Are we paranoid about safety in Australia?

On a recent trip to Thailand I took the following. It made me think taht maybe we overreact to safety in Australia.

Photo 1 is a bamboo scaffold. I know bamboo is strong and don't have a problem with it being used like this, but the connections look like rubber hose tightened like a tornequit

Photo 2 - 4. High rise working. Not a problem to lean out over balconies without and harness. Not dangerous, as long as you don't fall. Photo 3 and 4 show a man standing on a plank. This is maybe 100 x 20 and most of us would use it as scrap for firewood

Missed an oppurtunity to phtotgraph someone on a high overhang who was leaning over to weld about a foot below his level. No mask etc and barefeet, and raining.

Photo 5 the start of formwork for a pour for a elevated beam. Uprioghts are logs with a T at teh top and one brace. The middle plank is for the base of the concrete beam. Teh other two are for the workers to stand on. Maybe 100 x 20 and looks like scrap


ELECTRICAL !!!!

All electrical connections in the country are twisted wire convered with electrical tape. Exposure to rain doesn;t weem to be a problem

Photo 6 the roof line runs onto the exposed light. Any water could easily enter teh light. It was on and it was raining, and I had to duck to walk under

Photo 7. Who needs teh "extra" casing on their light fititngs?

Photo 8 There are only two colours of wire in Thailand, both are black. Everywhere there are masses of wires bundled together, some just above head height and many exposed ends. Not sure if these ends were live

Photo 9. The tourist gets a harness. Teh guide doesn't. He just swings up and sits on eth lines to the canopy.

Photo 10 The is a simple homemade extension for a market. just join wires as needed and hang down a power outlet every now and then.

I don't think 'paranoid' is the right descriptor. WHS is an industry. If they aren't seen to be making changes, they will become redundant. One day it will come to the point where they cannot restrict us any further and so become redundant anyway. Why delay the inevitable I say!
As to your indonesian mates - a bit far the other way - but then labour is expendible there and lawsuits rare :shrug:

Im with Vern,

I worked in an incident reducing project in a big corporation. The focus was not more safety gear but more awareness. We kicked big OH&S goals, particularly with manual handling. There are big bucks to be made supplying safety gear of all types. I had to have electrical leads verified 3 years in a row, on effing PC's! Told them to nick off, Ill wait till Workcover tells me reverify.

Somewhere I have photos of a 3 story being built in Kathmandu with all bamboo scaffolding. Strong as (I wiggled it), cheap and culturally appropriate.


Sebastiaan

Hi

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The focus was not more safety gear but more awareness.

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I think you would agree that a guy walking on a SINGLE plank two/three storeys up would be acutely aware of his surroundings. Much more aware than our "locals" with steel scaffolding, four/five planks with minimal gaps, side rails with mesh/material covered sides.

Realisically, it's not that the Thai conditions are unsafe. The scaffolding is strong, the boards/planks are capable of holding the weight of a man/men performing their jobs.

It could even be said that the Thai workers are more careful where they walk etc :)

I had to install some wiring for ground floor switches. The ONLY way to do this was from directly above the switches and from the second storey roof (sans scaffold/harness). As the switches where on the outer wall I would sit on the roof, above the eaves area with my leg hanging down past the gutter (for comfort and balance).

This is not something ill considered and I DO NOT recommend you follow/try my method. Au contraire, I was aware of what I was doing and paid attention to where I was. As you probably realise I do not have a problem with heights :)

this seems pretty irrisponsible thinking to me,
accidents in the workplace often occur not because the injured party was unaware but because of co workers stupid carelessness.

I worked 15 years at the claims end of comp and some of the attitudes of irrisponsible employers would make you weep, contantly blaiming workers their own cheapskate and slapdash practices.

if a thai worker falls to their death on a slippery wet bamboo scaffold
who feeds his kids.
not the boss!

I suggest some of you guys get a grip and research the deaths and serious injury that occurs in these places before driveling on:~

Astrid

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I had to install some wiring for ground floor switches.

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Presumably, as I believe you're not a licensed electrician yourself, you were doing that under the direct supervision of a licensed contractor, and therefore he/she was responsible for the "work safe" practices on the site. If you had fallen to your death or disablement, he would most likely have been fined and his worker's compensation fund would have paid your bills.

:D

Somewhere or other I have some pics of some of the most insane workpractices ever.
1) a series of forklifts lifting each other... large one lifting next size down all the way to the top of their lift heights blokes in each forklift... top forks have pallet with bloke standing lifting boxes of and onto the staging... NOT one helmet harness in sight!

