workplace – Page 181 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

PPE can be a lazy OHS solution

One of the occupations with the clearest need for personal protective equipment (PPE) is that of a firefighter. There are few other industries where PPE has such a high priority in workplace safety but sometimes PPE can still be forgotten.

A report on ABC radio and online in Australia on 11 January 2010 shows that even in firefighting PPE may be forgotten. The firefighter was the first one to take a fire hose to a shop fire and did not have on any breathing apparatus (BA). His fully suited colleagues caught up with him and began fighting the fire. It appears from this one media report that the firefighter kept his attention on fighting the fire rather than taking a break and putting on his BA. Shortly after he began feeling unwell.

Research

On 4 January 2010 the Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council (AFAC) released a firefighting information package, based on an early September 2009 workshop, that includes some interesting information about firefighter health and safety. Continue reading “PPE can be a lazy OHS solution”

Work/life balance needs to grow into sustainability

Just as government is reigning in the excesses of the financial sector over the last decade or so, there is a strong movement to pull back on the workload excesses. Some of this is through the work/life balance movement.

In terms of occupational health and safety, this movement has a strong base that is reflected in a lot of OHS legislation where individual employees have a responsibility to ensure they are working safely and not putting themselves at risk. This can be a very difficult obligation when one is working in an organisation that does not grant safety or mental health or its social obligations much weight.

Heat stress (in the middle of Winter)

For those in the Northern Hemisphere at the moment, the risk of heat stress for workers is an extremely low priority but in Australia, even in the cooler parts and suburbia, the Summer temperatures are tipped to reach 38 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit) over the next few weeks. Away from the urban and coastal centres, temperatures of 45 degrees C and higher will be common.

The Queensland Government’s OHS regulator has released new guidance on heat stress. As it was only released on January 5 2010, it is the most current information. The guidance seems aimed at rural workers and particularly those industries which may have a transitory labour force from cooler climates.

The guidance is useful in that it recommends some engineering solutions instead of just PPE. For instance,

“creating some shade structure (tarp, umbrella) or at least find a tree for outdoor workers’ rest breaks
automating or mechanising tasks that require heavy or physical activity
reducing radiant heat emissions from hot surfaces and plant e.g. by insulation and shielding.”

Although it would have been good to see some mention of reassessing the need to work in heat at all as discussed elsewhere in SafetyAtWorkBlog.

The Queensland guidance recommends the following heat stress control measures:

“use sun protection – hat, sunscreen and light sun-protective clothing
drink at least one litre of cool water an hour when working in the sun
take breaks during the day in cool shaded areas to enable a rapid return of core temperature to normal
acclimatise to outdoor work gradually
have eaten during the day to ensure their energy and salt levels are maintained.
avoid alcohol, caffeine and drugs which can increase urine output and therefore fluid loss.”

Kevin Jones

Legal professional privilege and safety management

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”

Safety is more than common sense

“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”

John Holland prosecution

The John Holland Group has featured several times in the SafetyAtWorkBlog in 2009. Any organisation as large as this Australian conglomerate who promotes their commitment to safety and whose Board Chair, Janet Holmes a Court, has such a high profile is going to draw media scrutiny. In fact, the evolution of the John Holland safety culture and the struggle to maintain such a culture as a company grows in profitability and complexity would make a fascinating case study.

On 18 December 2009, Comcare released details of its latest successful prosecution of John Holland. This time the company was fined $A180,000 over the death of a worker, Mark McCallum, at the Dalrymple Bay Coal Terminal in Queensland in May 2008. According to the media statement:

“Justice Collier stated that “It is clear that, despite the efforts taken by the respondent to implement a safe working environment, the operation involving the transportation unit was flawed in its original conception. The dangers were obvious from the start, relatively simple to avoid, but unrecognised and unaddressed in a manner which raises the objective gravity of the offence in these proceedings towards the higher end of the scale.” [emphasis added]

When a judge determines that the process was flawed from the very start, one’s expertise in managing an established practice safely should be critically reviewed. Such fundamental failures in a safety management system should cause any company to realise something is wrong in the way it is addressing safety needs, particularly in an economic climate that is bursting with new infrastructure projects for which one is competing.

The circumstances of the fatality are that

“A team of five John Holland workers were involved in moving large precast concrete decks to the end of a jetty under construction. The precast concrete decks were being transported on two jinkers that were being pushed by a front end loader. During this procedure, a worker’s foot became trapped under wooden scaffolding planks on the jetty, and he was fatally injured when he was run over by the wheels of the jinker.”

