Robyn
With a change to weld fume WES we put our our team of welders and a few other workers in positive air respirators. Much to my surprise the overwhelming feed back was "we love them!'. Not one single word of complaint. I had to be picked off the floor - there's always someone that complains about change.

Some of our people will work 12 hours a day and 5 on saturdays in this gear. You'll see them walking to smoko in it. Its physical work - on their feet all day. And not a single complaint.

Govt tenders - well theres a crock of the proverbial. They would prefer to go off shore or support people based on race rather than support local.

Shame. I thought we had moved on from such bogus navel gazing data.

Just looking at some numbers. I'm running at about 1.5% of workforce away due to covid. Less if I take into account the Work-from-homers.

I'm not a hoarder but I tend to chuck nothing away (you should see some of my old OSH resources!)

Id just stick them in alphabetical order and run them through a scanner then into the bin. Drive space is dirt cheap nowadays.

It is still taking up far too much of my time. It is patently obvious this thing is in the community, its going to be in the community for a long time and for most it is nothing more than a mild flu. Time to move on. Stop with the daily reporting of iffy case and death numbers. If you feel unwell stay at home. If you are fine come to work and do a decent days work. Time to put an end to "I am again a household contact So I'l have another week off work and collect my govt subsidy"

In NZ you can coward punch someone, kill them and end up with just 16 months in the clink

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/crime/fau-vake-death-daniel-havili-sentenced-for-manslaughter-in-auckland-cbd-attack/275FAXTEWRQ7PNQF6QYWBWJMH4/

Your model is incorrect. The economic value of a human life, of say $6m is over the entire life time of that human.

Lets say a SH has an impact over one year or 1/45 of a working life. That brings a value of $134,000. And if there are 2,200 serious harm incidents then a total value of $294m

If you suggest we spend half on injury prevention (or say $150m) where would we be?

If we added up the sum total of investments employers make in safety management I suspect we would well exceed that figure. ACC contributed $27m alone. And they say they get a $1.3 return for every dollar spent

I havent said "we are spending enough to cover off safety in the workplace". Nor did I say collateral damage is acceptable.

I have said we ought to become better informed about a particular death before forming views on preventing such deaths.

And I have suggested that the law of diminishing returns may be in play. Beautifully illustrated in the hand crafted graph I posted above.

Today's thought

We can and do that already

Gee> I wouldn't be using mountain bikers as the exemplar.

I've got one of those. Had a fall with quite a significant head injury. Completed our Return To Work program.

What does he do? Goes mountain biking again
What happens. Has another fall
What's the consequence. Another significant head injury.
Where am I? Grumpy because I have another RTW to deal with and more lost productivity.

4 staff = at least $800,000. Where would you put them. (4 people is getting close to the sweet spot where you need a fifth person to cover the leave absences of the other four - so lets call is a $m)

Worksafe fines go into the consolidated fund (like all the other fines) not to worksafe. So all bigger fines would do is theoretically reduce the overall tax burden. Perhaps an increase in the OSH levy is what you are looking for. (I wouldn't be keen on that because that means I pay more and get nothing for it)

ACC is very generous. If you die reasonable funeral costs are covered and if you have dependants they get cash for quite some time.If you don't die you get 80% of your lost earnings plus a truck load thrown at you to get you rehabilitated.

We traded this generous compensation for the right to sue. When you introduce the right to sue the only winners are lawyers. Within our legislation part of an OSH "Fine" can be paid to the victim.

Fines ought to be proportional to ones ability to pay. Big profitable companies = big fine. Low paid worker = small fine. Either way it is to hurt. Its called a consequence.

We have a catalogue. Staff get to choose whatever they like up to a certain generous $ value. Beyond that they pay the difference.

I have loaners to cover if they don't have their own and until their boots arrive.

They get to keep them when they leave.

Anything beyond that is administratively costly and not worth it.

Its two large enterprises behind the latest fatalities.

Tweak one. I've no problem with more inspectors on the ground. But not more police - I'd prefer their resources got put into other areas. We already have prosecutions and higher fines - but that "motivator" lever doesn't seem to be working.

Tweak two. Two different things. ACC = compo for loss of earnings. Prosecution = bringing people to account. There is already a mechanism for that. But it is expensive to run a prosecution. More money spent by worksafe on prosecutions = less money for inspectors on the ground.

Tweak three. I can't speak for everyone - but in my area Worksafe have been very good at creating these. No fault there.

Here is something that is relatively untried - more prosecution / fines of workers.

I've expressed my views broadly on this forum before on pre employment testing. Suffice to say they should not form part of our safety management.

That aside the number one best way to assess a worker (against whatever it is you want to measure them by) is the "work trial". No matter what your employment process is it has many fail points. Which won't be overcome until you got to actually observe a person on the job.

Good ole Andrew. Just rocked up to Gordon (an accountant with no mining experience) and said "G'day hows this super gassy mine with my members in it going Gord" "Bonza Andrew. Fair dinkum she's all spick and span and above board" "Good on yah Gord. As you are then. Now where's Damian and Ged?"

Theres a story line you will never see written.

And a warning why you don't want some unions involved in FPA's

The way these things work is a settled Fair Pay Agreement will be at the lowest common denominator.

An FPA is a clean slate document. It is not the re-negotiation of a Multi Employer Collective Agreement or a Collective Employment Agreement.

Safety standards are already enshrined in law. So a FPA cannot have a suggested clause that is anything less than this standard. Therefore a Clause has to be greater than the standard. And it is this clause that will be negotiated. And therefore moving into negotiating about safety. Which is something that in my view should not be done.

In the end it ends up being a nonsense. Heres an example. A task requires safety boots as the necessary PPE. And the required pair is $100 for a laced up version. That boot meets every standard and every requirement to do its job. So you are going to end up with the parties negotiating a better boot. This is interesting - what is a better boot if the minimum standard is already a good boot. So they parties will bat this back and forth for ages and settle on "lets get a $150 boot". Now some employers can't afford the $150 boot. And why should they when they can get a perfectly adequate boot everyone is happy with for $100. But that doesn't matter. So that clause will go to the Employment Relations Authority. And they won't like it because there is not enough specificity around what a boot is. So it will go back to the parties to define "boot. Yadah yada yada. Eventually it goes out to ratification to employers. And little Joe Blogs Limited who can't afford the boot casts a "No". But this vote is overrode by the "Big End Of Town". So Joe Bloggs decides he can't afford all these new fangled employment conditions so shuts up shop. That's the end of the safety issues for him. But workers in the Big End of Town employer get their $150 safety boots. But they have lost their hot chocolate at smoko

And that is all aside from considering what Maori view on safety boots. Because their views need to be sought in the process.

Andrew Little is the union boss who is on record as saying Pike rivers health and safety (to paraphrase) was an exemplar.

For a start I wouldn't be encouraging people to cycle to work. First - its their time. Not mine. So none of my business. Second - with drivers like ours its damn dangerous to be on a bike.

As for the visiting customer. Aesthetically I don't think it is a good look turning up on a bike. All sweaty and hair a mess with cycle clips.Is the company such a cheapskate it can't afford to give the person a car?

As from there do the risk assessment. Personally. Id err on metal vs metal rather than metal vs a squishy thing.