2) a series of pics from a wharf incident... seems in this particular country dozers are delivered and driven off the back of low loaders without considering ramps rops or anything like helmets or other safety devices... first pic is of a worker getting aboard a D9... next of the D9 moving backwards driver looking forwards... third pic is of the D9 upside down at the back of the low loader...fourth pic is of a crane lifting the D9 off the ground... fifth is of the bloke... or what was left of him which given the weight of a D9 landing on his unprotected person wasnt much

3 was an Aussie site where a worker was on top of a huge shed/workshop in the bush somewhere... no helmet no boots no harness... next shot was the bloke on the deck and people rushin toward him.

4) was a worksite where the electical wiring was... can we say dodgy?... leads with bare wire plugs not fitting running through water and chemicals... blokes walking around without a care.

Safety? what safety?... in the Asian countries life is cheep therefore unimportant to the business involved... in Aussie life is thought more highly of... by some... some I think just want to get a Darwin award :roll:

There will always be unsafe worksites while ever workers work there without standing up and saying something or actually doing something to change unsafe work practices... there will always be idiots who do unsafe things for a variety of reasons... but at least Australia has been attempting to cut out unsafe workplaces and practices.

Mining has to be one of the worst environments with some increadibly unsafe work environments and practices... but until the culture changes nothings going to improve... there is a culture of "tuff rough" mentality if you complain about an unsafe environment or practice or even activity you are automatically treated by contempt and derision by not only your workmates but also the heirachy until THAT changes nothing will change.

very well said dingo

I,ve just this minuit farewelled two guys fitting blinds outside in blinding sunlight,
stepladder too short (for most old houses I would imagine)
No worries we'll just stand on the top platform, wielding heavy canvas and drill- oh hold the ladder mate, the grass is a bit uneven
and if I fall its only 8 feet

unbelievably stupid or maybe the boss wont spend $200 on a decent ladder and when the compo bills come in he'll wriggle and squirm and complain about unions.
while the idiot off the ladder is in a back brace

astrid

OHS laws can be cumbersome but if it wasn't for those laws we'd still be cutting asbestos sheeting with power saws, going deaf from noisy workplaces and dying in dozens (instead of ones and twos) in coal mines etc etc.
They're a necessary evil. Could be better administered, yes, but better to fix them than have no laws at all..
Sure, OHS laws add to the cost of producing things, which is part of the reason why Thai holidays and Chinese manufactured goods are so cheap, but the cost is passed on to the local workers in a fairly savage way.
For example official figures show 1113 workers killed in coal mining accidents in China the first 3 months of this year. Translated to a country of Australia's popualtion, that would be equivalent to one coal miner dying every four days. And that's just the coal mines. (And the figures are the official ones.)
As for Thailand, one construction sector death every 3 days and 8 hours. See http://www.ilo.org/public/english/re...sh/conth05.pdf

Happy holidays,

Gaz.

I'd be much happier about OHS rules if they were not so readily used for non OHS reasons by bureaucrats, bludgers and lay abouts to hide behind. There also seems an over emphasis on learning rules, and not enough on real, in-depth understanding about why things happen as they do and applying plain old common sense. OHS rules and their application seem to be designed to keep people ignorant, and alive (or maybe it's ignorant people, alive:D). Relying on OHS alone won't always save your behind, except perhaps in court, but then again your'e gonna be pretty uncomfortable arriving in court without a behind.

I've lived in Thailand for the past 2 years. Prior to that, I was a Facilities Manager for several years (in Sydney) & prior to that, I was an electrical engineer/electrician. I am Australian.

I do believe that many Australians are paranoid about health & safety...Thais are not (I'll explain why directly).


I have 2 sisters. We were brought up in a relatively small country area in NSW & were not "cotton wooled" in any way. As a matter of fact, our parents gave us free reign of almost anything but they made aware of the "possibilities" of "bad" things to us. As a consequence, we all seem to have grown up without any major problems (health, "common sense" etc).

Strangely, one of my sisters took an inverse approach to raising her child. The kid has been "cotton wooled" but only partially. Already, the effects can be seen. He has little common sense with even the simplest of things & cannot rely on his own judgement. If he was any worse, he'd need instructions upon how to breath. He is 13 & is really smart at school.

With other people whom I've known to have been "cotton wooled", the opposite seems to occur. They rebel in the worst possible way by taking the most extreme risks because they were never allowed take them when they were kids.

