Thread: OH&S gone stupid

Originally Posted by JDNSW

In general, both in Australia and the US, you can sue anyone for anything - but that doesn't mean you have the slightest chance of winning.

And if there is not much chance of winning, best of luck finding a lawyer that will act for you, unless you pay cash in advance.

Where the US is worse than here (but we are heading that way), is that awards can be ridiculously high, with a large proportion going to the lawyers, so that some legal firms will take on cases that have only a slight chance of winning. Of course, it is not worth their while to sue unless it is a wealthy target - or is insured. Guess what this does to both your insurance premiums and the red tape your insurer wraps you in.

Not really: the difference between the US and Australia is that in Australia, unlike the US, if you sue someone and lose you pay their costs, which could be very substantial. In the US each party bears their own costs, so there's no disincentive to bring marginal cases. So in Australia a plaintiff law firm isn't going to start, for example, a class action, unless they think that they've got a really good chance of at least covering their costs and/or the costs of the party being sued. It probably doesn't help that some firms, like Slater & Gordon, used to advertise "no win, no fee" - what they omitted to mention in the ads was that if you didn't win they might not charge you their fee, but you were going to pay the respondent's costs, including all of their legal fees. So people think that our system is like the US's when it really isn't.

But it is correct that this stuff is being driven by insurers - a music venue just down the road from me closed last Friday because they could no longer get reasonably priced public liability insurance. Partly that's because Australia doesn't have a national reinsurer (unlike, say, Japan with Toa Re or Germany/Munich Re or Switzerland/Swiss Re) and I also suspect that the brokers and/or retail insurers no longer understand the London market and aren't tapping it correctly.

Originally Posted by Homestar

I’ve done quite a bit of work on the level crossing removal projects here in Melbourne. Funniest is when they rip the tracks up in both directions to cut over to the new bridge and do bus replacements for a couple of months. Even with the tracks gone they require full compliance to the rail corridor as if it had trains running on it - had to get a permit off the blue hats to do work in case you got hit by a train and still wear full rail PPE.

Well.... First job I had after the Army was to fill in for the holidays of blokes who drove cherry pickers at AIS at Pt Kembla. 1976. Massive place, furnaces and stuff. Had to go around with some riggers inspecting SWR on every crane in the place. More than a few. At the main entrance there was one of those signs, Days since last injury, always 0, Days since last fatality, never very high. Biggest danger, by far, was the trains. They ran all over the place, they never seemed to look or slow down, and there were so many tracks you could never be sure which one they were on. A few of the cranes we checked were on the tracks, often inside buildings. I wouldn't have minded some OH&S there.

I used to cart steel plate out of BHP Port Kembla. Mostly 2.4m wide but up to 3.3m oversize loads.

We'd load outdoors with a large forklift (some of the plate was about 50mm thick) and then proceed to the "chain down bay".

Arrived in the chain down bay one day and greeted by a youngish lady in hi-vis and a very clean hard hat, who said she will be auditing my load restraint procedures.

I just got on with the job the same way I did every other time and about half way through I said to the woman, "do you have any idea what I'm doing here?" to which she replied "No", "I'm just following this check list".

Just a tick and flick page. She had no idea of any of the terminology, number of chains required for tonnage, probably the only things she could clearly identify would have been my hard hat, gloves, safety boots and hi-vis shirt.

OH & S is totally out of control. I now call it Occupational Health & Stupidity.

Originally Posted by Tins

Well.... First job I had after the Army was to fill in for the holidays of blokes who drove cherry pickers at AIS at Pt Kembla. 1976. Massive place, furnaces and stuff. Had to go around with some riggers inspecting SWR on every crane in the place. More than a few. At the main entrance there was one of those signs, Days since last injury, always 0, Days since last fatality, never very high. Biggest danger, by far, was the trains. They ran all over the place, they never seemed to look or slow down, and there were so many tracks you could never be sure which one they were on. A few of the cranes we checked were on the tracks, often inside buildings. I wouldn't have minded some OH&S there.

I work at AIS/BHP Pt Kembla from '78-'82. OH&S/Induction on first day was a 30min film in B&W. Followed by "sign here to join the union, fees will be deducted from you pay". There was some safety but nothing even close to today's efforts. There was no hi-vis, everyone wore grey, except the senior salaried staff, who wore dark green. Hearing protection was thin to non existent, which is probably why I say 'what' a lot.

Originally Posted by ChookD2

OH & S is totally out of control. I now call it Occupational Health & Stupidity.

Or "Occupational harassment and stupidity". ???

I did a 6 month contract with a financial institution here in the UK a few years ago. Spent the first 2 weeks doing computer based induction before was allowed to commence fixing what they had employed me for. These 2 weeks were at my full daily rate

How the OHS rules are created is not that different to an audit. Every audit has to find problems or make recommendations to improve process. A report cannot say all is well. So these recommendations build up until they become too burdensome. Then you employ the auditors to streamline the business by taking out all the unnecessary crap they previously put in place to justify their existence

Have a friend who does driver induction the a firm that runs a fleet of HGV’s. This is mostly about how to climb in and out of the cab and how wet or cold weather needs to be taken into account. They had a new driver fall when exiting the cab and had an insurance claim. Their insurer required the training as this would reduce any future claims payout as had not followed instructions. This is similar to the ticket on how to climb a ladder. No rule says you need it but if someone falls and they have not had the training……

Originally Posted by ChookD2

I work at AIS/BHP Pt Kembla from '78-'82. OH&S/Induction on first day was a 30min film in B&W. Followed by "sign here to join the union, fees will be deducted from you pay". There was some safety but nothing even close to today's efforts. There was no hi-vis, everyone wore grey, except the senior salaried staff, who wore dark green. Hearing protection was thin to non existent, which is probably why I say 'what' a lot.

You got an induction? I didn't. First day the bloke I was replacing ( subbie ) took me in, showed me where the tea room was ( very important ) and where and when to meet the two riggers. No union for me then, though the site was very much a union site. No HiVis, no PPE at all apart from a hard hat which nobody seemed to check you were wearing.

The place was in two halves. One had all the huge furnaces. All the raw material, the coal, and huge amounts of scrap came in on the trains to various places. All got melted down into huge 'thimbles' of molten steel. Checking the cranes above those was interesting. The other half was where stuff was processed. That was where the "tin mill"* was, where the plate was rolled and cut for you to load, Dave. There was a big sort of no man's land between the two halves. Steel, in ingots the size of a bus, was carted from one place to the other on yet more trains. The road crossed this line. The gates for the crossing were maybe 75 metres from the tracks, due to the heat coming off the ingots. You would see them, one ingot per rail car, with blokes in suits like the old diving suits, probably asbestos back then, standing on the ingots, on a moving train, with bloody great hoses passing I dunno what, possibly compressed air, cleaning the scale off the ingots. They could only do the top bit, but they said it saved time..... The ingots went to different places, but most went to the "tin mill", where they were rolled out ( why they were still hot ). Had to check the cranes in there as well. The speed the things went through the rollers, thinner and thinner, was amazing, the noise incredible and the heat... hottest place I have been in my life, apart from the aforesaid blast furnace over the thimbles.

That place was nuts.

I also say "what" a lot.


* obviously NOT tin.