related driving incidents is scant and WorkSafe has done well in applying what there is.

The guide is terrific but it won’t raise the awareness of these necessary business and employee obligations until WorkSafe’s enforcement and investigative resources are included in traffic incidents and until a case law of OHS prosecutions for work-related driving is established.

The practice of having police and criminal prosecutions replacing OHS prosecutions for work-related incidents must end. A transport vehicle is a mobile workplace and should be treated as such by having prosecutions under the road transport legislation AND OHS laws. If not, we will be getting more airbags and less hazard elimination.

Category: statistics