Thread: OHS GONE MAD

Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

What I'm hearing here is that people would rather go back to the pre-WHS days because it was better.

I remember one day in the Emergency Department when a young apprentice fitter was brought in from the major breakfast cereal manufacturer's plant at Botany. He had to do some work on the inside of one of the ovens that was currently out of service. He went in to do the work knowing it wasn't in operation, there was no risk assessment and no SOP. While he was in there the oven next door completed the cooking cycle and as is the system the steam was recovered into the adjacent oven which would normally begin its cooking cycle. The oven cooked the apprentice he died in extreme agony.

The moral of the story was that it's O.K to cook your apprentices so long as they die of the injury and have no dependants because it did not attract compensation payment.

Is that the place you want to go?

With the great respect I do not understand how filling out a bit of paper would have avoided this accident. Both the paper and the incident it self would have required knowledge which in this case was lacking. i am of the opinion that this sort of accident is more likely today than 20-30 years ago.
My reasoning is. 30 years ago you had staff who had worked in the same job for many years, they did know there plant and acted accordingly.
Today with contract workers and short termers that knowledge is no longer there. ie the focus is on the bit of plant rather than the complete factory, and how plant interacts with each other.
On the other hand plant is not maintained in the manor it once was, so it is a sort of mute point.

I have many personal examples of things going wrong and how today things are better in many respects and also how things have gotten silly.

9” angle grinders, banned from most sites. Infact I have not seen one for years. Why, well apparently they are unsafe. Rubbish, all though my apprenticeship and for many years after that was all we had. What was wrong with them was they had no safety on the trigger, well we have them now. They started to get light, not a major but force vers mass. And some idiot decided to make cutoff disks for them. Management decided it was cheaper to use cut off disks and not replace the Donkey saw, Gas axe etc. so now we only have poxy 4” & 5” grinders. Now that’s OSH going mad.

It reminds me of a fact from WW1
In the beginning the pom had soft hats, with the advent of trench war. The numbers of head injuries climbed alarmingly. This lead to the introduction of helmets.
Unfortunately the head injury statistics went though the roof. Orders went out banning the wearing of the newly issued helmets. The guys in the trenches ignored these orders.

It took time for the realization that the reason head injury cases where so high was because less here dyeing from head injuries, IE they were saved by there helmets.

Good OSH, issuing helmets

OSH gone mad, banning the use of helmets

Originally Posted by Greatsouthernland

Not me...seen enough dumb decisions and fatalities.

I can however understand some posters apathy with some styles of safety management, but as I've written, the aim of the laws and systems are credible, even if some think it's only arse covering...

...

I'm pretty sure that many opposed to current WHS processes, are actually frustrated with the systems in-place and the personnel manageing them within their workplace. They are not necessarily opposed to safe work and going home uninjured.

I live with a WHS professional, a former nurse (both hospital trained and university educated, like myself) he entered the OHS industry because of the horror of the Piper Alpha oil platform disaster in the North Sea. Started off as a OHS Injury manager and subsequently took himself off to get industrial and higher tertiary quals in OHS and Safety management systems.

Every time he moves to a new company, he has stories about poor safety systems and WHS staff, many delegated off the floor without any WHS training. It usually takes him about three to five years before better, more efficient, logical safety processes and reporting are in place. It also takes about 12 months before the workers on the site start to get the message and understand what the systems are about.

If you have dumb processes at your workplace, don't blame the WHS Laws and Regs, look at the people at your workplace who designed and manage them.

It may be that the workers and management need to get in real WHS professionals, particularly companies like DuPont to assist in the design and operation of the safety systems.

