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At SafetyatWorkBlog the use or reuse of material is carefully considered. Some articles are not proceeded with, or media used, because of copyright, restrictions or cost. No content is used from websites without permission or without referring back to the original source and providing hyperlinks if possible. An example of how internet information can go wrong occurred earlier this month in Australia.

On 2 October 2009 the Safety Institute of Australia advised its members through its homepage that the Cancer Council, one of its strategic partners, is

“is gearing up to launch three new workplace guides as part of National Skin Cancer Week in November.”

The guides are listed on the SIA website:

Skin cancer and outdoor work: a guide for employers
Skin cancer and outdoor work: a guide for working safely in the sun brochure
SunSmart and iCourses ‘Working safely in the sun’ online training course

www-sia-org-au_news_updates_sun-protect-workplace-announce20091002-html The odd thing was that the first guide listed was published in January 2007. The second seems to be a companion leaflet for the guide for employers. They are not new and are not being launched in November 2009.

When the anomaly was brought to the attention of the Cancer Council advised SafetyAtWorkBlog that their website had not been updated for a long time and that the information was out of date. Not only should this have been obvious from the age of the publications listed but the page said the guides were to be launched on Tuesday November 20. In 2009 November 20 is a Thursday. The advice on the SIA site is based on old information.

(A slightly more recent policy statement for “sun protection in the workplace” is available elsewhere on the Cancer Council website)

It is very important, particularly in OHS where safety advice can change frequently, that any information taken from the internet is verified, especially if one is putting one’s name to it as the SIA’s CEO did in this instance.

The Sunsmart guidances produced by the Cancer Council still contain solid advice but if the risk of skin cancer or the hazard of working in direct sunlight is relevant to your worksites, make sure that the safety guidance is current and do not just rely on one information source. In this instance, see what advice the local OHS authority can provide, particular in the couple of months preceding summer.

If you run your own OHS information website or intranet, be extra careful when using other organisation’s information………..and check the dates of the information.

Alarming statistics on young workers and compensation

Safe Work Australia has issued some important statistical reports on workplace injury statistics. One statistic, in particular, stood out:

“…young workers aged 15 to 24 incurred much higher rates of injury than other age groups and were the least likely to apply for workers compensation”

The injury statistic is not surprising and is consistent with other data but why are young workers “least likely to apply for workers compensation”? Are they unaware of their rights? Do they work in a situation where claiming compensation is taboo? Is illiteracy a deterrent? Has their employer deterred them from applying? Is their type of work illegal, casual, or in the black market?

SafetyAtWorkBlog asked Safe Work Australia, if not through workers compensation, how are young people funding their medical/rehabilitation costs. A spokesperson provided the following non-age specific response:

“We are unable to provide an answer to this question as the data has not been analysed separately by age.

However, the last section of the report on workers’ compensation applications shows the various forms of financial assistance that all injured workers used.

For all injured workers, 34% received workers’ compensation, 39% did not access any financial assistance (these were mostly injuries involving no time lost from work) and the remaining 27% did access some form of assistance. Within this latter group regular sick leave was the most common.

Of the injured employees who did not access workers’ compensation, 18% used their regular sick leave, 9% accessed Medicare or other social security benefits, 7% had costs paid by their employer, 5% used other resources such as money from family and friends while 4% access private health insurance or income protection insurance.

Respondents to the survey could select more than one response to this question.”

Inverting some of these stats raises some concerns. (Please note that statistics is not the strongest skill of SafetyAtWorkBlog, so please correct any issues through the comments section below).

For all injured workers, 66% did not receive workers compensation. This should be a big red flag to OHS regulators and deserves more analysis.

Of the 66% over half (57%) funded their injuries without recourse to health insurance, sick leave, employer contributions, support from family or friends, Medicare or social security. Expanding the young worker question above to workers generally, how are these injured workers funding their rehabilitation from outside the regulated and social support mechanisms?

