2010 in review – SafetyAtWorkBlog

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

Healthy blog!

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

Featured image

The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 160,000 times in 2010. If it were an exhibit at The Louvre Museum, it would take 7 days for that many people to see it.

In 2010, there were 406 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 1141 posts. There were 216 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 220mb. That’s about 4 pictures per week.

The busiest day of the year was August 31st with 866 views. The most popular post that day was The cost of not having first aid.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were wotnews.com.au, linkedin.com, google.com.au, twitter.com, and oz.labourstart.org.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for safety at work blog, near miss reporting, safety at work, work safety, and cath bowtell.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

The cost of not having first aid August 2010
5 comments

2

OHS and the death of Brodie Panlock from bullying February 2010
11 comments

3

Prof. Andrew Hopkins Interview from 2000 October 2008
5 comments

4

BP oil rig explosion – lawyer video May 2010
1 comment

5

Latest Australia workplace fatalities data November 2008

WorkSafe tries new twist on OHS ads

On 2 January 2011, WorkSafe Victoria launched a new advertisement that presents a new twist on their “homecoming” campaign.  It focuses on the “door knock” – a process many police dread where they must inform the family of the death of a relative.

The ad is a fresh and new dimension on the long-running OHS awareness campaign and is welcome.  Continue reading “WorkSafe tries new twist on OHS ads”

Conkers and risk assessments

In September 2007, UK’s Health & Safety Executive produced a safety poster on the myth of students wearing safety goggles while playing conkers.  HSE did not demystify the issue by examining the origin of the myth and only chose to debunk the myth.

The February 2011 edition of the Fortean Times provides a little more detail on the origin of the myth in its “mythconceptions” column.  It reports on primary school teacher, Shaun Halfpenny’s, claim about starting the myth.  Continue reading “Conkers and risk assessments”

The Social Media is the Message

Melody Kemp in Vientiane writes:

The apoplectic brouhaha that greeted Wikileaks in the past few months has shown us the power of the internet to upstage, discomfit and enrage.  Governments like corporations operate under a variety of ‘commercial-in-confidence’ scores, the cadence of which changes with the degree of self interest at hand.  That Wikileaks has been disclosing documents for years is of no consequence to our reactionary leaders.  Just as labour groups and activists, long been warning industry about workplace hazards, have been greeted with similarly leaden ears.

Earlier this year, a delegation of international labour activists and trade union leaders visited Laos.  While being taken around various work sites by Lao trade union and government officials, they were horrified to find bags of asbestos labeled Produced In China in one roofing tile fabrication shop.  They should not have been surprised.  The nominal communist bloc states of Asia have close trade, military and strategic ties.  In that bloc the proletariat has little status and, like mushrooms, are generally kept in the dark.

One of Lao’s four Vice Presidents is known to foster and enjoy close and at times unseemly business relationships with Yunnan, Continue reading “The Social Media is the Message”

Mental health initiative needs broader remit

One of the fastest growing areas of occupational health and safety is psychological wellbeing. This goes under many different titles, brands and trademarks but mental health seems to be the dominant term at the moment. On 22 December 2010, the Australian Government faced the reality of the issue and created a mental health working group that includes many of the government’s harshest critics, including 2010 Australian of the Year, Professor Paddy McGorry.

This is a positive initiative but as with much of the recent criticism of mental health, workplace mental health often draws the short straw. There is a belief that social policies flow to the workplace but we know that this is not the reality.   If it was, OHS laws would not have been required, as social morality would have ensured that workers were safe without governmental intervention. Continue reading “Mental health initiative needs broader remit”

Telling is better than being exposed

Many OHS laws place obligations on employers to notify regulators (   )  of any particularly serious (often defined) incidents.  In many jurisdictions regulators are sometimes informed of work-related hospital admissions, for instance, even if employers do not notify.  But there is substantial benefit in notifying the regulators early.

Anecdotal evidence shows that by facing up to the reality that an incident has occurred is less costly in the long term as this shows that one is aware of one’s OHS obligations and willing to apply them.

The wisdom of reporting incidents in a timely manner is perhaps illustrated by a 17 December 2010 article in The Age newspaper.  It is rumoured that incidents involving apprentice tiler Kane Ammerlaan may not have been reported to the OHS regulator in Victoria, WorkSafe.

Prompt reporting may not have been able to improve Ammerlaan’s situation relating to the fall but investigations into this possibly life-changing incident could have begun much earlier, and when evidence was easier to collate.

Ammerlaan also alleges that:

‘Through my six weeks I was constantly abused. There was a lot of verbal abuse; they’d throw stuff at me; I was shot with a nail gun on a few occasions.”

This may raise, yet again, the safety issue of the treatment of young workers and apprentices; an issue on which the community seems to require regular reminding.

Kevin Jones

Make buying a business a safe choice

A recent prosecution by SafeWorkSA illustrates an odd situation but one of considerable importance.

The media release of 15 December 2010 reports on the the penalties given to Hermes Precisa Pty Ltd (A$24,600) and Salmat Document Management Solutions Pty Ltd (A$22,400) for breaches of OHS law in May 2008.  The circumstances of the offence are:

” A male plant operator was working with a large guillotine to remove the spines from stationery, when his fingertips were crushed by the clamp of the machine, necessitating their eventual amputation. He remains employed by the company.

The investigation revealed that the employee had received only verbal training and instruction on the use of the machine, and was required to use a wooden block to square up stacks of papers that were to be trimmed.

SafeWork SA told the court that the wooden block was insufficient to protect the worker’s hand and neither company provided safe systems of work for the task involved.  A purpose-built blocking tool that did protect the operator’s hand had been lost a year previously. “

The obvious lesson from the incident is in the last paragraph – maintain safety equipment and replace what is broken or lost.

But the curious element of the prosecution is that it is rare for two companies to be prosecuted and guilty for the one offence.   Continue reading “Make buying a business a safe choice”