An employer needs to have a justifiable reason for the dismissal.

In terms of justification I would be first looking at engineered controls between the Customs worker and a covid infected person - which would naturally look at work flows / processes.

Then I would look at the last line of defence - PPE.


Seems to me if we are relying on compulsory employee vaccinations we are saying our controls don't work - and we'll just pass the onus onto the employee.

Is this a sufficient justifiable reason for firing a person.

And then you have the issue with the Human Rights Act which creates a problem for discriminating against people based on their health status.

I'm looking forward to the case law that should inevitably follow from this. (I'd be in no hurry firing anyone)

Don. I'm baffled. Why would you expect cars coming onto your site to carry a fire extinguisher. Do you expect your guest to put out your fires? Do you have people at the gate inspecting the boot to check the extinguisher is up to scratch?

Or are you going ont sites that insist you have one in your car if you visit. So you're going to put out their fires?. Geez. Not me. I see a fire I'd be high tailing it out of there.

This was asked some time ago and my response back then was "no" and since then I haven't seen anything to change my view

We just need to step back to our risk management approach. If you are providing fire extinguishers then you are saying you expect a person to use them in a fire situation. I don't have that expectation. If there is a fire I expect our people to walk away, and stay clear. That's is what insurance is for.

I know some will say "but what if you come across a burning car with a person in it." to which my general response to that is, the chance of that is extremely remote. (What are the chances of being on King Edward Street in Dunedin at 3.30am on a Saturday morning. Speed was involved and the driver crossed the centre line and collided with a truck. 1 minute later the car burst into flames. The truck driver did have an extinguisher and he tried in vain to put the fire out. It is likely the driver died on impact. The fire was so fierce the bodies were unrecognizable)

For those that like data, there are about 290,000,000 cars in America. There's about 170,000 vehicle fires. And around 350 deaths. So roughly put 0.0001% of cars will have a fire related death. Fire injuries are about 0.0003% of vehicles

Most people in burning cars in NZ are there because of suicide or murder.

After then there is simply a moral question on how far a person will go to save another person. I prefer to step aside from deciding another's person's morals. I just don't expect people to endanger themselves.

Lets see if I have this right. You have an employee and you hold their personal email / phone number.

And this employee does Induction Training for other people in another company.

If this is the case then my answer would be "No" I would not hand the information out. If the people in the other company wanted to get in touch with my employee I would act as the conduit - they ring me then I get in touch with my employee. However, if at the Induction Training the other employee asks my employee for their phone number then it is entirely up to my employee to decide to give it out or not.

I wouldn't even ask my employee for their permission to hand over their personal details. Mainly because I hold personal information as sacrosanct. We shouldn't be noseying into people's private lives and we most certainly should not be handing out their personal information - no matter how we try to dress it up.

I'm not sure I understand your question. Are you talking about collecting emails off employees. Or giving the emails you already have to someone else.

First thing is you have to have a reason for collecting personal information such as emails and phones numbers. I do. And the main reason is I want a way of keeping in touch with them outside work hours. For example if they don't turn up for work I want to find them. Or if we have a snow day and work is closed. Organising inductions and other training would be a good reason for collecting this private information though I arrange this through the supervisors.

But once collected, you have to keep it secure. You can't go using it for purposes you don't have a reason for. And you can't go divulging that information to anyone else. I wouldn't give a Trainer our employees phone number / emails. If the Trainer wants it then they can ask for it directly once the induction is arranged.

Thanks. Made my day. Just got me 30 years younger! A few years better than my fitness age

Pg 23 (which is in the section describing Training Programs) is interesting. Why would a person using a forklift every day need to be "retrained". Do B Train truck drivers need to be "retrained every 3 years. Do nurses need to be 'retrained every 3 years. I am struggling to think of any occupation or job that needs to be retrained every three years. I just sniff the self interest of the industry representatives who helped develop this ACOP.

Notice how the word "recommendation " has morphed into "expired" . My Operators certificates now read "Date of Expiry" - no such thing on the Page 50 example.

And I agree. 100% is the standard!

Just as a point of clarity the ACOP is anInstructor code, not an operator code. "Instructor registration is valid for a three-year period"
And under the ACOP reference instructors should get a refresher every 3 years

"These certificates to be valid for a period of three years, after which instructors should attend a period of refresher training and be re-examined to ensure that they are sufficiently competent to remain registered. Experience has shown that candidates who have had minimal opportunity to practise their instruction skills stand little chance of achieving the standard required to be re-registered by accrediting bodies."

There is an argument that a newbie that has never used a forklift before should be trained and certified by an approved and certified "trainer"

But if we look at the Safety Code ( a low level document I know) they reckon a person is fit for the job of being a forklift operator if they have been properly trained and "have read and understood the booklet especially the simple rules for safety". The emphasis seems to be on understanding the simple rules of safety.

So my choice is: do I want a certified trainer running a generic course on a generic forklift with generic hazards. Or an internal person training on our forklift with our hazards. The ACOP even gives an internal person a Theory Test set of questions / answers. Get 80% and you are good to go.

With our recent visit from worksafe they asked if we knew of the inventory (yes) if we used it (no). And that was the end of it. We do keep our own inventory of all substances though.

I quite like the compatibility part of the inventory. But as a tool I find that's about as useful as it is. Internally we can pin our substance (and we have loads - hence I'm not keen on running 2 different systems) down to a particular individual work area. And our workers in those areas have direct access to resources like the SDS for those substance as well as information on how we manage that risk in that area. There are also linkages to environment monitoring as well as employee health checks. I just prefer keeping things as simple as possible.

