Occupational Health & Safety-Where Are We Now?
Author: George Robotham
Published: August 2001
Contact: fgrobotham@iprimus.com.au
Abstract
The economic and personal costs of accidents are explored and these costs are put into
perspective by using easily recognisable economic indicators. Past safety and health
legislation is used to put a humorous perspective upon previous attempts to manage health &
safety and it is indicated that present safety approaches may not necessarily be much in
advance of our fore-fathers. Finally problems with current approaches to safety management
in business are explored.
Introduction
Damage to people from work is one of Australia's largest industries (McDonald, 2001, 1)
Dr. Jukha Takata (quoted in McDonald, 2001, 1), Chief of the I.L.O. Health & Safety
Program draws attention to the workplace hectacomb* and gave the following figures for
average annual deaths.
Work
1 000 000
Road
999 000
Violence
563 000
War
502 000
HIV / AIDS
312 000
·
Hectacomb = from ancient Greece or Rome, a great public sacrifice, origin of 100
oxen, any extensive sacrifice.
A Federal Government study into Occupational Health and Safety in 1992-3 (Industry
Commission Report) indicated the cost of occupational accidents and disease in that year was
$20 Billion (George suggests this is a conservative estimate)
This figure equates to approx. 5 % of Gross Domestic Product or more than the Mine Gate
Product of $18.4 Billion and Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing combined $17.2 Billion, twice
the Defense expenditure of $9.2 Billion,5 times the estimated cost of Road Crashes requiring
medical treatment, hospitalisation, burial or cremation($3.9 Billion )and 2.5 months of retail
sales including dining out.
Somewhere near 2,500 people lose their lives each year as a result of having worked and
50,000 are permanently disabled (source-Geoff McDonald &Associates, Brisbane)
That is six to eight deaths and 137 permanently disabled each day, seven days a week,52
weeks of the year. Permanent disability accounts for 80.5%($16.1 Billion) of the damage.
Past Approaches to Health &Safety
The first recorded advice I could find about health & safety was in the period 1347-1350
when the Black Death decimated Europe, approximately half of the population of England
died.
The causes of the back death were said to be
Excessive masturbation (no-one said how much is too much)
Conjunction of the planets
Wrath of God
Evil spirits
The first recorded piece of Health & Safety legislation I could find was the Plague Regulation
in Rouen , France 1507
Do not gamble, drink, fornicate or curse
Avoid other sinful excesses that are likely to arouse the anger of God
The British Health & Morals of Apprentices of Apprentices Act 1802 appears to be one of the
first pieces of health & safety legislation in England
No night work
Not to work over 12 hours per day
Separate sex sleeping accommodation (apparently not all the accidents were
industrial)
Religious instruction provided
Toilet facilities to be provided
Clothes to be provided
The next major piece of health & safety legislation in England was the Factories Act 1844
No children under 8 employed
Meals not in work rooms
Dangerous machines fenced
Alternate days of school & work
Hours by public clock
Children 8-13 to work a max. of 6.5 hours per day
Of course the legislative efforts and approaches to health & safety outlined above appear
outmoded and ridiculous in our modern times.
Can we really be sure however that current approaches to health & safety are not similarly
dated?
Effects of workplace accidents and disease
Effects on the employer
Replacement costs of skilled worker
Loss of productivity
Time spent in investigation & Admin.
Increased compensation costs
Damage to equipment / morale / reputation
Closure of business
Overtime
Effects on the worker
Loss of income
Pain & suffering
Loss of future earnings
Medical / travel costs
Psychological damage
Loss of physical & mental abilities
Disfigurement
Quotable Quote
"A health & safety problem can be described by statistics but cannot be understood by
statistics. It can only be understood by knowing and feeling the pain, anguish, and depression
and shattered hopes of the victim and of wives, husbands, parents children, grandparents and
friends, and the hope, struggle and triumph of recovery and rehabilitation in a world often
unsympathetic, ignorant, unfriendly and unsupportive, only those with close experience of
severe permanent disability have this understanding"
Recent Perceptions
There was a serious incident at a Qld. mine recently where an employee was caught in part
of underground mining equipment and his legs had to be amputated to free him. My wife has
a caring, intelligent female friend who made the comment to us that according to the paper
the incident was the individuals fault. I am not familiar with the particular incident so can not
comment on factors essential to the occurrence.
