Handedness is not considered when investigating a workplace incident

Ha01-012Robyn Parkin has completed her small survey of handedness in safety management.  Initial results are below:

  • “92% of respondents stated that their companies do not ask whether a person is left- or right-handed on their accident report form, and 77% do not consider handedness as a possible root cause of accidents.
  • 13 companies stated that they may consider handedness where ergonomics is a possible issue, eg with poor access to equipment controls.”

More details will be available in an upcoming edition of New Zealand’s Safeguard magazine.  Robyn Parkin can be contacted about her research at robyn@impac.co.nz

Kevin Jones

HWCA could be influential in Australia’s workers’ compensation reforms

Australia and New Zealand have a small strategic organisation called the Heads of Workers’ Compensation Authorities (HWCA, pronounced “howca” by those in the know).  It is a regular meeting (some say “love-in”, others say “coven”) of the CEOs of the various workers’ compensation bodies in Australia and New Zealand.  Over the next five years, as the Australian Government begins to harmonise/reform the workers’ compensation system, HWCA will be important to watch.

In early October 2009, HWCA met and endorsed a coordination strategy, that has yet to be publicly released.  The main objectives of the strategy were noted in a media release (also not yet publicly available) to mark the latest meeting.

  • “To deliver best practice services to injured workers and employers to assist recovery: and
  • to build sustainable workers’ compensation schemes.”

The terminology of the first objective may provide a good indication of the type of organisation HWCA seems to be.  “Best practice services”???  “Best practice” is one of the worst corporate jargons being used at the moment.  This article at Wikipedia outlines the context of the phrase well.

“As the term has become more popular, some organizations have begun using the term “best practices” to refer to what are in fact merely ‘rules’….”

In other words, HWCA has a strategy to do what its member organisations should have been doing all along – enforcing the rules of good customer service and providing the best level of service to injured workers.

Perhaps it is the second strategic objective that best illustrates the aims of HWCA – to make sure that the workers’ compensation schemes do not lose money.

According to the communique that is released after every meeting (top points for open communication)

“HWCA agreed the Bio-psychosocial Rehabilitation Working Group would develop a national action plan regarding prevention of long-term disability and work loss, which will support the strategy.”

Prevention is the role of the OHS authorities in Australia and the Department of Labour in New Zealand.  Clearly HWCA will be discussing these strategic aims with those in charge of preventing injuries and illnesses.  But can the various WorkCovers and WorkSafes cope with biopsychosocial hazards?  Surely HWCA will also be talking with all the NGOs who lobby on depression, anxiety, fatigue, stress, wellness, happiness ………….. (Get ready for even more influence for BeyondBlue)

Consultation will also be needed with the various government departments involved with health promotion, public and occupational.  Not to mention the unions, employer associations and health professional bodies.

A strategy of such magnitude would require considerable resources and horse-trading through government ranks in all jurisdictions.  It is hard to see this being achieved through a meeting of Chief Executive Officers, and should such a strategy be pushed through individual workers’ compensation bodies anyway?

To achieve true reform of workers’ compensation and to resist the substantial pressure that is likely to come from the Australian and international insurance companies, the Australian government is going to need considerable negotiating skills.  Because of the involvement with the financially influential insurance companies, it is doubtful the intended reforms will be achieved. (HWCA already has discussions with the “Heads of Compulsory Third Party Insurers” according to the communique)

Almost as a post-script, it is noted that Greg Tweedly, CEO of WorkSafe Victoria, takes over the chairmanship of HWCA from the CEO of WorkCover NSW, Jon Blackwell.  Tweedly is a very busy CEO and will become more so, if the rumour proves true that he will be joining the National Board of the Safety Institute of Australia.

As the chairmanship moves from New South Wales, so will HWCA’s administrative support.  The next HWCA meeting is scheduled for 5 February 2010 and will be coordinated through the Victorian Workcover Authority or Comcare.

Kevin Jones

Working in heat – still contentious

Australians associate working in hot conditions as outside work although the occupational hazard of heat is just as relevant in bakeries and foundries.  OHS regulators and safety lobbyists often try to include too much in their heat-related strategies – heat stress, skin cancer, hydration, dust, and a range of other hazard combinations related to specific industries.

What the community and many workers want is a defined unsafe temperature limit.  Some will remember being allowed to take their school ties off when the temperature reached 38 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit).  But OHS legislation, more often than note, focuses on the system of work and this allows for work in excessive temperatures as long as the system can ensure this is safe.

Legislatively, this position is understandable but it is not what people want or expect.

The issue was raised recently at the Trade Union Congress in September 2009 in England in a discussion on working temperatures.  Pauline Nazir, representing the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers’ Union, said

“The question is why there is no maximum temperature and why has the Health and Safety Executive and the Government have consistently dodged calls for similar protection for those who work at the higher levels of temperature?  It is a big question for a big organisation, but one that the Health and Safety Executive has failed to answer logically despite years of pressure.  While they have failed to act, workers suffer the consequences, year in and year out.