In Thailand, things are quite different. Since there is little to no regulation of "law", people are ultimately left to be totally responsible for their own actions, as opposed to falling back on a law that takes the responsibility. So, if you walk around Thailand with your eyes & ears open, you will survive but if you expect a law to protect you, forget it. Also, most Thais are Buddhists, which means that death is actually not at all a bad thing. In the past year, 3 students from my college, have been killed in motorcycle accidents. All of them died because they didn't wear a helmet. Even though the whole college knew this, students still ride motorbikes without helmets. I don't mind at all...it is their body & it is up to them to decide what to do with it.
These are a few of the many reasons why I came to Thailand...I was sick of not being able to be responsible for my actions. I was sick of the plethora of overzealous laws.

There is a slight "balance" to this equation. As an example, there was a case of a boy (in Thailand) drowning. He drowned in a roadworks hole, which was about 2 metres deep. After some typical "wet season" rainfall, the hole filled with water as did the surrounding area, effectively "camouflaging" the hole. He simply walked into it & drowned. Safety barriers were nowhere to be found around or near the hole.

I can clearly see 2 states of reaction. The Australian reaction is "over the top" & the Thai reaction is well & truly "under the top". If Thailand was smart (?), it could get the best of both worlds by comparing themselves to another country & not end up "over reacting" like Australia & other countries have done but still applying "sensible" safety regs.

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Originally Posted by elkangorito

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I can clearly see 2 states of reaction. The Australian reaction is "over the top" & the Thai reaction is well & truly "under the top". If Thailand was smart (?), it could get the best of both worlds by comparing themselves to another country & not end up "over reacting" like Australia & other countries have done but still applying "sensible" safety regs.
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Good post!

I don't mind most of the regulations but what gets my is all the general safety inductions we have to do everytime some bureaucrat decide to re colour code his wallet. don't like that colour blue might make it a green card now what going to be next pink with purple poker dots card. I think I have done one of the generic courses at least six or seven time I am sure others have done more than that.

Actually I ran into this card crap the other week canetoad... Now a few years back in another incarnation I was a trainer career guidance peanut and one of the to me then strange things that the eastern staters that wandered into my office kept showing me was there among their tickets and licenses were these green blue or whatever flavored cards... now at that time here we didnt use such mongrel things but seems in the last few years they have become increadibly popular

So I had an appointment with the rehab people for a "work assessment/trial/hardening" bullshyte thing set up by the insurer so I wandered down to this place and the bloke after asking what machinery experience I had and getting the whole underground surface mining thing says "yeah mate alright we dont use the marcsta mate wheres your blue card and abn?"

so after looking at the dopey rehab sheila I said "Well mate number 1 I am not a business so I dont have a bloody need for an abn so dont have one... number 2 whats a blasted blue card when its at home?" so this bloke looks me over like Im some sort of demented chook on steroids that was gonna cause all manner of union strife on his site looked at the rehab sheila and said "Look I thought you said he had all the tickets?" she looks acusingly at me and said "well as I said on the phone its only for a worktrial/hardening to see if he can do the work" "Not here not unless he gets an abn and a blue card" and that as they say was that :roll:

Now the dopey rehab sheila is demanding I get both... and Im telling her theres no way in hell Im getting either UNLESS the damned insurance company pays for the things... thing is I have no intent or interest in working on that site and as my knees snufued totally its highly unlikely Im going to ever operate mining or construction machinery again so why the bloody blue blazes she was trying to get me there I have no idea... suspicions yes... actual reasonings from them no.

But this blue card thing... like the marcsta is a bloody crock of damned crap... see with the marcsta its irrelevent simply because EVERY SINGLE MINESITE you go to work at puts you through a pretty total induction process of their own... and the marcsta one is designed that NO ONE No matter how closely aligned for a darwin award they are how utterly thick they may be how totally brain dead they present they cannot fail to receive their marcsta ticket... an utter bloody crock :~

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Originally Posted by astrid

this seems pretty irrisponsible thinking to me,
accidents in the workplace often occur not because the injured party was unaware but because of co workers stupid carelessness.

I worked 15 years at the claims end of comp and some of the attitudes of irrisponsible employers would make you weep, contantly blaiming workers their own cheapskate and slapdash practices.

if a thai worker falls to their death on a slippery wet bamboo scaffold
who feeds his kids.
not the boss!

I suggest some of you guys get a grip and research the deaths and serious injury that occurs in these places before driveling on:~

Astrid

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Hi Astrid,

Dont disagree, but having put in self insurance and seen the results the big gains are made by listening to the people doing the work, and not just adding layers of equipment and useless paperwork. Basics must be dealt with but there is a lot of B/S and gouging going on. There's good insurance money to be had!