As a safety professional I was tempted to remonstrate with her and explain the realities of an
employers common law duties and how an incident is a complex mixture of person, machine
and environment factors and that there is likely to be a lot more to the incident than simply
saying it was the individuals fault. I thought better of it as this is really a societal problem.
This comment of our friend said to me that the safety profession in Australia really had not
made many gains in the last 25 years.
Current Problems
Some of the problems I currently see with Occupational Health and Safety in Australia
include these-
·
There is only half-hearted leadership from government , unions and many companies
with regard to safety. Admitting to being a cynic I suggest the rhetoric is not always
accompanied by action. I suppose it is naive to think the tripartite partners can put
aside their industrial and political agenda when discussing safety.
·
There is a poor understanding in the community of the reasons why accidents occur.
We are quick to make the assumption that the worker was careless, when one
examines accidents carefully one identifies a range of work system factors that
contributed to the accident as well, most of these work system factors are the
responsibility of the employer at both common and statute law. Blaming workers for
their careless behavior is an emotionally appealing approach that is usually not all that
productive in the bigger picture of preventing personal damage at work.
·
It is often said about safety that it is just common sense, if this is the case why are we
doing such a poor job of managing it in this country? I am reminded of an un-named
Chinese philosopher who was reported to have said "The trouble with common sense
is that it is never common and rarely sensible"
·
The media emphasises personal fault in news releases about incidents and does not
consider design and system issues that contribute to incidents.
·
We do not have a centralised, consistent method of reporting and recording incident
and disease statistics. How can we examine the beast and learn from it if we do not
record and report it in a consistent manner?
·
In business vast amounts of money can be spent on safety without really defining
desired outcomes (I am not doubting peoples motives however, just their
effectiveness)
·
Government, unions and many companies treat safety as a second priority and
industrial relations imperititives dominate.
·
The standard of Occupational Health and Safety practitioner may not be as high as it
could be. In Qld the basic requirement to become a qualified Workplace Health Safety
Officer is 2 courses of a total duration of some 2 weeks. It is difficult to think we can
have a truly professional approach to Occupational Health and Safety with a
practitioner who has only received 2 weeks training (most of this training is on the
particular states safety legislation and there is little on modern safety management
techniques).Managing Occupational Health and Safety successfully is very complex
and companies really need professional, high quality advice to assist them if we are
going to advance. I see some advantages in a government accredited safety officer
course but it runs the risk that employers only look for this qualification when
employing safety staff. That is not to say that committed people with just this
qualification and operating within their limitations can not have some effect.
·
The messages of past incidents are not utilised enough in safety decision making. For
this to happen past incident information has to be collected ,presented and organised
in a useable manner.
·
The Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate predominates discussions about safety
performance. How can a company be proud of a decrease of L.T.I.F.R. from 60 to 10
if there have been 2 fatalities and 1 case of paraplegia amongst the lost time injuries?
The L.T.I.F.R. trivialises serious personal damage and is a totally inappropriate
measure of safety performance. With a bit of thought companies can devise positive
measures of what is being done to improve safety and this seems more appropriate to
me than counting accidents. L.T.I.F.R.. is an outcome measure not a measure of what
the company is doing to improve safety performance.
Accident Ratio Studies Mis-direct Efforts
My grandmother used to say “Look after the pence and the pounds will look after
themselves” In the world of traditional safety there seems to be similar thinking that if you
prevent minor damage you will automatically prevent major damage. Accident ratio studies
(insisting on set ratios between near misses, minor accidents and serious accidents) are
prominent and accepted unthinkingly.