As an aside one of the biggest challenges I find is keeping up with all the SDS's. Wish there was a simpler way. (And I am getting a bit frustrated that SDS's seem to be following a generic template. For example I have two substrance one a liquid and one a particle. Both talk about dust inhalation)

Hmmm. Seems to me we have lost sight of what monitoring is really all about. Which is essentially the very, VERY last link in our chain of risk management where we are trying to look for a failure in our systems which is at employee expense. Its even a link past PPE - which ought really be the very last link when all else has failed

I'm appalled anyone would chastise, monitor, move or put any kind of pressure on an employee who didn't adhere to health monitoring expectations.

It is our responsibility to put in place systems that do not harm people. End of story. We should be checking those system - not the people. If for example we are doing chemical health testing its too late. A positive result tells us our systems have failed and oh well the employee has cancer. That's not good enough.

We need to be doing environment testing first and foremost to make sure our employees aren't being exposed to anything dangerous. If we find they are we should work hard to improve our risk management. That is, putting in proper controls.

We've just completed our annual health monitoring. I don't get the employees to fill in anything. Though the Assessors do. If someone said to me "I don't want my health monitored" i'd have had zero problem with that and wouldn't waste a moment more of my time on it. I have reasonable confidence we are doing what we can to prevent harm in the first place and always looking at improvements. ( I did actually have one person say he wasn't going to get his hearing monitored - because he already has it done as part of his own personal health care. And I'm fine with that)

As an aside, I had a call a while back from ACC asking if I had any hearing check test on an ex employee. Apparently he was claiming for work related noise induced hearing loss. I was able to bring up a hearing check from 25 years ago which showed he had hearing loss at the time and it was likely due to him being in a foreign army and using heavy artillery. Might have saved myself an ACC claim. But if it was our fault I would have worn the cost.

Some machine shops are disgraceful. Dirty filthy things with little apparent care for the work environment or the machine. So it is quite obvious there will be some employers who won't look at safety because its just not in their DNA.

On the other hand there are other employers where you could eat your lunch off their machine shop floor and safety is just part of their overall approach to the business and machines.

Often the issues with machinery is that the original purchase is capital intensive. So people hang onto them for as long as possible. Bringing them up to current safety expectations / standards is also expensive so it, in part became a cost issue.

Cost can be a major issue, with business costs increasing every year and customer expectations on price also adding pressure along with international competition. Margins get squeezed and something has to give. So I suspect there are also some employers who would like to take their safety more seriously but the cost of upgrading safety, when put aside the ongoing viability of a business and all the responsibilities to staff etc that entails is a major consideration.

However, if we like it or not increases in Minimum Wage have a good flow on affect to machinery. As it becomes more expensive to hire a machine operator a replacement piece of kit, with modern safety features and greater efficiency becomes more attractive. To the point now that you can retire two machines and operators and replace with one machine and operator - often with an operator needing even less skill.

They do. And heres the proof!

Time to push back on these leeches. All they seem to do is create extra work at extra cost with zero actual benefit to on the ground safety. While lining their own moral free pockets at the same time.

(Confirms my basic operating principle that the more you write down the more you will get tripped up on)

I know. Hard to believe eh!. There's even a provider who will, for $150 - $300 provide you with "WorkSafe NZ Certification". Every day the Health and Safety Gravy Train gets longer.

We have 2 approaches. If we need a forklift operator to work in the yard (which we deem to be a public place due to gates being open and the place open for people to walk into) then we require an F Endorsement of the Drivers Licence.

If the Operator is only going to be inside the building then the Operators Certificate is the only thing required. Certificate also apples to those operating outside with the F Endorsement..

Logic doesn't really apply. You only sit your drivers licence once. And you only do your F endorsement once. Its always seemed a bit odd to me that that is our open road rule. But for workplaces we have decided that the Forklift Certificate should be renewed every three years - even if our operators are using the Forklift on a daily basis.

Then I remind myself that the Forklift Certificate isn't mandatory. And that there is probably some very good coin to be made by training providers putting their own 3 year cash churn limit on it.

When something says "is supported by WorkSafe, because it's founded on the fact that when things go right, they don’t go wrong." my natural inclination is to go "Fact - Is this indeed a fact?". If it is indeed a fact then my interest is piqued and I'll follow on further.

But in this case the statement isn't passing my sniff test. And as I pointed out the "fact" actually seems to be the opposite. So, if the first statement isn't valid and reliable why would I want to go further. So I don't.

So I struggle to engage in anything after that.

Good luck to them though. The proof will be in the pudding.

Most people, including the head of the union, thought Pike River was going more than all right

Tampons are to be provided. Epi pens seem a logical extension. Along with all other personal health care needs.

I Use the OSH Module within Payglobal, Keeps all my risk, incident, HASNO, training, Committee Meeting, ACC, return to work, contractor, health assessments, environment testing etc etc data. All linked to every work area and every employee.

No!

An employee must be given 14 days notice by the employer if the employer requires the employee to take Annual Holidays. Which is the entitled holidays not the "accrued" - gets complicated from here!

There is no Regulation that Requires a minimum break between shifts. (There may be some industry specific regulations or there may be something specific written in the Employment agreement)

You do of course have to manage the risks associated with fatigue.Broad rule of thumb - the more dangerous the job the greater the need for a decent rest break between shifts. So it becomes more a person / job specific assessment.

There are provisions for required rest and meal breaks within a work period. That's the period between starting work and finishing work. It doesn't cover the period between finishing work and starting work again.

At the moment I have people working 74 hours across a 7 day week. They like the over time. I like the productivity. But they aren't in High Risk Areas. And it won't be for long.