The chair of Safe Work Australia, Rex Hoy, makes an extraordinary challenge to the manufacturers of quad bikes. In a media statement released on 26 April 2013, he “…has called on the designers and manufacturers of quad bikes to urgently reconsider improving the design of quad bikes so they are not prone to roll over.” … Continue reading “Safe Work Australia vs Quad Bike Manufacturers”
I’ve frequently observed a manner of bullying not easily described, a below the surface iceberg of bullying. It can range from a parent relentlessly nagging a child with “You don’t love me”, to a manager at work asking a worker – with a fixed grin, “Don’t you love me anymore, matey?” whilst requesting (always with … Continue reading “The Iceberg of Bullying”
Such are the warning signs It stopped at 2.32 pm of an ordinary day. One string of events ended abruptly at the pinch point of a groaning conveyor belt when his arm was ripped off. Do you think of Swiss cheese models of risk alignment? Of complexity or failure to learn? Of the Moura coal … Continue reading “The smell of ‘corruption’”
On 19 October 2012 in a video address to an Australian forum on quad bike safety, the US Consumer Product Safety Commissioner Robert Adler stated “We at the US CPSC are monitoring your activities closely with the hope that what you learn can help us back here in the United States.” That places considerable attention on the … Continue reading “The world looks to Australia for quad bike safety changes”
They both nodded in agreement when she said, “I’m half bored to death in this job, nearly had it”. Both women were freezing, sitting outside in the covered area. Their fingers blue. The short morning break. You hurry, you panic, get a quick hot drink, a cigarette, quickly back into it. Hour after hour after … Continue reading “Half bored and tired to death”
“How can this be allowed to happen nowadays?” the distressed wife of a seriously injured worker asked me recently. Her husband was sitting next to her, his eyes still victims of the recent terror that nearly killed him. She saw that and struggled to join him in his very dark and personal space. This now … Continue reading “Vulnerability and arrogance”
Just before Christmas in 2009, Dr Yossi Berger speculated for an information network about the safety of quad bikes. He called it QuadWatch. Over two years later, on 13 July 2012, Australia’s Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Bill Shorten announced his own QuadWatch. In the 2009 Croaky Blog, Dr Berger suggested “a network could be called QuadWatch and it would become a clearing house … Continue reading “Australian Government moves on quad bike safety”