May I refer you to your earlier post about H&S strangling business :)
This is it. Not real consideration of real risks.

If this is true then its a classic case of the failure to adopt a proportionate risk management approach. Too many businesses major on the minor issues while at the same time fail to address their critical risks. It reminds me of an oil company, that following the collapse of an access stairwell due to corrosion on a rig that resulted in serious injury to two employees, found that they had a policy on people needing to have lids on their coffee cups when using the stairs...but no documented programme of maintenance regarding the integrity of the stairwell itself.

Oh God... this type of thing is so cringeworthy! I'm going to get complete crap at work now!

Peter, this is an example of the perception problems that dogged the UK HSE for years and how the media is hungry (pun not intended) for colourful news stories.

I know that greasy food on floors is a potential hazards and so Bunnings' decision has some logical merit BUT I suspect that the extent of the hazard is overstated and I support your comment that Bunnings needs to be more explanatory about its decision.
This explanation could include:

• the number of slips incidents related to food (not specifically onions, I am being generous), and
  
  • whether the incidents involved employees or customers.

The latter point is to identify whether any injuries have been addressed under workers compensation or public liability.

And, of course, the directive to redesign the sausages and onions is, in OHS terms, an Administrative Control. Bunnings may look at stripping the concrete areas around the barbecues of the build-up of grease (if they don't already) or regularly rotating the barbecue location between both major entrances (most Bunnings have a double main entry).

IF the hazard is serious enough to instigate a change in an official change in onions, Bunnings should have reached this decision after a risk assessment process. It would be fascinating to see this process not for the purpose of mocking but to illustrate how all hazards can be subjected to assessment and how Bunnings came to the onion redesign as the most appropriate control measure.

Disclaimer: I sometimes eat sausages from Bunnings and have cooked sausages and onion twice as a volunteer for charity.

Gotta say after a lot of detailed analysis, review of currently available literature and hands on research Bunnings have got it wrong.

Onions are slippery slimy wee things. When placed first on the bread they adhere well to the butter.

However the problem arises when you place a heavy object on a slanting slippery surface.

Yup, baking hot sausage slides off onions onto unsuspecting citizen who then get the most serious of burns.

Where do I send my Consultants Fee?

Surely what would be better for the health of the nation is not to have sausage sizzles at all.

....so where does the sauce or mustard go!? Before the onions? Surely sauce is more of a slip risk than fried onions?

Yep. Just wait until Bunnings finds out about this!

'Salad sizzle' has every bit the alliterative appeal.

Apparently a Queensland farmer slipped on the onions at a Bunnings store (according to a news report I just heard) so it is in response to an event - which does raise a more general question. How many of us are prepared to say (and defend), "Yes an accident happened. No, we're not going to do anything in response to it, because it's not really necessary."
There are systems out there that insist on an action being raised before an event can be closed. Does this drive unintended consequences?

I had a Fritz's wiener yesterday, it was great :). Innuendo notwithstanding, industry good practice as demonstrated by Fritz, indicates that loose fillings are placed underneath the sausage.

- you raise a very important point. At what point will people / businesses have the intestinal fortitude to draw a line and define for themselves what is reasonable? In safety management, as with quality management, there is a definite point of diminishing returns, where the quest for perfection becomes exponentially more expensive with only tiny incremental improvements.

In many cases, all that is needed is a little thinking through of the incident and asking what is reasonable. I once stumbled leaving the office, brushing the bottom of my foot on the slightly raised door frame, which led to me losing my balance and twisting my ankle when my foot landed on slightly uneven pavement. The safety person wanted to immediately order changes to all door frames, but really, the cause was that I was a bit tired at the end of the work day and didn't lift my foot properly. Once this happened, I was much more mindful when exiting the office building.

I have recently attempted to review and update a client hazard / risk register that not only confused different logical levels in identifying hazards and risks, but also included many very far-fetched potential consequences that really muddied the water. For example, they had listed manual handling as a risk, but then manual handling and potential consequences were carried through to numerous other hazards / risks. A range of risks was lumped together under a hazard topic, then all the controls were similarly lumped together under the heading of controls - the direct link between hazard - risk - control should be there for this to make sense and be of use to workers. This kind of complexity and confusion doesn't help the cause.

As a PS, the farmer was 62 years of age at the time. Today, a nurse (age, etc unknown) has come out with claims of what she is calling a near death onion-slip experience (but no details on what injuries she actually sustained....) - and announced she (now) intends to sue Bunnings as well.

