construction – Page 34 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

Safety Interviews

A couple of weeks ago I conducted interviews with several speakers in the Safety In Action Conference to be held in Melbourne, Australia at the end of March 2009. The finalised videos are below.

Helen Marshall is Australia’s Federal Safety Commissioner who has a challenging job monitoring major government construction sites.

Dr Martyn Newman is a a fascinating speaker on the issues of leadership and emotional intelligence and how safety professionals can benefit for applying these concepts to their corporate aims.

Jill McCabe is a recent member of WorkSafe Victoria who provides quite startling survey information on the attitudes of supervisors to workplace safety.

Barry Sherriff is a partner with law firm Freehills and was recently also one of the review panellists into Australia’s OHS law review. Since this video, the final report of the panel has been publicly released and Barry will be discussing harmonisation at the Safety In Action conference.

John Merritt is the Executive Director of WorkSafe and a strong advocate of workplace safety.

Although part of my job is to help promote the Safety In Action conference, I have tried to provide a resource that will not be temporary and is actually useful to safety professionals everywhere.

Tip: Use the high quality YouTube settings if you can. It makes these much easier to view but does not improve the appearance of the interviewer.

Kevin Jones

Upcoming OHS Videos

At the end of March 2009, the Safety Institute of Australia (Victoria Division) is conducting its annual Safety In Action conference. In order to help promote the conference the SIA organised for several conference speakers to be filmed.

The filming occurred in early-February 2009 and the short 10-minutevideos will be available at the Safety In Action website in a couple of week’s time. The subjects of the videos are:

Jill MCabe of WorkSafe Victoria who talks about the research WorkSafe has undertaken in order to establish a better profile of their clients so as to improve assistance and advice. Jill has long experience in industrial relations and now focuses on health and safety.

Helen Marshall was appointed Australia’s Federal Safety Commissioner in August 2008. Helen discusses her experiences in dealing with a national system for safety on building and construction sites and reveals her first ever “real” job.

Dr Martyn Newman explains what he means by describing some leaders as “emotional capitalists”. He sees that as a good thing to be but isn’t ego an emotion and greed an emotion? And aren’t those the emotions that that have generated a lot of our social and financial heartbreak? Is there is such a thing as an “emotional socialist”? Dr Newman’s presentation at the conference will be popular but it’s application may be obscure or challenging.

John Merritt, the CEO of WorkSafe, is genuinely passionate about improving society and seems to feel that OHS is a valuable way to improve the quality of people’s lives. [I first spoke with John in the early 1990s while he was in the ACTU. The only thing I knew about him was that he had written a book about shearers. I spoke next with him while he was CEO of the National Safety Council and now (twice) while he is at WorkSafe. If our paths continue to cross, he owes me a beer and two hours of unrecorded conversation in a comfortable bar.]

Barry Sherriff, a lawyer with Freehills, has just come off nine months of serving on the National OHS Review panel and is hamstrung in what he can say as the government is yet to release the final report. His presentation was measured and cautious.

The videos provide an interesting cross-section of OHS approaches in Australia, several overlap and some are “out there” but the best that can be said is that one learns. This makes for a terrific Safety In Action conference.

Kevin Jones

Drug abuse at work – podcast interview with Professor Steve Allsop

The editors of SafetyAtWorkBlog produced SafetyAtWork podcasts several years ago. These interviews deserve some longevity even though some of the references have dated. In this context, SafetyAtWorkBlog is re-releasing a podcast from September 2006 on the management of drugs in the workplace. (The podcast is available at SafetyAtWork Podcast – September 2006 )

Professor Steven Allsop is a leading researching on the use of drugs at work and socially. Steven is also the Director of the National Drug Research Institute. In this interview he discusses amphetamine use, how to broach the issue of drug use with a worker and drug policies in industrial sectors.

Please let SafetyAtWorkBlog know of your thoughts on this podcast.

Kevin Jones

The right time to do something, or union shortsightedness

The title of this blog is deliberately positive because I find it hard to understand why, when union right-of-entry is such a hot political topic, a New South Wales Minister would defy Federal Court action and accompany union organisers onto a construction site against the wishes of the company who operates the site.

The legal action has been considerably drawn-out but Minister Phil Costa’s seems purposely inflammatory. In a report on the visit in The Australian on 12 November 2008, the Minister said he was given permission by Sydney Water and a building contractor. This confirms the confusion over control of a workplace that is being worked through as part of the National OHS Law Review panel. Who is the principal contractor? Who runs the site?

The minister says that permission was obtained from John Holland Construction and the company was accommodating. The media report did not say if there was any particular reason the minister visited although a media handler said it was a PR visit.

The CFMEU assistance secretary said the only way the union could get on site Was “as a visitor with the minister” and that OHS issues have been raised including dust, wetness and falling from heights.