It seems illogical that we have regulations that limit the temperatures at which cows and pigs can be transported around the country, but offers no protection other than the general health and safety legislative offerings.  It is true that if you move livestock in Britain, there is a maximum level of 35 degrees Centigrade within the carrier, but poor old human beings can regularly carry out physical and strenuous work at temperatures that far exceed these levels.  Why have we failed to get the Health and Safety Executive to act?”

Pages from guidance                   1rking          -346317709n       2.945398e-266at3The variety of factors contributing to excessive heat at work is probably the reason for lack of progress on the hazard.  There are many organisations advocating prevention of harm from working in heat but they all have their own funding models, costs, agendas and “sub”hazards.  Nazir’s call for the Health & Safety Executive to do something sounds unfair but the common activity she is referring to is working in heat so it is not unreasonable to expect an OHS regulator to coordinate resource and, perhaps, research.

Coordinated safety action is expected of business operators to ensure these hazards are controlled but that operator would need to read up to a dozen brochures, codes, guidances or policy statements to get close to achieving a situation that employees would consider safe.

It may never be appropriate for an OHS regulator to state a defined (un)safe temperature (the hygienists would argue safe working conditions) but what can be achieved is guidance that pulls together the multiple hazards and control measures so that achieving a safe workplace is as easy as can be.

WorkSafe Victoria has started along this path with a (thin) guidance and more generic terms of discomfort and illness but there is a need for a much more comprehensive guide.

Kevin Jones

UPDATE: 9 October 2009

A reader has pointed out a podcast by the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety from the July 2009 that explains some of the justification for not issuing a specific working in heat benchmark.

Perhaps a step too far on homes as workplaces

According to an AAP report released on 8 October 2009, Australian homeowners could be liable for the injuries of workmen on their premises.  According to Michael Tooma of Deacons law firm, the breadth of the proposed OHS model laws could cause big legal problems for homeowners (as if interest rate rises and balcony collapses were not enough).

“..if I call out a tradesperson to do some work at my home, my home is their workplace and I would be a person at their workplace.  As such, I would have a duty to take reasonable care for my own safety and the safety of others and to cooperate with their reasonable instructions in my own home.  If I breach that duty I could be liable for a criminal offence.”

The duty of care applied regardless of whether the worker was injured or not, Mr Tooma said.  “If the person is exposed to risk, then potentially you’ve committed a criminal offence.  Previously, there were clear boundaries around a home that really made it sacrosanct.”

The crux of Tooma’s argument is that

“The definition of a workplace in the legislation is so broad that any place where a worker works is deemed a workplace”.

Many corporations have struggled with their OHS obligations for staff who telecommute.  Home-based businesses have a clearer legislative responsibility even if many of them are unaware of the responsibility.

The Model Safe Work Provisions Exposure Draft’s defines a workplace as follows

“(1) A workplace is a place where work is carried out for a business or undertaking and includes any place where a worker goes, or is likely to be, while at work.
(2) In this section, place includes:

(a) vehicle, ship, boat, aircraft or other mobile structure; and
(b) any installation on land, on the bed of any waters or floating on any waters.”

Discussionpaper_ExposureDraft_ModelActforOHS_RTF _1_In the Discussion Paper there is an example provided of what is not a business

“A householder hiring an electrician to repair a faulty electrical socket in their home (however the electrician will either be a worker for a business or undertaking or a business or undertaking in their own right if they are self employed).”

Tooma’s point would be what if the electrician was undertaking the work in  a home office (if designated) or the whole house/workplace.

Of all the “modern working arrangements” listed in the Discussion Paper, working from home is not listed.  If it had been, Tooma’s comments would have seemed less alarmist, probably because their would have been more general alarm as perhaps hinted at in the AAP article.

In that article, Tooma also says

“We’re talking about the Occupational Health and Safety Act intruding on the family home and imposing criminal liability on individual home owners under legislation that is supposedly aimed at safety in the workplace.

“It’s really a quirk of the way the definition works in that everywhere a worker goes, so goes the workplace.”

AAP does not treat the issue as “a quirk”.  Not with a headline in The Canberra Times of “Home owners ‘could be liable'”.

Tooma may have raised a valid point but the AAP article shows how the media can “ice the cake” of an issue.  It may have been better to present this quirk to the Government through the Public Comment process (and I am sure Tooma will) but it is also on all OHS advocates to bring the relevance of OHS matters to the attention of those who may not understand the risks they could be exposed to.  This blog article could be considered an example of this.

The Public Comment phase on the draft documents is still young.  If Tooma’s intention was to stir debate (and not alarm) he has raised an interesting issue that should be discussed.  Whether the wider community of homeowners, home-based businesses and telecommuters take this perspective, we’re yet to see.

Kevin Jones

Contractor management in Australia’s new OHS laws

When reading the draft documents for Australia’s harmonised OHS laws, it is very useful to run various scenarios or hazards through one’s mind and see how these could be affected or managed.  The most challenging hazards are the psychosocial hazards (or bio-psychosocial as they were referred to at the recent Comcare conference in Canberra) of stress, mental health and all their varieties.  If the laws are truly to be for the modern world, they need to incorporate modern hazards and maybe suggest ways of managing them.