Kindest regards, RM

The most disturbing aspect of this that I find is the way that the report (or the heading at least) put the "blame" for the ruling once again onto the safety industry. It read as if some safety bureaucrat had made a directive to reverse the onions. Because of the numerous examples of previous misreports fed to and swallowed by the reasonable sensible public the story was added to the pile of evidence that tries to show the brainlessness of us in the field of safety.

Perhaps to close off #sausagegate it's worth taking a look at the Health and Safety Executive's long-standing mythbusters page, particularly its top ten H&S myths.

Hi everyone, further information on Bunnings Onion Gate.

It has now been reported that the farmer did not pursue damages for an injury per se - but for emotional distress. Apparently the slipping incident - which did not require emergency care, did not involve any broken bones and no medium to long-term medical needs - was enough to induce a phobia of attending Bunnings, and lead to panic attacks.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-14/farmer-applauds-bunnings-onion-advice-after-slip/10496568

'Normal' people slip and trip on things all the time. Sometimes we end up on our backsides, get a bruise or three, pull a couple of muscles. Heck, maybe we even fracture something, and need a bit of medical treatment.

Developing PTSD-style symptoms is not a common outcome. I'd go as far as to say I find it hard to believe any 'normal' person would find slipping over so traumatic they develop said symptoms. Ill draw a line at overtly suggesting the smell of a rat, but I will say that if one can get a financial settlement for what I will refer to as a very unreasonable stress response to slipping over that easily, and get such a (ridiculous) OSH response to occur as well, well.....

I feel compelled to comment also on a more serious note, given I work specifically in psych hazard management.

Juxtaposition this Bunnings story against what has been and continues to go on regarding sexual harassment (including sexual assaults - groping, unwanted touching, so on), harassment, bullying and violence / trauma-related (i.e. PTSD type) psych injury cases. The predominant response to such a claim or hazard complaint is to immediately blame the target, find a range of individual level risk factors to argue primary cause of the injury is not work-related psych hazard exposure related but can be put down to ineffective coping abilities, certain personality types, other stressors in their life, so on, question if the claimant is lying, question what the claimant was wearing, drinking, doing, and broadly do whatever it takes to NOT address the actual safety hazard.

I wonder if the farmer was asked anything about why they didn't keep an eye on the floor, especially after walking past a food area, whether the tread on their shoes was worn, why they didn't proactively avoid entering the store knowing food was being served in the vicinity, why they didn't proactively report the allegedly foreseeable food production hazard they walked past it to mngt, whether they were even fit-to-be-in-Bunnings-or-anywhere-public-not-cotton-wool-lined after a hip replacement if they didn't posses the mobility capability to even respond to a minor slipping hazard in a way that didn't involve them ending up on the floor and severely traumatized, or why they didn't take more active precaution to watch their feet given their known-only-to-them hip vulnerability.

Better still, did anyone ask if there was anything else that might better explain their PTSD-style symptoms - did anyone even test these symptoms clinically and actually link them to the Bunnings slip-over incident, versus say hangover effects from a previous injury that required hip surgery and may have been quite debilitating and painful for 'some time' leading into actually getting the surgery?

Slip on an onion, and the OSH response is - well - *ridiculous* - seemingly no questions asked about the farmer's role in his own injury, nothing on pre-disposing casual factors, let alone an assessment of whether the emotional distress was a reasonable response by a reasonable person. Nothing - just a financial settlement and safety changes.

Develop anxiety, depression, suicide ideation, and or engage in self harm after (usually repeated) exposure to a hazard such as bullying or sexual harassment, and get put through the veritable wringer as any and every other possible causal mechanism or contributing factor is considered - typically resulting in the injury claim being refused, be it via a legal technicality or simply because a PCBU or insurer has the power to just refuse a claim knowing most victims don't posses the mental nor financial resources to launch an appeal. No treatment, no financial compensation and more often than not, ongoing psychological issues that ruin one's life longer term.

I am left scratching my head.

Kindest regards, RM

In NZ a claim would usually be covered by ACC, but the rules around mental injury generally require a diagnosable condition (eg PTSD - which I personally suffer when my hotdog comes with brown bread :)) , not just hurt feelings. Our courts don't tend to award significant damages for cases falling outside ACC, which gives an economic incentive not to sue. By comparison, it seems awards are higher in Australia and without ACC the culture is more supportive of making claims. I did scratch my head though at the comment "I suffered emotional harm so had to make a claim". I didn't realise it was compulsory...

Well the ole one foot in the coffin and the other on a bannana peel has been thrashed to Kingdom come so maybe the poor old bannana can be replaced with the onion now.
In all seriousness, I have never known or heard of someone slipping on a Bunnings sausage sizzle onion in my time.
If this becomes Organisational Mitigation, Im wondering about the implications that could be evoked.