OSH legislation riles employers

By KEVIN TAYLOR

The toll of workplace death and injury grew again last week when a man was fatally crushed on an Auckland building site and another taken to hospital.

It was the latest in an appalling series of deaths and injuries that continue to plague New Zealand workplaces.

For the Council of Trade Unions, a bill amending the 10-year-old Health and Safety in Employment Act cannot come soon enough.

The bill increases fines fivefold for employers, extends coverage to the maritime and rail sectors, and explicitly makes stress and fatigue workplace hazards.

But lobby organisation Business NZ questions whether the assumption underpinning the bill - that employers are at fault - is correct.

The Occupational Safety and Health Service keeps no record of the causes of workplace accidents, or who is at fault.

Nobody can discover, for example, how many employees ignored warning signs, or the number of employers who supplied inadequate safety gear or training.

Business NZ chief executive Simon Carlaw asks: if the evidence is lacking about who exactly is at fault, is there is an adequate basis for punishing employers?

He says that while recent tragic workplace deaths are held up as evidence of the need for tougher penalties on bosses, the calls are based on the notion that employers are at fault - and the evidence is lacking.

Interlock Group, a Wellington-based lock manufacturer, is astonished that OSH does not keep that information.

The company knows the issues well. It was fined $3000 in 1998 by OSH after a trained supervisor injured a finger when he removed a guard and operated the Machine without it.

"Accidents in our workplace are random events. They occur without warning.

"There were [in the finger case] no obvious inadequacies in our training," says managing director Tony Gledhill.

He says there is no provision in law making employees responsible for workplace accidents.

OSH says that although the Interlock case was a first offence the company had been issued eight prohibition notices and 12 safety improvement notices between 1988 and 1998.

Mr Gledhill says the bill seems to have been based on what happens in high-profile workplace accidents. There was no recognition of the thousands of hours employees work without accidents.

And he says the bill makes no provision for employee responsibility in workplace accidents.

His complaint is common among employers.

Mr Gledhill cynically observes that he cannot understand why footpaths are not fenced to keep people off roads.

"And why are rivers not fenced because they are potential swimming pools?

"I just wonder in the end where the personal liability is."



OSH general manager Bob Hill admits that the lack of information on causes is a gap that needs filling.

"We are coming to a point where we need to do that."

He says a wider view needs to be taken of New Zealand workplace culture and accidents, and their direct causes.

He contends that the prevailing workplace culture of "just getting on with the job" is partly to blame. Some businesses do not work through issues, such as a health and safety regime, in a systematic way.

"It's a basic cultural approach. If you think about work and safety, if the employer and workers talk about the hazards in the workplace, there's a better chance you will avoid accidents."

Keith Stewart, an OSH senior policy analyst, cites a story of a worker who - you might think in a fit of stupidity - put his hand under a guard into a bread slicing machine, losing two fingers.

The worker's fault, you might say.

No. In fact a prima facie case existed to prosecute the employer, although no prosecution was undertaken.

Mr Stewart says that despite doing 90 per cent of what was required, the employer could have done more - by making the guard completely safe so nobody could put their fingers under it.

In other words, safe against even irrational and stupid acts.

It is just that kind of logic that enrages business, and guarantees the political war of words over the bill will heat up this year.

Promoted by Labour Minister Margaret Wilson, the bill provides the basis for a new approach to the management of workplace health and safety.

Its explanatory note states that the changes are designed to reinforce the seriousness with which human life and well-being should be treated in the workplace, and points out that employees have a role to play as well as employers.

Between 450 and 500 workers die every year in New Zealand from workplace accidents and occupational disease.

Including maritime deaths - which will be covered under the OSH amendment bill - accidents account for about 110 of those killed annually.

Injury accounts for many more - over 200,000 people each year.

CTU president Ross Wilson says research by the Institute of Industrial Psychology in Britain proves that, despite popular myths, workplace accidents and diseases do not generally occur because workers are apathetic, careless or stupid.

He says health and safety practices are failing, and the act has not been as effective as it should have been - because employers are not complying with it.

He contends that low fines and under-resourced and lax enforcement mean many employers do not bother about the law.

Mr Stewart says employers often say they have told staff to be careful.

But that is not enough.

"It's analysing the hazards and dealing with the issue, rather than telling people to be careful."

Mr Hill says businesses must make health and safety practices an integral part of their management, and employers should be talking to staff.

He emphasises the costs to a business of a worker getting injured or dying.

Those costs include lost productivity and temporary labour hire, as well as damaging publicity.

Mr Hill is particularly concerned about small businesses and the self-employed. He says establishing a good relationship with these sectors is a real challenge.

He adds that those who have to compete for business on a "cost-minimisation" basis - such as self-employed contractors - often regard health and safety as a marginal cost they can cut.