The minister’s visit just confirms the beliefs of the New South Wales employers that the Labor government’s relationship with the unions is too friendly. There is some support for this perspective when the government chooses to keep Sydney Ferries out of the credit-rating fire sale, “after intense pressure from union leaders” according to one media report.

In a national context, Minister Costa’s visit illustrates the need for clarity on national OHS laws as John Holland moved from the state workers’ compensation system to the national version, Comcare, a couple of years ago. So not only did the visit raise matters of workplace control, there was jurisdictional problems.

Unless you are a construction union member in New South Wales, minister Costa’s actions had no positive result.

I have been a union member for several decades and support many of their initiatives but occasionally some in the union movement take short term gains and narrow interest over the bigger picture and the best interest of the whole union movement. Isn’t short-term gain over long-term benefit what the unions accuse the banks and the corporations of?

Construction industry bullies

Workplace bullying is a possibility in all workplaces but more so in the blue collar construction industry than elsewhere, it seems.

The front page report in The Australian confirms the blue-collar bully stereotype that the former conservative government tried to gain political mileage from, most noticeably in political advertising, but also in political rhetoric over the years.

The article reports threatening language and physical imposition towards inspectors from the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC). There was verbal abuse and insults to both the male and female inspectors. John Lloyd, head of the ABCC, is quoted as writing in a letter to the building company Brookfield Multiplex, that his inspectors:

“”feared for their safety and believed they would be assaulted if they had left the vehicle”.

The article also says that John Lloyd believes the incident, being investigated by the police, to be

“the worst abuse encountered by his inspectors in 1400 building site visits.”

The ABCC has draconian powers and there is, obviously, tension between the ABCC and construction workers however there is no excuse for workers breaching their OHS obligations to visitors to their worksite, regardless of the organisation the visitors represent.

The industry and unions have tried to eradicate it for safety and political reasons but on some sites it persists. The Construction, Forestry, Mining & Energy Union says that no CFMEU employee or officer was involved in the incident. That is good news but it was very likely that many of the participants were CFMEU members. The union should remind its members that the ABCC inspectors have the right to carry on their work tasks in a safe and healthy manner even if their presence is objectionable.

The construction workers involved in this incident are doing their case against the ABCC no good at all by their threatening behaviour. Indeed it allows the Labor government the chance to use similar rhetoric to that used by the Liberal Party – construction industry bullies and union thugs. Let’s hear the CFMEU discipline their members on their OHS obligations to others.

Is there anything worn under your PPE?

Associated Press has reported on an initiative by a US postal worker to have a kilt as an option for his work uniform. According to media reports, Dean Peterson has lobbied his union colleagues to push for the clothing option because

“Unbifurcated Garments are far more comfortable and suitable to male anatomy than trousers or shorts because they don’t confine the legs or cramp the male genitals the way that trousers or shorts do.”

This is not the first time that kilts have been seriously proposed as workwear. Workplace kilts are already on sale and I remember an Australian building worker wearing one some years ago. Utilikilts is probably the best known supplier of this garb.

Whether I would wear one after over 40 years of long trousers I am not sure but with increasing hazards of working outdoors in summer, I think the kilt should be seriously considered. However I would be interested in hearing of any reasons to not permit this option on the workplace safety grounds.

Texas Crane Collapse

Large cranes are now a basic tool for high-rise construction. Over the last six months the United States has had several crane collapses. The latest occurred in Texas on 19 July 2008 and involved a mobile crane. The collapse resulted in four deaths and injuries to seven workers. Fed-OSHA is investigating but as this is the latest in a run of collapses there is increased media attention.

According to the most recent media statement by the company that owned the crane, Deep South Crane & Rigging

“The Deep South Crane and Rigging Company experienced a tragic industrial accident yesterday in Houston, TX, that resulted in the death of four members of our company family. Our thoughts and prayers are focused on our deceased co-workers, their families and friends, and the extended Deep South Crane and Rigging family.

We wish we had all of the answers on what happened and why – but we do not – and speculating on cause would not resolve anything. But we are actively working to find those answers. We are fully engaged and cooperating with OSHA in their investigation of the accident. Our common goal is to identify the root cause, correct any issue that may be found, and ensure that this type of tragic accident does not occur again.”

According to one article:

“An Associated Press analysis in June found that cities and states have wildly varying rules governing construction cranes, and some have no regulations at all, choosing instead to rely on federal guidelines dating back nearly 40 years that some experts say have not kept up with technological advances.”

Video and audio reports on the incident are available through the links below. SafetyAtWorkBlog will be reporting on any new information about the investigations

Company representative – http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5896374.html

Crane investigations – http://www.khou.com/video/index.html?nvid=264952

Crane investigations/”competent person” – http://kut.org/items/show/13389

Category: construction

Safety Interviews

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Upcoming OHS Videos

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Drug abuse at work – podcast interview with Professor Steve Allsop

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The right time to do something, or union shortsightedness

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Construction industry bullies

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Is there anything worn under your PPE?

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Texas Crane Collapse

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