The Federal Court judgement listed the safety deficiencies that John Holland acknowledged

“The respondent acknowledges that:

(a) its work method statement did not adequately identify the risks associated with the relevant work process, and did not adequately identify suitable control measures to remove or minimise those risks; and

(b) it did not carry out a plant hazard assessment with respect to the front and rear jinkers, which may have identified a requirement for a remote braking system or other controls on the jinkers for use by spotters and others; and

(c) it did not have in place a formal system whereby employees were certified as being competent in the use of jinkers; and

(d) it did not have in place a formal protocol or procedure for the use of radios to ensure that the transmitter of a radio message was able to be informed that the message had been received by its intended recipient and understood; and

(e) it did not have sufficient communication mechanisms in place to ensure that employees working out of sight of the loader operator and the rear spotter were able to communicate directly with spotters and the loader operator; and

(f) it did not ensure that an observer of a trainee jinker operator was also issued with a radio to directly communicate with the other members of the transportation crew responsible for the propulsion of the load; and

(g) it did not provide workers who were working out of sight of the loader operator or rear spotter with any form of alarm or safety device, other than a radio to alert other workers of the occurrence of an emergency situation; and

(h) it did not ensure that the clearance of obstacles in the path of the loader was done in a timely or effective manner, thereby requiring the front jinker operator to perform that duty during the progress of the transportation unit and whilst out of the line of sight of the loader operator.”

Mark McCallum’s death gained even greater media attention when unions challenged John Holland’s nomination for a safety award shortly after McCallum’s death.

Kevin Jones

Boiler death puts OHS spotlight on New Zealand Education Department

Reports are coming out of New Zealand that representatives of the Education Department are uncomfortable with being charged under the country’s OHS legislation following a fatal boiler explosion at Orewa College.

On 24 June 2009, a boiler exploded at Orewa College in Northland, New Zealand. Initial media reports said that the boiler was being repaired the day after a malfunction. Rough phone video taken by one of the students during the evacuation is available online.

Richard Louis Nel received burns to 90 per cent of his body and later died. A contractor, Robin Tubman, suffered a fractured skull and a shattered face.

The Department of Labour indicated shortly after the event that an investigation had begun but the Board of Trustees chairman Phil Pickford has questioned the delay in the prosecution. According to one media report, Pickford said:

“On December 24 it will be six months since the tragedy and here we are at the 21st… They have to prosecute within six months and they have left it to the last minute. Why? I could surmise why, but I’m sure there’s another way they could have done it.”

SafetyAtWorkBlog contacted the NZ Department of Labour on 21 December 2009 for further information about the prosecution. All the spokesperson would say is that “the outcome of the investigation is still being finalized”.

The belief that schools are not covered by OHS legislation is a common misperception in Australia and, from what one NZ SafetyAtWorkBlog reader says, New Zealand also. Partly this is because the education of children is seen as the principal focus by teachers and educators, to the exclusion of all else. Modern businesses and institutions have slowly learnt that this is not the case and that there are a wealth of obligations, legislative and social, that apply. Educational institutions are often slow to acknowledge this reality.

Another reason, which may stem from the first, is that government departments have been very hesitant to prosecute each other. This may also be supported by the political conflicts that could arise by one politician’s department taking action against another politician’s department. Politicians should not take the credit for departmental achievements and then not be held accountability for failings (although this seems to happen frequently).

In August 2007, The Education Department in Victoria was fined $A8,000 for ignoring the directions of a WorkSafe inspector. The media statement on the case illustrates a dismissive attitude to OHS issues.

Of more significance were issues at Merrilands College where “a Victorian principal accused of bullying has been removed from school and given a job in the Education Department after years of complaints by staff” according to The Age in July 2004. The issues at Merrilands had been occurring for some time:

“It was also revealed that the Education Department – which confirmed there had been “Worksafe (sic) issues” at the school in the past – had known about the allegations since 2000, when 12 teachers wrote to the department after a staff member died of a heart attack that some believed was linked to workplace stress.”

According to the same media report

“WorkCover recently issued an improvement notice against the department following allegations of bullying and harassment at two other schools in the northern suburbs.”

To some extent the Orewa College explosion is a more straightforward prosecution because the incident came from an equipment failure and did not relate to the teaching staff or students. The administrative staff are likely to be asked about maintenance schedules, particularly after other schools in the area had their boilers inspected with several found to be less than perfect. It is likely that the prosecution by NZ DoL will illuminate the plant maintenance procedures of secondary colleges but, perhaps of more long-lasting significance will be the attitudes of the education department and school representatives on show in court.

Kevin Jones

Category: workplace

PPE can be a lazy OHS solution

Research

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Work/life balance needs to grow into sustainability

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Heat stress (in the middle of Winter)

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Legal professional privilege and safety management

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Safety is more than common sense

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John Holland prosecution

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Boiler death puts OHS spotlight on New Zealand Education Department

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Research

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