Personal Damage from Work
Dear Australian
On each day of 1992-93, 7 days a week, 52 weeks of
the year, 137 workers had their lives permanently altered (non-fatally) by
damage from work.
Class I Damage - permanently alters a life - fatally
or
- non-fatally
Class II Damage - temporarily alters a life
Class III Damage - inconveniences a life
|
|
Percent of Total Costs |
||
|
|
Class I fatal |
Class I non-fatal |
Class II |
|
1981-82 (G L McDonald 1984) |
70 - 85 |
15 - 30 |
|
|
1992-93 (Industry Commission 1995) |
1.5 |
80.5 |
18 |
|
2000-01 (NOHSC 2004) |
3.5 |
88.5 |
8 |
|
Add cost of pain, suffering and early death |
6.5 |
90.0 |
3.5 |
|
NSW Change in Incidence (number per
1000 workers) |
|||
|
|
91-92
to 00-01 |
10 Year Change Rate |
Costs |
|
|
|
-31% |
6.5% |
|
Class I non-fatal |
|
+140% |
90.0% |
|
|
|
-35% |
3.5% |
|
|
|
2000-01 Total $82.8 billion |
|
As a boy I remember my Grandfather Alexander Nixon
explaining, “It’s a poor man who cannot use his own money and someone else’s
too.” He borrowed money and founded what
would become, in the next generation, “
It is an ill-informed man who cannot use his own
experience and someone else’s too.
Grandfather could go to a bank which had collected
and stored money and made it available to enable progress. In Work Health and Safety, there is no
bank. No one has collected and made
available adequate data on Class I non-fatal damaging occurrences.
By government decree and inaction, we struggle in
information darkness and feel our way by “risk assessment” which splatters
attention and effort rather than brings the directed focus that comes with an
adequate knowledge of Class I damage.
Without a veridical information bank on Class I
damaging occurrences, very very few, if any of us, can become a “Smart Alex”.
How do we
bring this “big picture” to bear on work activities?
Geoff
McDonald
Geoff
McDonald & Associates Pty Ltd