Douglas paper coverAn older but often more persistent hazard involves the management of contractors on one’s site.  Many hours are spent each year by companies on the selection of contractors, induction, monitoring, arguing and legal action (often in that order).  Regardless of the quality of one’s experience, managing contractors can be challenging.

Will the new OHS laws proposed by the Australian Government make it easier to manage contractors?

According to Andrew Douglas, a workplace lawyer based in Melbourne, at the moment, the employer of contractors is directly responsible for the safety of the contractors.  If the contractors work off-site, then that responsibility may extend to the principal.

Douglas believes that under the new national regime, based on the current draft papers, the relationship will be different.  He says

“The key change is the imposition of broad, non-delegable and concurrent duties on persons who conduct a business or undertaking.  The duty is owed to any persons or workers who the business or undertaking exercises control or influence over.

As a result, principals owe a primary duty to contractors and contractors’ employees working onsite.  Further, directors and senior managers owe a positive duty to exercise due diligence to ensure the business complies with the OHS legislation.

By December 2011 , there will be no doubt that businesses will owe an identical duty to any worker on site as they does (sic) to their own employees.”

It may be well worth reading the draft document repeatedly with a different hazard group with each reading or, even better, use one’s colleagues or staff to read the drafts with a particular hazard in mind and then workshop the results.

Kevin Jones

Part of Andrew Douglas’ paper on contractor management is available HERE

GHS is coming to the United States

On 30 September 2009 the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in the United States said in a media statement:

A proposed rule to align the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Hazard Communication Standard (HCS) with provisions of the United Nations Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS) will be published in the September 30 Federal Register.

Jordan Barab, acting Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA said

“The proposal to align the hazard communication standard with the GHS will improve the consistency and effectiveness of hazard communications and reduce chemical-related injuries, illnesses and fatalities…… Following the GHS approach will increase workplace safety, facilitate international trade in chemicals, and generate cost savings from production efficiencies for firms that manufacture and use hazardous chemicals.”

Pages from DraftApprovedCriteriaOn 6 October 2009, Safe Work Australia released the draft  “Australian Criteria for the Classification Hazardous Chemicals”.

The closing date for comments is 18 December 2009.

Safe Work Australia stresses what the draft is not and the web page on the issue is very important to read.

Safe Work Australia says it

“…will be preparing guidance material for different audiences on the GHS and introducing two training courses (as basic and an expert one) to understand GHS classification.”

It should also be noted that the draft Classification Criteria is being revised in the context of the OHS harmonisation program of the Federal Government.

Kevin Jones

The retention of leave indicates a broken business

The Australian Chamber of Commerce & Industry (ACCI) has released a statement that discusses the economic and personal costs of presenteeism in relation to Australia’s new National Employment Standards.

In the statement the ACCI mentions:

“…the colossal national stockpile of annual leave and its toxic impact on the wellbeing of business and employees.”

“It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes or even Dr Watson to deduce that employees who take their annual leave are far less likely to take a ‘sickie’ due to fatigue or illness.”

The statistics quoted by ACCI include:

  • 123 million days stockpiled nationally.
  • $33.3 billion value to national leave stockpile.
  • 73% of national leave stockpilers are likely to be managers and earn more than $70K per annum.
  • 71% of leave stockpilers nationally are likely to be male.
  • 73% of leave stockpilers consider work/life balance to be important to their lives.
  • 70% of leave stockpilers consider taking leave to be a good way to achieve work/life balance.

It is not unreasonable to assert that the excessive retention of leave by an individual is an indication that that person does not understand that annual leave is an important element of their own mental health and safety at work.

If an executive believes they are indispensable to the company then that executive is making poor OHS decisions that flow to other employees.  Just as positive change can come from the senior management so can unhealthy work practices.  The retention of leave is just such a practice.

In a broader corporate and management context, the retention of excessive leave is an indication of a poorly managed business.  Leave, and its mental health benefits, should be integrated into the operational business strategy.  No one should be indispensable in a work role, although it is acknowledged that Plan B’s are not always as effective as Plan A’s.

Business continuity and risk management demand that contingencies be put in place for prolonged absences, or short leave breaks.

ACCI has to be admired for bringing the retention of leave to the attention of its members but the release is principally an information leaflet for a government tourism website.  Being physically absent from work is very different from being mentally absent from work.

To achieve a proper break from work, contact with the workplace and clients must be severed.  Even in this situation it may take several days to break out of “work mode”, to stop reaching for the mobile phone, to stop worrying about whether a work task is being done and to start the process of relaxing.

A “good” workplace, a “workplace of choice”, should have work management structures in place to allow its employees to recuperate from the pressures of work.  This is beyond flexible work structures and needs a business to thoroughly understand the mental health needs of its workers and business continuity.

Kevin Jones

The original research data for the figures above has been located and is available elsewhere on SafetyAtWorkBlog

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