The European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) has upgraded its newsletter to a hard-copy six-monthly magazine called HesaMAG. SafetyAtWorkBlog received its copy a couple of days ago and we applaud the ETUI for being innovative by going backwards. Continue reading “New (hard copy) OHS magazine”
Tag: union
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”
Migrant workers’ deaths on Christmas Eve
According to the Toronto Police, four workers died on December 24 2009 when the swing stage they were working on collapsed. A fifth man, Dilshod Marupov, is in hospital.
Media reports have identified the five workers as migrant workers and although the swing stage was at the thirteenth floor of an apartment complex, no-one was wearing safety harnesses. Continue reading “Migrant workers’ deaths on Christmas Eve”
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.
OHS debate is over, says Deputy PM
Deputy Prime minister and Workplace Relations Minister, Julia Gillard, has told the Australian Financial Review (only available online to subscribers) that the OHS law changes were finalised at the recent Workplace Relations Ministers’ Council.
Gillard again rejected the trade union movement’s concerns about weakened worker protection. The Minister emphasised that substantial economic benefits would flow to business as a result of increased administrative efficiencies.
However, the likelihood of a nationally harmonised OHS system seems as far away as ever with the West Australian Government continuing to refuse to apply the new laws which it sees as too friendly to the unions.
Significantly, the Australian Government has backed down from its earlier threat to penalise any governments that do not support the changes. This lets the WA Liberal Government off the hook and provides the New South Wales Liberal Party with an easy platform option for the 2010 State election.
The conservative forces in Australia can take heart but Minister Gillard’s position has the union movement facing difficult decisions. It has strongly funded a campaign against elements of the OHS laws and branded the laws as “second-rate safety”. It now needs to decide whether to give up the campaign totally as a lost cause or to pare it back so that, over time, the campaign fades away, as did the industrial manslaughter campaign of around five years ago.
The ACTU has expressed disappointment but must have realised, privately at least, that some union powers, considered to be extreme by business and industry groups and over which the business complaints have been load and long, were going to be sacrificed in any harmonisation process.
Former Prime Minister and ACTU President Bob Hawke achieved many industrial relations reforms in the early 1980’s by pushing “consensus”. This negotiation process had strong similarities to the current OHS harmonisation however big C Consensus is now rarely spoken by the Australian trade union movement. One of the few contemporary outings was when current ACTU Secretary Jeff Lawrence, who expressed the disappointment above, speaking about industrial relations said on 14 June 2007:
“I’m tough enough but I’m also a person who likes to work by consensus”.
To operate constructively at the big tripartite table of OHS, the unions will need to accept a defeat and gain whatever they can from the new rules. This is doubly important in the lead-up to the planned harmonisation of workers compensation. Australia will see some fiery union rhetoric when harmonisation threatens to reduce the income and entitlements of workers who are already injured.
OHS law and safety management
Regular readers will be aware that SafetyAtWorkBlog holds the belief that OHS legislation is not the same as managing workplace safety. Safety can be managed without recourse to law (this is what many mean when they say that “safety is just common sense”) but legislation provides some parameters in which that management occurs.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions has issued a call for tougher OHS laws and used workplace fatality statistics as the basis. Tying the two issues together serves a political purpose but avoids the fact that a range of economic, political, social and even environmental issues can affect how workplaces manage safety.
The media statement issued on 11 December 2009 says:
“A sharp rise in work-related fatalities last year shows that proposed new workplace health and safety laws need to be strengthened, not watered down, say unions.
There were 177 fatal injuries in workplaces in 2008-9, according to newly released statistics from the national regulatory body, Safe Work Australia. This is an 18% increase from the previous year…. [hyperlink added]
ACTU Secretary Jeff Lawrence said the increase in fatalities was disturbing at a time when proposed changes to Australian workplace safety laws would result in a weakening of protections and rights.
“A double-digit increase in workplace fatalities in one year is shocking,” Mr Lawrence said. “Each of these victims is someone’s partner, parent, son, daughter or friend. The Federal, state and territory governments will make significant decisions about new national health and safety laws today. If any evidence was needed that requirements for employers to provide a safe workplace need to be toughened, this is it. We urge the federal and state governments to make workers’ safety their highest priority.”
The ACTU is doing what it should by serving the needs of its members but the push for union prosecutions of OHS breaches is only one part of its social charter. The aim of improving safety can be best achieved by motivating union members and establishing a dialogue with the general community, which includes business, small and large.
Is the day far off when we may see joint statements from unions and employer groups on the issue of workplace safety? Can politics be put aside for the benefit of improving safety? Comments welcome.
Union OHS guru on quad bike safety
Yossi Berger, Australian OHS guru with the Australian Workers’ Union, has posted an article on the Croakey blog explaining his thoughts on the issue of quad bike safety.