Some years ago SafetyAtWorkBlog attended an international conference on OHS. There were many people at this Melbourne conference who spoke about the Asian and African countries where injured workers must rely on family, or other social security mechanisms, for an income, as workers’ compensation was non-existent. This is one element of economic integration into the Asian region that Australia should not be tolerating.

A spokesperson for Safe Work Australia told SafetyAtWorkBlog (read slowly as there are numbers involved):

“The survey estimated that 689,500 workers were injured at work during 2005-06. Of these, 625,900 were employees and hence eligible for workers’ compensation. However, 388,100 did not apply for compensation and 23,800 applied but did not receive compensation.

This means that 66% of injured employees did not receive compensation. While this equates to 60% of injured workers not receiving compensation it is not correct to use this figure as 12% of workers were not eligible for it.

Looking only at the 411 900 injured employees who did not apply for workers’ compensation

75,700 accessed regular sick leave

30,100 had their employer pay their costs

35,500 used Medicare/social security

18,200 used private health insurance/ income protection insurance, and

18,700 accessed money from other sources such as family and friends.

Please note that when looking at these figures that 42% of injuries involved no time off from work and hence costs would be very small.

Analysis of additional data from the survey, that has not been included in this round of reports shows that over 60% of injured workers aged 15 to 24 felt their injury was too minor to claim or that they felt it was not necessary to claim. This is double the percentage for all workers. While this may sound like young people had more minor injuries, this is not the case. Young workers had the same proportion of injuries that involved no time off work as the workforce as a whole and the same proportion that involved longer periods of time off from work.”

The last paragraph cycles this article back to the start.

“….over 60% of injured workers aged 15 to 24 felt their injury was too minor to claim or that they felt it was not necessary to claim. This is double the percentage for all workers.“

There is something missing from how OHS is promoted to young workers. The quote above indicates that young workers know about OHS but do not understand OHS. But that’s not something that can be provided in a 30 minute TV ad, a medium that young people are increasingly less interested in.

Perhaps, we should be spending less time telling people not to stick their hands in a guillotine and more time empowering them in their workplace rights.

Kevin Jones

Principal Contractor duties clarified in the High Court of Australia

Managing contract labour is almost always a pain. The extension of OHS obligations through the “supply chain” has not helped although it was intended to.

Companies have been expected to treat contractors as employees for the sake of OHS obligations. This was intended to generate a cultural change where a certain safety standard was extended through the links of project management. To some extent safety awareness in the small suppliers of services to large companies and projects has improved. But whether that safety awareness has changed to an active safety management or simply a belief that OHS is an unavoidable evil is debatable.

Regardless of the reality, the High Court of Australia recently provided some clarification on the duty of care of a principal contractor. According to a summary of the High Court decision, Australian law firm Allens Arthur Robinson report that

“The High Court’s decision means that a ‘principal contractor’ does not have a common law duty to train or supervise the employees of specialist subcontractors in the specifics of their work.”

The High Court acknowledged that this may not relate to the New South Wales legislative situation but it is an important decision for the harmonised future of Australian OHS Law.

What it also indicates is the length of time it can take for a legal concept to be clarified and, hopefully, defined. What does a company do in the meantime? This is important for businesses to consider as the OHS law moves into a new national regime where individual State jurisdictions are expected to provide clarity on the legislative vagaries of “reasonably practicable”. The government seems to be comfortable that the legal processes (cost and time) are worth the flexibility offered in OHS law. Some see flexibility, others may see confusion, complexity and the need to reeducate.

Kevin Jones

Finger injury causes hefty new safety agenda for John Holland Rail

Comcare has instigated a hefty list of enforceable undertakings (EU) against John Holland Rail (JHR) after a contractor, Jack Wilmot, needed a finger amputated after a workplace injury.

According to the report on the Comcare website

“…an apprentice boilermaker was involved in an incident which resulted in crush injuries to his left index finger at a JHR facility located at Kewdale, Western Australia.”