Totally agree "elkangorito". Our "Nanny" state has gone too far.

Sebastiaan

One of the great fallacies that is current is that this or that is a legally required. Some things are prescribed by law, but that is relatively little. Most OHS is not a legal requirement, but rather someone's attempt to put in place a safe system of work to meet the general requirement of the law that employers take reasonable care for the safety of their employees. It often seeks to prevent well beyond what would be needed for a safe system of work.

In this regard, speaking as a lawyer, a lot of what passes a OHS "requirement" is not something that the courts support. For example, a lot of people think that there have to be signs all over the place warning of the dangers of everything. In fact, our High Court has said quite consistently over the last 5 - 10 years that you don't need to warn against the obvious danger (eg a clear edge of a high cliff which is fenced off) or against the random - as one judge said, if you put a sign up along the road specifying every thing that could happen, the greatest risk would be running into a sign!

I admit that this is a bit of a revision of the position that some courts were taking in the 1960s, 70s, 80s and 90s which seemed to work on the basis that the person with the deep pocket has to take 100% responsibility for all injury. However, too many people have taken too much of a read from some of the more extreme views expressed then and have not noticed that the courts now are saying that in assessing what is a risk that needs to be guarded against, a person is entitled to assume that others will use at least a reasonable degree of caution to look after themselves (at least if they are adults).

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Originally Posted by BobL

I'd be much happier about OHS rules if they were not so readily used for non OHS reasons by bureaucrats, bludgers and lay abouts to hide behind. There also seems an over emphasis on learning rules, and not enough on real, in-depth understanding about why things happen as they do and applying plain old common sense. OHS rules and their application seem to be designed to keep people ignorant, and alive (or maybe it's ignorant people, alive:D). Relying on OHS alone won't always save your behind, except perhaps in court, but then again your'e gonna be pretty uncomfortable arriving in court without a behind.

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I agree - I remember a couple of years ago sitting around a table at a monthly OHS committee meeting and hearing our HR manager say "We really need to make sure we're legally covered on this("we" meaning the company - though I was an employee rep on the committee). I responded with something like "actually I'm more concerned about making the workplace safer so my colleagues are less likely to be injured" or words to that effect. The employer reps on the committee all looked at me as if I'd just announced I was John the Baptist.

I guess there's some truth in the old (Russian?) saying that a committee is a donkey with four hind legs. I don't know what it means but it sounds right.

Agreed, some OHS rules seem necessary only to protect people from their own stupidity - in this case (as in others I'm sure) my concern was about work processes that virtually guaranteed injury.


Gaz.

Then again we could do as the Chinese do

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Originally Posted by Big Shed

Then again we could do as the Chinese do

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Wow - 17 people in one lift!

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Originally Posted by MrFixIt

Hi

I think you would agree that a guy walking on a SINGLE plank two/three storeys up would be acutely aware of his surroundings. Much more aware than our "locals" .........It could even be said that the Thai workers are more careful where they walk etc :)

I had to install some wiring for ground floor switches. The ONLY way to do this was from directly above the switches and from the second storey roof (sans scaffold/harness). As the switches where on the outer wall I would sit on the roof, above the eaves area with my leg hanging down past the gutter (for comfort and balance).

This is not something ill considered and I DO NOT recommend you follow/try my method. Au contraire, I was aware of what I was doing and paid attention to where I was. ....:)

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Most injuries are caused by complacency, not the unsafe practice. As a one off it may considered realtively safe to lean out over an edge, but the workers do this every day. It would be easy for them to over-reach or try to catch something they dropped and lose balance, becasue they are so used to being there they get over-comfortable. Even when we walk down the street we might stumble on a slight bump on the ground, that one moment 4 floors up would me a certain death.

I would agree that most OHS is a joke. At work everytime someone is injured something gets done to prevent a re-occurance. One person slips on a step so they put signs up all over the stairwells about watching your step, DAMN I was too busy reading the warning signs, I slipped on a step.

Test and tag of electricals is a joke. Workcover came and and issued an improvement notice because our brand new toaster and sandwich maker weren't tagged! I watched the annual tagging one day and the two of them walked around, one recorded the details of the tag, whilst the other put the new tags on. I didn;t see any form of test or inspection. He just reached behind the shredder, pulled out the power cord far enough to remove the old label and replace with a new one. (reminds me I might check at the office I work l out of at the moment. The top of the shredder falls off all the time, exposing the cutters and electrics. I can bet that it has been tagged as electrically safe.)