Put your hand over your ears and start saying La La La La La La La. That is willful blindness (or, technically,deafness, but let’s not quibble). Margaret Heffernan, author of a new paperback edition of “Wilful Blindness – Why we ignore the obvious at our peril“, discovered wilful blindness while researching the trial of the Enron executives. … Continue reading “Through Wilful Blindness I begin to see”
I’ve been having a “hmmm(?!)” moments with a wee bit of the due diligence stuff in clause 27 of the Work Health Safety Bill (WHS). I’m interested to hear what you people reckon about it. Here’s the rub: I don’t think it’s possible to get a clear idea of what it means to comply with … Continue reading “The “head scratcher” in due diligence”
The following are some of the processes supposedly used in workplaces to control/eliminate hazards: hazard identification, risk assessment and risk management. These should address the implicit questions of: ‘What?’, ‘How bad?’ and ‘What to do?’ The language then turns to words and concepts like ‘OHS culture’, ‘behaviour-based safety’… and all within some over-arching package referred … Continue reading “Managers being closer”
Good OHS thinking and practice are being slowly asphyxiated. By far most suggestions by workers, unions or good consultants for Health & Safety improvements are ‘choked’ by management naysayers and bureaucrats more in touch with their current minister’s moods than workplace reality. Not choked immediately or blatantly. In fact, that person may be patted on … Continue reading “The Asphyxiation of OHS”
Dr Yossi Berger of the Australian Workers Union has been reading some of the debate in SafetyAtWorkBlog and offered the article below for publication. He said to SafetyAtWorkBlog “…in relation to BP’s OHS catastrophes and comments about their management style, their managers and this aspirational, easily-bandied-about notion of workplace culture. Two things stimulated me to … Continue reading “The Astonished Manager: Not in my wildest dreams”
The 11 November 2008 edition of The Australian includes a page 2 story where the previous manager of the Beaconsfield Mine has been called on to be held responsible for the management failures that led to the death of Larry Knight in 2006. The call was made by counsel for Larry Knight’s family and the … Continue reading “Mining fatalities and accountability”