The result is a furious effort to eliminate lost time injuries in the belief that major incidents
will be eliminated in the process. Certainly there are minor incidents that have the potential to
result in more extensive damage( and we should learn from them) ,but personal experience
tells me the majority of minor damage incidents do not have this potential. It is a matter of
looking at the energy that was available to be exchanged in the incident .
The concept that preventing the minor incidents will automatically prevent the major ones
seems to me to be fundamentally flawed.
All organisations have limited resources to devote to safety, it seems more efficient to
prevent one incident resulting in paraplegia than to prevent 20 incidents where people have a
couple of days off work (some will say this comment is heresy)
Somewhere in the push to reduce L.T.I’s ,reduce the L.T.I.F.R. and consequently achieve
good ratings in safety programme audits the focus on serious personal damage tends to be
lost.
I know of companies that have made great reductions in L.T.I.F.R. yet they are still seriously
injuring their people.
Classifying Personal Damage
A method of classifying personal damage that seems appropriate is the following-
CLASS 1-Damage that permanently alters a persons life e.g. death, paraplegia, amputation of
a leg, severe psychological damage.
CLASS 2- Damage that temporarily alters a persons life e.g. fractured leg that repairs with no
lasting impediment ,deep laceration that has no underlying tissue damage and repairs without
significant scarring
CLASS 3 Inconveniences a persons life (source-Geoff McDonald & Associates, Brisbane)
Focus on Class 1 Damage
The report of the Industry Commission 1995 indicates that safety in Australia is
fundamentally a class 1 problem (87% of occurrences were class 2 with18% of cost,13% of
occurrences were class 1 with 82% of cost)
This report further strengthens the argument that instead of concentrating on reducing
L.T.I.F.R. we should be focusing on Class 1 damage reduction.
Class 1 incidents have more energy available to be exchanged than the usual Lost Time
Injury and thus require a different preventative approach. Methods of class 1 damage
reduction can be found in the paper” Change For The Future-Not Blame For The Past” by
G.L.McDonald
The message about class 1 damage reduction has yet to sink in to many peoples minds.
Behaviour versus Systems of Work
The Report of the Industry Commission into Work Health & Safety (1995, xx ) says
"The key to controlling injury and disease at work is to be found in the design
and control of the workplace and the activities conducted within it. Only very
limited control, if any, control is possible by focussing on the behaviour of
those who may be injured."
In the Industry Commission report (1995, 121) McDonald & Associates state
"Historically too much reliance has been placed on behaviour control and too little on
organising the work methods, environment and equipment to allow for the realities of
human behaviour"
In the Industry Commission Report (1995, 5, sub 132) Dr. Wigglesworth supported a
preventative approach based on workplace systems rather than human behavior.
"One of the basic principles of the management of other public health problems is that
passive countermeasures, which apply equally to all persons at risk without their
active involvement are more effective than those that are active, that is which requires
some component of human behavior."
Conclusion
In my view Occupational Health and Safety in Australia has made some gains in recent times
but there are still significant obstacles to be overcome to reduce the unacceptable personal
and economic drain on the nation.
References
Industry Commission (1995), Work, Health & Safety-Inquiry into Occupational Health and
Safety, Report No. 47, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra
McDonald G. (2001) Work Damage to People as yet unpublished manuscript, Geoff
McDonald & Associates, Brisbane
Takala J. Dr. (2001) as quoted in McDonald G, "Explanatory Notes and Examples for the
Geoff McDonald Class 1 Damage Control Strategies", as yet unpublished manuscript, Geoff
McDonald & Associates, Brisbane
Wigglesworth (1995) Page 5, sub 132 in Work, Health and Safety-Inquiry Into Occupational
Health and Safety" Industry Commission, Australian Government Publishing Service,
Canberra
