statistics – Page 28 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

The tenuousness of safety culture

Only a few days ago, SafetyAtWorkBlog questioned the usefulness of vision statements. A leaked internal memorandum from the structural mechanical process division of John Holland reported in the Australian media on 27 April 2009 shows just how tenuous such statements can be.

According to an article in the Australian Financial Review (not available online, page 3), the divisional general manager, Brendan Petersen, listed 81 injuries to subcontractors and employees and 51 near-misses in 2008. The memo acknowledges that the situation is “unsatisfactory and unacceptable” and Petersen makes a commitment to “do something about it”.

The trade unions have jumped on this memo as an indication that John Holland is not living up to its principles, although there is a lot of irrelevant and mischievous industrial relations baggage behind any of the current union statements about John Holland’s operations.

Petersen’s memo admits that, as well as his division’s performance being unacceptable

“we also have sites that consistently allow work activities to be undertaken in an uncontrolled or unsafe manner, sites that don’t take employee concerns about unsafe workplace conditions seriously and sites that don’t report near misses so as to learn from them and ensure the situations never re-occur again.”

That such an established company with such an active program of safety management acknowledges these deficiencies is of great concern.

On being asked about the memo, Stephen Sasse, John Holland’s general manager for HR, spoke of optimism and the safety efforts introduced since the 6 April memo however, behind his words is an acknowledgement that the safety culture has not been supported.

“To an extent [the memo] is an exhortation to middle management and supervision, and to an extent it is a warning that we cannot tolerate staff who do not share the John Holland values around safety…”

The John Holland values are listed on their website as

“Commit to the successful completion of a wide variety of construction, mining, services and engineering projects through our specialist and regional construction businesses

Commit to continuous improvement in all we do

Understand our clients’ businesses

Achieve our vision of “No Harm” through safe and responsible work practices

Build and maintain open lines of communication with our people’ our partners and our clients

Provide excellent returns to our stakeholders

Create an environment where our people are challenged, motivated and satisfied

Conduct business ethically, honestly and with diligence at all times”

The No Harm value is expanded upon through it’s “Passport to Safety” program.

In the AFR article, it is noted that Comcare currently has four federal court prosecutions occurring against members of the John Holland Group.

It seems trendy to broadcast the values of a company’s safety management system as if they are new and unique to their companies when, in fact, many of the values reflect legislative obligations under OHS law. The trap that many companies are facing is that reality does not match the ideal, and may never do so.

A strong argument can be made to be a quiet achiever on workplace safety – to just get down and get managing – without trumpeting the values that can become an embarrassment when the real world pierces the academic fog of the MBA. Perhaps true safety leadership comes from those who do it on the shop floor rather than than those who advocate it in the boardroom.

Kevin Jones

Migrant worker safety

Recently one of the Australian boutique labour law firms ran a seminar on employment issues related to migrant workers. Australia has a history of using workers from the Pacific Islands, principally, in agriculture. Chinese have been working in Australia since the goldfields of the 1800s. New Zealanders are so frequent that the countries almost share an economy in some ways. Some labour is imported, other labour is invited or sought.

The global economic problems has exacerbated the difficulties many countries face with legal and illegal migrant workers. Australia is not immune. There may be less and less water in the country, certainly in the south, but it is still considered a land of opportunity by neighbours.

Workplace safety issues are perhaps the easiest to deal with in this labour sector as the employment status is not relevant to the obligation to provide a safe and healthy work environment.

The safety training, instruction and supervision matters are similarly unaffected by employment status. However it has always been a difficult part of an OHS manager and HR manager’s job to make sure that workers understand their obligations and duties. In Victoria, one of the first OHS Codes of Practice in the 1980s concerned providing OHS information in languages other than English. It was probably the most ignored Code of Practice of all.

Recently, WorkSafe Victoria has issued Compliance Codes. Following the recommendations and techniques in these codes implies compliance and can be wonderful for the small business sector. One of the new codes is on communicating in languages other than English This is a great start but there needs a much greater effort, almost a movement, for Australia to avoid the problems facing countries like England.

In late-March 2009, the UK law firm Irwin Mitchell reported the following statistics

The report [by the Centre for Corporate Accountability], which makes the figures public for the first time and was compiled following Freedom of Information requests to the Health and Safety Executive, shows that a dozen migrant workers died in the construction industry in the year 2007/08 – at least double the figure expected and a six-fold increase in the number who died just five years earlier.

The 12 deaths comprised 17% of the total number of fatalities in the sector last year – more than double the HSE’s estimate of migrants making up around 8% of the total construction sector workforce.

Migrant deaths in other sectors is also on the increase, with the number of fatalities of non-UK workers up from nine in 2005/6 to 18 in 2007/8 and the proportion also doubling from 4.1% to 7.9% in the same period, against figures showing that 5.4% of the total workforce comprises migrants.

No official information is currently available on the level of injuries to migrant workers, as the HSE does not record nationality in injury cases, though estimates put the figure as high as 11% – again, double the expected level.

