Tag: OHS

Where can I get my own Cynthia Carroll?

The June 2012 edition of the Harvard Business Review includes a fascinating article (extract online ) on safety by the controversial CEO of Anglo American, Cynthia Carroll.  The whole article is well worth reading but there was one element that I found particularly interesting, Carroll’s mention of zero harm.

Carroll visited operations in South Africa where Anglo American employed 86,000 people from various cultural background s and literacy. She writes:

“When I visited the operations, my conversations with local managers were frustrating. Safety was improving, they assured me, but it would never be perfect. My goal of zero harm was simply not achievable. The head of our platinum operations at the time insisted repeatedly, “Cynthia, you just have to understand…” As I talked to people and examined the facilities, I wondered how much authority someone who is underground for hours on end, with a shift supervisor right behind him, really has. I questioned whether a line worker had the power to put up his hand and say, “I’m not going to do this, because it is unsafe.””

Following a fatality on the day of her visit and in conjunction with the safety concerns she had, Carroll closed the Rustenburg platinum mine for a structural safety makeover. Continue reading “Where can I get my own Cynthia Carroll?”

OHS reform is a relatively small regulatory concern for Australian small businesses

Many business groups in Australia have been bemoaning the potential increase in OHS compliance paperwork, often on the basis if the impact on small business, applying the logic that the small business sector has the least capacity to cope. Yet a survey of small business attitudes to “red tape” released this week questions the level of concern over OHS.

The June 2012 Sensis Business Index clearly shows that almost one-quarter of Australian small businesses want taxation regulation to be reformed most of all. Only 2% believed that OHS was the regulation needing most reform.

CEO of the Council of Small Business Organisations of Australia, Peter Strong, stated that

“The findings…. provide a framework for many important areas of regulatory reform that will benefit small business…”

As a tool for lobbying government on taxation reform, the survey results are supportive but in relation to OHS reform, OHS is equal to pay rates and planning regulations at 2%. Continue reading “OHS reform is a relatively small regulatory concern for Australian small businesses”

Safety posters about the reality of safety

Recently a colleague was asking why there was no reality in many of the workplace safety posters.  Many countries are continuing with confronting campaigns or workplace injuries and fatalities but it is easy to suffer from graphic “fatigue” and a new approach is required.  Part of this cycle has resulted in WorkSafe Victoria’s successful Homecomings campaign but even that campaign has a diminished impact, over time.

So I had a go at a couple of posters that I thought reflect the reality of workplace injuries and fatalities but also pack a punch.  These posters were produced separately to any safety campaign and solely in response to my colleague’s comment.

I would welcome constructive criticism on these posters and their relevance to workplace safety.

I have also Mummy equivalents available and should add that these images have come from a photo library.

Kevin Jones

Serious quad bike incident in New South Wales

SafetyAtWorkBlog has been informed that an Irish backpacker was working on a farm near Gravesend in New South Wales in late May 2012 and received serious back injuries when the quad bike, from which he was spot spraying weeds, rolled on an embankment. The man was taken to hospital after contacting the farmer for assistance.

A spokesperson from WorkCover NSW has confirmed that

“….a 26 year old male worker was injured on a property at Gravesend near Moree …. on Thursday, 31 May.  Initial enquiries indicate that the worker was spot spraying weeds on the property and has suffered back injuries from a quad bike incident when he attempted to ride out of a gully.”

At this time, Workcover was unable to say whether

  • the worker had received any motorcycle or quad bike training.
  • the quad bike had any attachments or modifications.
  • the worker was wearing a helmet or other PPE at the time.

It is understood that the worker had been on the farm for only a few days.

We have been unable to find any media or online references to this incident.

On 24 May 2012, a week before the incident above, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s AM program ran an interview about the quad bike related fatality of an 11-year-old boy in 2011.

A longer audio interview on quad bike safety was conducted by ABC Rural in September 2011.  The participants were Tony Williams of WorkCover NSW and John Lambert of the Forensic Engineering Society of Australia but the most significant quality of the interview was the solid understanding of agricultural safety shown by the interviewer.

Kevin Jones

The Safety Institute’s low profile needs to be seen in a media context

In recent weeks on several LinkedIn discussion forums there has been a series of highly critical postings about the Safety Institute of Australia. (I have participated in some of the discussions.)  Many comments have been unfair but almost all decry the absence of clear communication from the SIA and the very low profile of the organisation within Australia.

The SIA has struggled to gain traction in the Australian media even though the organisation has been in operation for over 60 years.  It seems there is little about workplace safety that is attractive to the general community.  (Who could not be fascinated by James Reason’s cheese?)  But a recent article by Mark Phillips, Communications Director with the Australian Council of Trade Unions, in the May-June 2012 edition of The Walkley Magazine (not available online), provides a contributory factor to the lack of traction. Continue reading “The Safety Institute’s low profile needs to be seen in a media context”

Impediments for OHS enforcement

In  letter published in the October 2011 edition of the American Historical Review (page 1257, and not available without a subscription [I got there through EBSCOHost]), Donald Rogers responded to a review of his book Making Capitalism Safe.  He said that

“Quoting reformers, the book argues that OSHA had truly “radical” potential to raise work safety standards and address previously neglected health hazards, but adds that OSHA’s promise “crumbled in the conservative political reorientation of the 1970s,” largely due to narrow court decisions, weak state cooperation, and drastic funding cuts during the Reagan years (pp. 175, 181)”.

Two out of those disappointments – “conservative political reorientation” and “weak state cooperation” – should sound familiar to those Australian safety professionals involved with OHS harmonisation.

Kevin Jones

Latest Andrew Hopkins book focusses on engineering decisions

The latest Andrew Hopkins book steers clear of analysing corporate leadership, and this is a good thing.  Australian National University sociologist, Andrew Hopkins, has established an international reputation for his enlightening analyses of the failures of organisational culture in major disasters but his latest book, Disastrous Decisions: The Human and Organisational Causes of the Gulf of Mexico Blowout, purposely leaves leadership out.

This may disappoint many but Hopkins says that

“The critical role of top leaders in accident prevention cannot, however, be overstated.  It is they who must learn from major accidents and, unless they do, nothing can be expected to change.

There is one group of decision-makers that has received rather less attention in accident investigations: office-based engineers.” (page 8) Continue reading “Latest Andrew Hopkins book focusses on engineering decisions”

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