law – Page 239 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

Would you fire someone who could fire back?

Any gun issue in the United States comes down to the right to bear arms but what happens when that right conflicts with the employers’ obligations to provide a safe working environment and one without risks to health.

On 9 April 2008 Reuters reported on a new law in Florida that allows employees to take their guns to work. The law would “prohibit business owners from banning guns kept locked in motor vehicles on their private property.”

The law has now been tested at Disneyworld and NPR provides an audio report on the issue.

Beaconsfield Coronial Inquest Walkout

On 22 July 2008 the Tasmanian Coroner continued with his inquest into the death of Larry Knight at the Beaconsfield mine on 25 April 2006. Shortly after the start the legal team representing the mine walked out. Newspaper, radio and TV have covered this extraordinary development. Other reports in SafetyAtWorkBlog told of the lawyers’ attempts…

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OHS in the 1970’s

Matthew Knott’s article in the Australian newspaper (21 July 2008 ) included telling comments from Barry Willis, a 64-year-old former maintenance worker at Amberley air force base. The article says

“workplace health and safety was non-existent: open cans of chemical sealant were stored in the refrigerators where the men kept their lunch.”

I have been critical of the military in the past as they are usually well-sourced on OHS and often speak proudly of their approach to safety. Yet just as with the BlackHawk Inquiry findings criticising the safety culture, Barry Willis saw no safety culture in the 1970s.

At the risk of sounding like an old grump, working in that decade was under a different set of cultural rules. Modern OHS legislation was being considered by most Western jurisdictions and industrial diseases were coming to the fore. In the early 1980’s I worked in industrial relations concerning award restructuring. One of the first elements to be restructured was allowances, many of them accurately described as “danger money” – removing roadkill, working at heights, confined spaces and a range of other hazards.

It can be argued that modern salary levels incorporate allowances for hazardous work but the issue of immediate compensation for a dirty or hazardous job, hopefully, has had its day.

Sadly, for people like Barry Willis, the consequences of a hazard, known or discounted, continue and the struggle for acknowledgement and compensation continues.

“Reasonably Practicable” – alternative perspective

A developing sticking point in the review of Australia’s OHS laws is the inclusion or otherwise of “reasonably practicable”. This is an important legal concept but less so for safety management. Safety management is an aim and legislative responsibility and compliance is ill-defined. “Reasonably practicable” was an acknowledgement of the difficulty in complying with a…

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OHS Law Review and the International Labour Organisation

Several submissions, from those currently publicly available, to Australia’s National OHS Law Review have referenced OHS conventions of the International Labour Organisation (ILO). It is early days in the process of assessing submissions and one would expect more details on ILO Conventions to come from submissions of the ACTU and ACCI, both members of the…

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Coroner to investigate safety management of Beaconsfield mine

A front page report in the The Australian on 9 July 2008 is reassuring safety professionals who had hoped for OHS management details from the Tasmanian Coroner’s inquest into the death of Larry Knight at the Beaconsfield mine.

According to the report

Coroner Rod Chandler yesterday ruled against the mine’s submission that he should simply adopt the findings of the official Melick report into the Anzac Day rock-fall in 2006 that killed Knight and trapped colleagues Brant Webb and Todd Russell underground for 14 days.

Mr Chandler also ruled against the mine’s fall-back position that any inquest should be limited to geo-technical issues.

Instead, he ruled he would also examine risk management at the mine, which was criticised by an expert’s report, the mine’s “financial situation” and the role of Tasmania’s work safety watchdog.

This puts the inquiry iinto the realms of the Sago mine investigation and many other mine fatality inquries.

The full inquest resumes on 22 July 2008.

Successful appeal in finger injury case

SafetyAtWorkBlog mainly keeps away from referring to specific court decisions on OHS Prosecutions because, to a large extent, these are decisions of law rather than safety management. The judgements also require clear legal interpretation so that any management lessons of the judgement can be extracted.

Another reason is that SafetyAtWorkBlog intends to be a FREE conduit for OHS discussion and news. We don’t agree that blogs should refer to information that can only be accessed through subscriptions. That approach renders a blog advertising which is contrary to what we believe a weblog should be.

In this context some readers may be interested in reading the judge’s decision in an appeal case that has appeareed on several Australian OHS sites in the last day.

According to a judgement in the South Australia Industrial Court:

Adelaide Industrial Labour Service Pty Ltd (AILS)… is a labour hire company which employed John McCutcheon on 19 May 2005. At the time Mr McCutcheon was eighteen years old and had no trade qualifications or experience.
On 19 May 2005 AILS sent Mr McCutcheon to work for Dagenham Pty Ltd (trading as Link Plus) as a labourer.
On 20 May 2005 Mr McCutcheon whilst operating a pipe bending machine which was unguarded, sustained serious finger injuries to both hands. Mr McCutcheon had not received adequate instruction or training to operate that machine.
Dagenham was charged with a breach of s 19(1) of the Occupational Health Safety and Welfare Act 1986 (the Act) and was sentenced on 18 December 2006 by Ardlie IM to a penalty of $12,000, discounted on account of its guilty plea to $9,000.

The court has reduced the fine by $3,000 and has found that the Industrial Magistrate in the initial case made a defective decision.

The full decision is available for download HERE

Category: law

Would you fire someone who could fire back?

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Beaconsfield Coronial Inquest Walkout

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OHS in the 1970’s

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“Reasonably Practicable” – alternative perspective

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OHS Law Review and the International Labour Organisation

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Coroner to investigate safety management of Beaconsfield mine

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Successful appeal in finger injury case

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