Thread: OHS GONE MAD

Originally Posted by incisor

yep

my business insurance costs trebled in the last few years

you can't go on many premises to ply your trade without it

i stepped away from employing people because the costs simply negate any benefit i derived and i was working my butt off for less than i was paying them..

with just me and the wife the insurance costs are still in excess of 10k a year so that is $200+ bucks a week gone before you even think about paying rent etc so you have doors you can open.

There is a great big hole in the system when Install company's hire sub-contractors.
There are some Subbies that are getting around the requirement to have public liability insurance by borrowing their mates paperwork that show's the record of payment of the public liability ( can't think of the descriptive word for this record at the moment ) the borrowed paper gets then photocopied and doctored to the dodgy ones liking and the insurance requirement is ticked off by the girl at the contractors office.

I don't want to go back to employing people myself, for the same reason as you have found. The employee's are getting the cream out of your business and you are left with the sour taste.

Between the cost of insurances and perks for the employees, most times there just isn't enough scope in the community in a place like Tasmania for the business to prosper.
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Originally Posted by p38arover

Are we twin brothers, Robert?

Heh heh, I have often thought that we may be related Ron.

Cheers.

Originally Posted by Brian Hjelm

I "'reversing alarm smashed to pieces, new alarm ordered, workshop foreman advised". The guys working down the pit apparently got driven mad by the incessant loud beep-beep-beep of the reversing alarms. They took matters into their own hands.

An electrical contractor mate tells me that often he visits factories and workshops and does the annual test and tag of leads, etc. they commonly find that 15 & 20 amp 240 volt plugs have the pin ground down to fit 10 amp sockets. They replace with the correct plug and note their report that a damaged plug was replaced with the appropriate amperage plug. He says that they are often barely packed to go and employees are grinding the new plugs down.

Both "problems" - eg, non-compliance, safety compromised (any proof??...) along with co$t of repairs, insurance premiums maintained by such... etc. could be solved with an old-fashioned dose of "leadership" guided by "common sense".

Take the beepers. I agree 110%. Worse still, the implementation turns out to be driven (pun intended) by Safety Police rather than being thought through. How?- Take the obvious, the annoyance factor. Impossible to ignore it, no matter how dense your grey matter is.... No argument there, penetrating any ear-muffs or plugs... It also carries for hundreds of metres. AND, this is the killer.. they're pitched at a frequency that is difficult for the beneficiaries, 'The Werkas' to spatially locate.
Or, 'Bloody impossible to work out exactly where it's bloody-well coming from, - Better look out in all directions!'

There's been a better alternative. Called a broadband sound or white noise generator. Does everything and MORE, yet is less annoying (won't get smashed so regularly...) and is not a sound pollutant like the way a beeeping bloody Beeper carries for up to hundreds of metres in all directions..

First the Bad News here:- Vehicle Motion Alarms: Necessity, Noise Pollution, or Both?

Then the Good News:-

Alarms | Brigade

Putting it bluntly, 'The Werkas', Union Reps and Management all need their backsides kicked for not keeping up with their 'trade' knowledge. If this is an indication of their mental laziness, then it's no wonder that idiotic, restrictive and financially crippling OH&S rules are breeding...

Electrical one is dead-easy. Fit more of the appropriate GPOs an/or power circuits. Do it properly, ONE call-out, ONE fixed expense, ONE disruption, NO more extension leads need to be butchered. But needs Management to do their job properly and lead... (Sorry, that one was too good to miss)

Originally Posted by superquag

But needs Management to do their job properly and lead...

Management? Lead? Where did you got this proposperous notion? I have always been taught that management is only in place to look after themselves and cause problems for anyone lower. And that included the management course I was sent on...

Originally Posted by tonic

It's hard to get people motivated when they're scared. I work at for 2 companies who in the last 2 years brought in mandatory long clothing. As a contractor you say boo or get out. I tried my best to explain to the company people that there was no way in hell that the company could operate their business without them so just say no. They all have mortgages etc etc so the company has them.


They just couldn't see that the company could not overnight find 1000 employees to take over their jobs without hiccup. They had the power and let it go.


I have among other things a Diploma in Marketing and am looking at lobby type web site. Hell minority groups seem to get their way in this country, I am looking at a majority group.


I am also looking at getting a legal group involved. A lot of safety these days is about companies attempting to protect themselves from litigation. With the amount of people against being forced into uncomfortable longs clothes, there has to be an "equal and opposite" position.


The big problem is time and money, most of us have no time and are too busy trying t o make money to live.

Bingo! You hit the nail on the head. WHS (OH&S ) it as much about company ass covering as it is about care of employees. Insrance premiums are the real driving force! IMO. BTW I am a qualified WHS rep practicing within a volunteer emergency service. I am self employed so see it from that angle too!

I am a underground miner and i can tell you the safety protocol that goes with my job is absolute bull****,90% of it is all ass covering on behalf of the company.If your bending the rules to get extra ore to the surface the shift boss loves ya,but if their is a incident you are all alone to face the ICAM investigation.

About the only thing you can do without some form of safety checklist is take a dump!! even signing out cricket gear for a game comes with a take5 checklist for **** sake

Our friends across the Tasman have tackled this issue by adopting a national "no fault insurance scheme which basically prevents the lawyers from cashing in on accidents whether in the workplace, at home, on the roads or wherever.

Quote: The ACC Scheme is administered on a no-fault basis, so that anyone regardless of the way in which they incurred an injury, is eligible for coverage under the Scheme. Due to the Scheme's no-fault basis, people who have suffered personal injury do not have the right to sue an at-fault party, except for exemplary damages.

Here's a link to the Wikipedia page that explains the scheme in much more detail.
[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accident_Compensation_Corporation"]Accident Compensation Corporation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

No you may wonder why those smart Kiwis do the adventure tourism thing better than anybody else in the world. Well, when you have a no fault insurance scheme, you don't have to worry so much about expensive and prohibitive regulations preventing you from having fun (and making money).

Worth noting that back in the days of the rather short lived Gough Government, they were about to introduce a similar scheme into the federal parliament. But then Sir John Kerr stepped in and sadly the idea died. (Too many lawyers in parliament perhaps??)

I'd love to see it get a run again. Can we sign a petition of something?

Alan

. Its the result of stupid people. Im not saying lets kill all the stupid people but lets remove the warning signs and let the problem sort itself out.