Comcare’s investigation report

“found that JHR failed to ensure the apprentice, had received adequate training, supervision and instructions in the task he was undertaking when injured.”

Stephen Sasse, Director of John Holland Rail, signed off on the enforceable undertaking at the end of August 2009.

Below are some of the mandatory safety improvements

maintain the new supervisory structure implemented at the Kewdale facility shortly after the incident

implement and adapt the safer systems of work across JHR workplaces within two months of signing the EU

conduct a risk assessment of all major activities undertaken by JHR to determine and identify those which should be classified as ‘high risk activities’ (HRAs) within six months of signing the EU

eliminate where reasonably practicable to do so, all HRAs and otherwise apply appropriate control measures to the balance of the HRAs, within six months of signing the EU

provide training regarding safer systems of work to all JHR employees who undertake rail plant maintenance activities as part of their duties within eight months of signing the EU

commence implementation of the Rail Safety Business Plan 2009 at all JHR workplaces by 31 September 2009 including commencing work on each of the 28 strategic initiatives within the stated timeframes.

Some of these tasks would be impossible to undertake from scratch. A response from John Holland Rail and/or John Holland Group is being sought.

Enforceable undertakings are a feature of financial and OHS legal processes. In Queensland and Victoria an EU is

“… a legal agreement in which a person or organisation undertakes to carry out specific activities to improve worker health and safety and deliver benefits to industry and the broader community.”

John Holland Group has been proud of its OHS record for many years and has had the benefit of Janet Holmes a Court as a safety champion within and outside the company. Holmes a Court spoke of her commitment to safety at the 2009 Safety In Action Conference which was hosted by the Safety Institute of Australia (SIA) of which John Holland is a Diamond Corporate Partner ($A25,000 minimum donation).

Only last week the SIA, proudly announced a Diamond Corporate Partnership with John Holland Group which commits the company to, amongst other commitments,

“Act and work responsibly and competently at all times to improve health and safety in workplaces and ensure they do no harm.

Give priority to the health, safety and welfare of employees, employers and other workplace health and safety stakeholders in accordance with accepted standards of moral and legal behaviour during the performance of their duties.

Ensure the health, safety and welfare of employees, employers and other workplace health and safety stakeholders takes precedence over the professional member’s responsibility to sectional or private interests.

Ensure work by people under their direction is competently performed and honestly and reliably reported.

Ensure they do not engage in any illegal or improper practices.”

It is suggested that for next year’s Safety In Action Conference, the SIA asks a JHG representative to discuss the above enforceable undertakings as a case study of inadequate safety management and the related organisational and financial costs.

Kevin Jones

[Note: Kevin Jones was involved in the promotion of Safety In Action 2009]

Thoughts on tasers and the hierarchy of controls

The Braidwood inquiry report into the use of energy weapons (tasers) is readily available on the internet. Regular readers of SafetyAtWorkBlog would know that I consider tasers to be a item of personal protective equipment (PPE) for enforcement officers.

Determining whether PPE is the most appropriate hazard control measure usually involves the application of the Hierarchy of Controls. The hierarchy is not applicable for all workplace hazards, particularly in the control of psychosocial hazards, but it’s a good place to start.

While reading the executive summary of Canada’s Braidwood report, one part in particular reminded me of the hierarchy – page 17.

Although the definitions for “assaultive behaviour” in both use-of-force continuums can be traced back to the Criminal Code’s language for common assault, they also justify use of the weapon when there has been only an attempted common assault, and even when no criminal offence has been committed. I concluded that the subject behaviour threshold should be met when the subject is causing bodily harm or the officer is satisfied, on reasonable grounds, that the subject’s behaviour will imminently cause bodily harm. Even then, an officer should not deploy the weapon unless satisfied, on reasonable grounds, that no lesser force option would be effective, and de-escalation and/or crisis intervention techniques would not be effective.

Let’s see if the hierarchy can apply.

