Safety At Work Blog

There is a continuing and contentious parallel between road safety and occupational safety. OHS specialists are worsening this problem by trying to illustrate OHS issues in relation to road safety because road safety is seen to be more easily understandable by the public.

But this approach confuses the public more than enlightens, and it also puts workplace safety in a difficult context. This is illustrated, particularly, in an article in Melbourne’s HERALD-Sun newspaper ( 25 February 2008), entitled “Road Killers – Truckies in drug binge“.

I am of the opinion that vehicles used for work purposes make the vehicles, for most of their time, workplaces, and should be subject to occupational health and safety laws and obligations. OHS regulators support this perspective for vehicles such as taxis and cattle trucks, as they participate in taxi industry safety programs and provide guidance on accessing the outside of cattle truck in a safe manner. But they hesitate when relating driver behaviour to a safe workplace.

Car drivers operate within a different set of rules. They drive without OHS obligations. But truck, and commercial vehicle, operators must operate within road and workplace rules providing drivers and employers with a detailed set of rules that cover all the hours and activities within their work shifts.

There are legislative OHS obligations on all employees to undertake work tasks in a manner that does not threaten or injure themselves and others. (This obligation reflects the common sense attitude that most individuals have over their own welfare.) There is also a legislative OHS obligation on employers to provide a safe and healthy work environment. If the transport industry, and OHS regulators, were serious about applying these obligations to all workplaces, they would be applying them more heavily to the drivers and trucking companies.

Inaction is unforgivable when there are rules governing the actions of individuals and employers. The rules are good rules but are not being enforced.

I have always believed that safety practitioners in one country can learn much about safety management from the activities and events in other countries. Often it is possible to anticipate hazards by being able to look over our factory fences or national borders.

The increased risk of terrorist attack and the concerns over bird flu or H5N1 have changed our perception of workplace safety risks. During my studies we took an airplane crash as the extreme example of a high risk low probability event. That criteria has undergone some re-evaluation.

The line between public health, public safety and OHS has always been fuzzy but that fuzziness is receiving more and more attention. Some are trying to clarify the line, others are trying to erase it altogether. I don’t think that Western societies are structured to have a complete overlap of these disciplines although New Zealand has a more social workers’ compensation system than others, Scandinavia almost has no distinction, and some non-Western countries rely on the various levels of social security to pick up workplace injuries.

Safety practitioners should, perhaps, ignore whatever distinctions the categories, regulations and government demarcations may provide by looking at the hazard. This is the way that OHS has traditionally been practiced but can this approach cope with the new workplace hazards that are generated from social, non-work activities?

Some of my clients continue to have workers claim that a weekend injury has occurred at work so that workers compensation will cover the rehabilitation and repairs. One client is experiencing a noticeable increase in hip replacements and knee reconstructions in the workers who are close to retirement age. Of course that the workers are keen football players or undertake very physical labour outside of work is not permitted to be taken into account. If the principle work is physically demanding then how can the injury be proved to be not caused by work?

This type of work expense for non-work incidents is a constant sore spot for employers but I wonder if government silently acknowledges these practices and structures its workers compensation systems accordingly. Should we see workers compensation as having its principle role in social security rather than in the business world, even though companies fund the scheme? Should business leaders see workers compensation premiums as their social contributions, rather than an annoying cost of operation?

Certainly shareholders would require some balance in these contributions as the companies exist to generate profit and dividends for shareholders, but would the drive to screw down workers compensation premiums be less strident if workers compensation was also seen as a community premium?

Companies are expected to change their working environment, management practices and workplace design to accommodate the work/life balance, a concept that acknowledges the workplace impact of non-work stressors. Perhaps businesses should specifically identify to shareholders the reductions in dividends and profits that the accommodation of work/life balance cause. Shareholders can then decide where to best invest for profit.

The difficulty is that by facing the fact that work/life balance costs (before it ever returns benefits) we are faced with the ruthless greed that most shareholders operate from. Yes, companies exist to make profits but we can’t blame the companies for that as it is the shareholders who provide the companies’ motivations.

Perhaps OHS professionals and practitioners should be trying to explain to shareholders how adequate investment in OHS can have a company and social benefit, as well as controlling workplace hazards. Safety from a moral basis, now there’s a challenge!

I established my OHS consultancy on the principal that I am not an expert. I am a General OHS Practitioner. My skill was to identify workplace hazards that businesses didn’t recognize or didn’t understand. I could also present recommendations in plain English and reports that were stripped of unnecessary technicalities. Occasionally, usually on issues of chemicals, I would contract a colleague of mine who had the required expertise, but my aim was to be a general jack of all trades and expert of none.

This position has probably developed into a business philosophy. One that seems to be supported by the way business and OHS is evolving. Today there is less of a delineation between workplace safety, human resources, industrial relations, organisational behaviour, environment, quality management and social or psychological issues than ever before. Business advisers are trying to break down the silo structure of management but the silo structure of intellectual disciplines continues. This may be because we are all so busy that we have no time to spend talking with other disciplines. It may be that our revenues come from our own specific turfs and we don’t want to let our clients know that there may be other approaches to problem solving that we can’t provide. It may be that we are happy in our intellectual comfort zones.

If I have learnt anything from my experience is that the world is a web of social connections. Some strands of the web are thicker than others. Some connections are further from the central core than others but there is a pathway to everywhere from everywhere else. That is why I get frustrated when people disparage what they don’t understand.

It is time for me to make a confession. I will come out as a reader of FORTEAN TIMES. When you next go to a large newsagency, look for FORTEAN TIMES. It will be located with the nerdy flying saucer expose magazines. If you are lucky, it may be located next to SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN or NATURE. The magazine reports on bizarre occurrences from raining frogs, alien big cats, bigfoot, conspiracy theories, parapsychology and many other fringe concepts. Thankfully UFO matters are minimised. I have read this magazine for over 20 years. (You can start sending the sympathy cards now.) Read the rest of this entry »