Many workplaces have already dealt with safety issues with migrant labour. Crews in rail maintenance, for instance, are often on ethical lines so that colleagues educate each other. Often workplaces call on an established worker from a specific ethnic area to take the lead in supervising others and passing on OHS information. These adhoc processes still need to be verified as effective but have worked in many workplaces for decades.

A recent rumour posted to the Australian website Crikey.com illustrates the type of attitude to migrant workers and the mixing of concerns about safety and industrial issues.

A Chinese owned mining project is advertising for a Bilingual (English Mandarin) Registered Nurse on their website [since removed]. The role is stated to be designed for liaison with Chinese workers and is required to have industrial safety knowledge, reporting directly to a company director? How many Chinese workers is this project bringing into Australia given the recent restrictions on 457s [migrant work visas], what about the requirement for foreign workers to have some competency in English, anecdotal evidence that building and construction labour rates are already decreasing and how would the unions view this approach to health and safety of foreign workers?

One OHS expert at the law firm’s seminar accepted that the language requirements were woefully inadequate and not suited for the workplace situation. It would be refreshing to see an OHS professional association begin lobbying the government on improving the language criteria for visa eligibility.

The unions would be equally concerned about the safety of any workers onsite, hopefully regardless of the workers’ union membership status.

Australia is in a lucky situation where many workplaces could continue to operate without migrant labour but the world and its economy is changing, and Australia will be dragged into the real world of the modern international workforce. It is lucky because it has the opportunity to prepare. It is such a shame that the preparation remains so thin.

Kevin Jones

Cost of occupational injuries and illnesses rise

According to a report in the Australian Financial Review (page 5, not available online) on 14 April 2009, the costs of work-related injury and disease has increased to $A57.5 billion. This represents 5.9% of the country’s gross domestic product, up from 5% in 2000-01.

Of perhaps more concern is the sectors of society which are estiimated to bear these increasing costs. 49% of costs are borne by workers, 47% by the community and 3% by the employers. Even if the insurance costs were allocated to employers, this would only amount to 18% of the injury and diseases costs.

The figures from the report conducted by the Australian Safety & Compensation Council could justify the push by some in the OHS profession to move workplace safety into the area of public health. Regardless, the spread of the cost should be borne in mind when OHS organisations lobby government for more support and attention.

Kevin Jones

Professor Quinlan outlines the roles and approaches of the OHS inspectorate

The Safety in Action conference is lucky to have Professor Michael Quinlan as a keynote speaker, as he has seriously curtailed his conference appearances to favour those that benefit the safety profession over the commercial conferences. His, and Richard Johnstone’s, research on 1200 inspectors has provided useful insight into the effectiveness and roles of OHS inspectors. The project also interviewed HSRs and employers and visited a large variety of workplaces.

Michael Quinlan at Safety In Action Conference

Inspectorate activity focused on in the report was in the traditional areas initially. But although statistics overstate the effectiveness of the visits, the bulk of their activity relates to targeted strategies, as targeted enforcement provides a greater return. This may be important to remember when listening to presentations from the regulators about their performance indicators.

Less than half of an inspector’s time is spent in talking with workers. Most attention was on plant and documentation was low except in major hazard sites. Inspectors don’t ask about the participatory structures which Quinlan sees as a major deficiency.

Inspectors currently have much better communication skills than in previous incarnations.

In 50% of the cases studied there is no action taken by inspectors, 25% are verbal instructions, improvement notices issued in 34%.

The research also asked what standards were referred to by the inspectors with the most common being process or performance standards. Inspectors are very hesitant in providing advice on potential solutions yet they are often the best placed to provide advice.

Inspectorate training has greatly improved and inspectors do apply their enforcement skills selectively. Some employers want notices in order to gain the attention on safety matters from the executives.

“Zero Harm” often fades to zero injuries and becomes implemented more restrictively than intended due to the realisation of the workload in achieving the corporate goals.

Inspectors are more cynical on audit tools because the tools in many cases have become checklist compliances with insufficient resources to improve safety in reality.

Inspectors struggle with psychosocial issues but the general opinion is that managing the issues will evolve in a similar way to that of manual handling over the last 20 years. Often bullying cases can take up a lot of inspector’s time with less than perfect outcomes.

Inspectors are beginning to see safety within the business/management context and provide more assistance with managers. Inspectors are very aware of the risks associated with paper compliance management systems.

Inspectors don’t interact sufficiently with unions and HSRs. Well-managed worksites are prepared to include a second opinion on safety, often from unions. Those sites that are not inclusive should raise a red flag.

Repeat visits by inspectors are the most effective technique in safety improvement but under-resourcing hampers this technique.

Kevin Jones

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

Category: statistics

The tenuousness of safety culture

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Migrant worker safety

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Cost of occupational injuries and illnesses rise

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Professor Quinlan outlines the roles and approaches of the OHS inspectorate

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