Can the subject behaviour be eliminated? – No

Substitution doesn’t seem relevant.

Can we engineer out the threatening behaviour? – Barriers, shields… perhaps but the presence of these items may also inflame the behaviour, increasing the hazard.

Can administrative controls be applied to the hazard? Unlikely, unless the subject was cooperative or able to accept instruction or read signs, in which case, the hazard may not exist.

That leaves PPE, in this case a Taser.

The report places a considerable number of criteria that the enforcement officer must apply prior to using the taser and these should be considered administrative controls but as these apply to the enforcement officer and not the subject, they would not come under the hierarchy of controls.

I welcome readers comments on this rumination on Tasers as PPE, and/or the application of the Hierarchy of Controls to a police situation.

Kevin Jones

Meditation is a proven stress reduction method for workplaces

Meditation is not on the regular agenda at SafetyAtWorkBlog. If there was time to meditate, the time would probably be spent losing weight in the gym but there is fascinating research that provides some evidence of meditation’s benefit in reducing work-related stress.

At the Safety Conference in Sydney at the end of October 2009, Dr Ramesh Manocha of Sydney’s Royal Hospital for Women will release research that

“found that after eight weeks of mental silence meditation training called sahaja yoga, occupational stress scores improved [decreased?] 26 per cent. A non-mental silence relaxation program reaped a 13 per cent gain, while a waiting list control group lifted just 1 per cent.”

The language sounds slightly “new-age” but what makes the difference in this circumstance is that the initial research was undertaken with three groups mentioned above and, importantly, with a control group.

Below is a TV interview with Dr Manocha on the first stage of research.

When looking at workplace stress, people reduce stressors but Dr Manocha says this often requires impossible organisation restructuring due to internal political pressures. These techniques can be applied on a personal level that employees can take with them through their various life-stages.

Dr Manocha then applied the meditation training in real corporate situations. According to a media release provided in the lead-up to the conference:

“In a later field trial of mental silence meditation by 520 doctors and lawyers, more than half of the participants whose psychological state (K10) scores indicated they were “at risk” were reclassified as “low risk” after two weeks of meditation.”

It’s the application of this meditation in the workplace context that gained the attention of SafetyAtWorkBlog and what will be presented at the conference. The gentle skepticism evident in the TV interview above is understandable but in a time when safety professionals demand evidence, we must look seriously at evidence when it is presented.

More information on The Safety Conference is available HERE.

Kevin Jones

Firefighter trauma

A major element of risk management is business continuity. This requires considerable planning, disaster recovery resources, and a long-term focus.

In early 2009 parts of Victoria, some not far from the offices of SafetyAtWorkBlog, were incinerated and across the State over 170 people died. In a conservative western culture like Australia, the bush-fires were the biggest natural disaster in living memory.

The is a Royal Commission into the Victorian Bushfires that is illustrating many of the disaster planning and community continuity needs in risk management.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s “7.30 Report” provided a report on 5 August 2009 which originates from the views of the community and the volunteer firefighters. One of the issues relevant to safety professionals and risk managers is the psychological impact on volunteer workers. Many in the report talk of trauma. Many in the disaster areas have not returned and their are many who remain psychologically harmed.

When a workforce is so closely integrated with a community, rehabilitation is a daunting task and changes a community forever.

Overseas readers may have experienced their own natural disasters such as hurricane Katrina, earthquakes, floods and wildfires. Many of these stories are reported around the world. In the recovery phase of any disaster, businesses need to rebuild but are often rebuilding with damaged people. It would be heartening to see the OHS regulators and OHS professions becoming more involved over the long recovery period.

Kevin Jones

Category: training

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Alarming statistics on young workers and compensation

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Principal Contractor duties clarified in the High Court of Australia

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Finger injury causes hefty new safety agenda for John Holland Rail

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Thoughts on tasers and the hierarchy of controls

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Meditation is a proven stress reduction method for workplaces

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Firefighter trauma

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