Originally Posted by 85 county

With the great respect I do not understand how filling out a bit of paper would have avoided this accident. Both the paper and the incident it self would have required knowledge which in this case was lacking. i am of the opinion that this sort of accident is more likely today than 20-30 years ago.
My reasoning is. 30 years ago you had staff who had worked in the same job for many years, they did know there plant and acted accordingly.
Today with contract workers and short termers that knowledge is no longer there. ie the focus is on the bit of plant rather than the complete factory, and how plant interacts with each other.
On the other hand plant is not maintained in the manor it once was, so it is a sort of mute point.

I have many personal examples of things going wrong and how today things are better in many respects and also how things have gotten silly.

9” angle grinders, banned from most sites. Infact I have not seen one for years. Why, well apparently they are unsafe. Rubbish, all though my apprenticeship and for many years after that was all we had. What was wrong with them was they had no safety on the trigger, well we have them now. They started to get light, not a major but force vers mass. And some idiot decided to make cutoff disks for them. Management decided it was cheaper to use cut off disks and not replace the Donkey saw, Gas axe etc. so now we only have poxy 4” & 5” grinders. Now that’s OSH going mad.

It reminds me of a fact from WW1
In the beginning the pom had soft hats, with the advent of trench war. The numbers of head injuries climbed alarmingly. This lead to the introduction of helmets.
Unfortunately the head injury statistics went though the roof. Orders went out banning the wearing of the newly issued helmets. The guys in the trenches ignored these orders.

It took time for the realization that the reason head injury cases where so high was because less here dyeing from head injuries, IE they were saved by there helmets.

Good OSH, issuing helmets

OSH gone mad, banning the use of helmets

You have never seen a lock out procedure? One that would say if x contractor or anyone else needs to get in here they need to isolate power and valves to stop it being used. The bit of paper would be signed by both contractor, trade doing isolation and the boss otherwise no start. A lot of these bits of paper have a history stemming from a past accident.

We had a few near misses with 9in blades coming off and one guy in another dept got badly injured so they where banned.

Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

I'm pretty sure that many opposed to current WHS processes, are actually frustrated with the systems in-place and the personnel manageing them within their workplace. They are not necessarily opposed to safe work and going home uninjured.

I agree.

Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

...the Piper Alpha oil platform disaster in the North Sea.

Yes aware of it, this and Space Shuttle Challenger disaster formed part of the syllabus when I did my PGD Public Health OHS (not that I have ever been a safety manager, I just wanted to have the qualification to back up my cheeky opposition to long clothing in open pits in the desert) which proved useful as a manager overall, it's clearly ideal for all managers to better understand the occupational safety/health/hygiene/training/compliance/audit relationship.

Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

Every time he moves to a new company, he has stories about poor safety systems and WHS staff, many delegated off the floor without any WHS training.

Yes, and I've seen some good ones that end up leaving due to frustration of their department being under-resourced, I.e. No or little support from upper management. Have seen the good ones over compensate for lack of resources and end up burning themselves out...

Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

If you have dumb processes at your workplace, don't blame the WHS Laws and Regs, look at the people at your workplace who designed and manage them.

I was referring to people making dumb decisions that put others at risk, not dumb procedures, but I agree with your other reference.

Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

It may be that the workers and management need to get in real WHS professionals, particularly companies like DuPont to assist in the design and operation of the safety systems.

Ideally yes, however not all companies are large enough to wear this cost, so there will always be a potential issue with new and small companies getting up to speed. Although lucky enough to have been involved with DuPont, there are many courses for supervisors (I.e. Frontline management & safety awareness for supervisors) that would suit small companies that can't manage the expense and downtime for the DuPont course.

Originally Posted by mark_coffey

OHS gon mad, maybe, but how many time while working in your own shed slash driveway have you thought that you need at least safety glasses before even picking up the grinder, what about an incompressible stand next to the jack under your 2T landy. I grew up on a farm and never heard of this sort of stuff over 20 years ago, now even my old man wont do these things because of our influence. probably should hvae died several times by now if it wasnt for these influences.
Its all well and good bitching about it, but going home is still a feeling that cant be topped, have been around a couple of deaths, not fun.

Exactly!!

Like guarding - prevents a lot of PTO incidents that happened with tractors.
Like confined space entry - prevents kids getting into portable grain bins and coming out through the auger.

If everyone took home the good bits of of OHS, it would be a good thing for sure.

Originally Posted by Greatsouthernland

Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

Every time he moves to a new company, he has stories about poor safety systems and WHS staff, many delegated off the floor without any WHS training.

Yes, and I've seen some good ones that end up leaving due to frustration of their department being under-resourced, I.e. No or little support from upper management. Have seen the good ones over compensate for lack of resources and end up burning themselves out...

Safe work systems start right at the top.

If the CEO sees WHS as an impediment to business he won't send the WHS message down the line or resource it. This will make the development and management of safe work systems difficult if not impossible and will burn out a good WHS professional.

Usually all the CEO has to do is regularly comment on requiring safe systems and safe management and that he (sic) supports it and that that ethos will perfuse the entire organisation.

Without the CEO or MD's overt support they'll burn out their WHS staff.

As with any profession or pasttime (4x4ing...) there are a small number of (under)qualified people giving others a bad name - either because they are trying to justify their existence or have a lack of understanding.

Most (good) OHS legislation these days follows the ALARP principles (As low as reasonably practicable), rather than be prescriptive. It is the interpretation and implementation in many cases that is lacking.

I am sure no sane employee in the mining, construction or manufacturing sectors [I am excluding employers or self employed contractors] would wish to revert to the pre-OHS days of say the industrial revoltion - where H&S measures were only implemented if your workers were dying faster than you could replace them.

My own grandfather fell from the top of a bridge under construction and was impaled by a steel reo bar. Such an incident would llikely have been prevented by modern OHS practice.

Aussie Poem:
------------------------------------
The sun was hot already - it was only 8 o'clock
The cocky took off in his Ute, to go and check his stock.
He drove around the paddocks checking wethers, ewes and lambs,
The float valves in the water troughs, the windmills on the dams

He stopped and turned a windmill on to fill a water tank
And saw a ewe down in the dam, a few yards from the bank.
"Typical bloody sheep," he thought, "they've got no common sense,
"They won't go through a gateway but they'll jump a bloody fence."

The ewe was stuck down in the mud, he knew without a doubt
She'd stay there 'til she carked it if he didn't get her out.
But when he reached the water's edge, the startled ewe broke free
And in her haste to get away, began a swimming spree.

He reckoned once her fleece was wet, the weight would drag her down
If he didn't rescue her, the stupid sod would drown.
Her style was unimpressive, her survival chances slim
He saw no other option, he would have to take a swim.

He peeled his shirt and singlet off, his trousers, boots and socks
And as he couldn't stand wet clothes, he also shed his jocks.
He jumped into the water and away that cocky swam
He caught up with her somewhere near the middle of the dam.

The ewe was quite evasive, she kept giving him the slip
He tried to grab her sodden fleece but couldn't get a grip.
At last he got her to the bank and stopped to catch his breath
She showed him little gratitude for saving her from death.

She took off like a Bondi tram around the other side
He swore next time he caught that ewe he'd hang her bloody hide.
Then round and round the dam they ran, although he felt quite puffed
He still thought he could run her down, she must be nearly stuffed.

The local stock rep came along, to pay a call that day.
He knew this bloke was on his own, his wife had gone away,
He didn't really think he'd get fresh scones for morning tea
But neither was he ready for what he was soon to see.

He rubbed his eyes in disbelief at what came into view
For running down the catchment came this frantic-looking ewe.
And on her heels in hot pursuit and wearing not a stitch
The farmer yelling wildly, "Come back here, you lousy bitch!"

The stock rep didn't hang around, he took off in his car
The cocky's reputation has been damaged near and far
So bear in mind the Work Safe rule when next you check your flocks
Spot the hazard, assess the risk, and always wear your jocks!