Another one of my weird questions to do with "SAFETY"

[flying dog]

This one is less AVIATION and more general safety, but heck, I can ask here anyway - can't I?

 

Building site. There are workers there. If the worker is doing work above their shoulder height, they are supposed to use a stool/platform to raise themselves so they are higher and can "work safer".

 

All is good.

 

There aren't enough workers and so an advert is put in the paper for people qualified to do some work.

 

Near by there is a Circus which has folded and one of the acrobats is a licenced electrician/builder/what ever.

 

They apply for the job and meet all the requirements for qualifications, and so are taken on.

 

One day, this person has to work "above the allowable height" and so needs one of these stools/platforms.

 

But since it is such a busy place, there are no free ones. BUT!

 

(smile)

 

(wink)

 

There is a 2 meter lengths of 8 inch conduit lying around not being used - it is an off cuts - and a piece of thick wood about 1 metre by 1 metre.

 

This new guy uses the conduit and the wood to stand on - as you see them do in the circus.

 

Someone sees this and tells him that he can't do that because it is "UNSAFE".

 

This person who is doing it has been in the circus doing just that - well nearly - for about 8 years with no accidents. Though when they were doing it in the circus, they were: Blind folded and juggling flaming sticks.

 

The building site's safety record is only 4 years without accident.

 

(Therefore the person's "failure rate" is less than that of the building site.)

 

Here they are simply - if that is the right word - bashing in a few nails.

 

Who is to say what is and is not a SAFE way for people to dotheir work?

 

C'mon, someone have a go at me. The day can't get any worse than it is already.

 

 

[alf jessup]

FD,

 

It might be a safe way for the acrobat but it is not in the site work guidelines or safety practices.

 

When in Rome do as the Romans do.

 

Same as flying if we all followed the rules to a T there would be a lot less accidents.

 

But flying has clowns as do road users.

 

And no i'm not going to make you day worse it is a valid question.

 

Alf

 

 

[flying dog]

Alf,

 

Thanks.

 

But what I (may) be having trouble understanding is how "they" determin what is safe.

 

Sure, take THE safest way to do something and make that the RULE/NORM.

 

Or

 

Find the lowest commond denominator (of stupidity) and find a safe way for them to work and make all work as per that.

 

But if someone has "skills" which would allow them to do something ANOTHER way and which doesn't put them at any more risk than doing it another way, why can't it be allowed?

 

(I wonder if my hormones are playing up making me like I am just now?)

 

(I wonder if I'm "up the duff"?)

 

 

[alf jessup]

Alf,Thanks.

 

But what I (may) be having trouble understanding is how "they" determin what is safe.

 

Sure, take THE safest way to do something and make that the RULE/NORM.

 

Or

 

Find the lowest commond denominator (of stupidity) and find a safe way for them to work and make all work as per that.

 

But if someone has "skills" which would allow them to do something ANOTHER way and which doesn't put them at any more risk than doing it another way, why can't it be allowed?

 

(I wonder if my hormones are playing up making me like I am just now?)

 

(I wonder if I'm "up the duff"?)

FD,

 

LMAO, if you are I swear it's not me.

 

I can't answer how to determin what is safe and what is not, we all have different views on safety or how to do something a certain way.

 

The law makers are the ones that make most of the rules but who says they are right in their perspective or view

 

on safety.

 

Alf

 

 

[flying dog]

I worry that soon we won't have any FREE choices left to make without some kind of rules applied to us first.

 

And if I am up the duff, I would become:

 

Flying b!tch

 

Yikes!

 

 

[alf jessup]

I worry that soon we won't have any FREE choices left to make without some kind of rules applied to us first.

I worry that illegal immigrants have a better life that our pensioners who built this country do.

 

 

[Guest davidh10]

Great question FD and good answer Alf.

 

The thing to focus on is that the word "SAFE" id not used in the actual rules, although it is bandied about in posters and slogans.

 

Each "site" has a safety officer who is responsible for the "safe work practices" of the site. To save a lot of time re-inventing the wheel, many standard tasks have a documented and standard "Method of Work", to which all must ordinarily conform. Any tasks that are not standardised or do not have a documented "Method of Work", must be subject to a Job Safety Analysis. This is also a standardised procedure.

 

The Clown could fill in a JSA for the task and show how all risk factors were being managed, mitigated or eliminated. That would then be presented to an authorised approver, which may be the site safety officer or a trained delegate. It may have to get several approvals for different aspects of the work for which there are different safety authorities.

 

If they all signed off on the Clown's JSR, which included his method of work, then we would be able to perform the task in that way.

 

It is unlikely, though that an approval would be given for a method of work to which an uncommon and specialist skill was required that was outside the skills normally required of others to perform the task. Doing so may risk some unqualified clown performing the task in the same way and quoting the Clown's JSR as a "Standard Method of Work".

 

The difference between a work place and flying as a hobby is that we are not in the role of employees, nor does CASA or RAA employ us, so the rules and responsibilities are different.

 

One of the things that makes interesting reading is the RAAF OHS system, where they are responsible for providing a safe work environment, even during a war! Everything is relative.

 

 

[flying dog]

I worry that illegal immigrants have a better life that our pensioners who built this country do.

Yeah, I've seen those recent e-mails going around.

 

All the pensioners should get in a boat and sail back into Australia and get a better deal than they are now.

 

I could find the e-mail and include it if you wanted.

 

 

[Bandit12]

Who is to say what is and is not a SAFE way for people to dotheir work?

Quite likely the big players behind the scenes will be insurance companies - estimating risks & costs of potential payouts, their own desired profit margins and the various ways of reducing the former and increasing the latter.

 

Up the duff? Things are getting exciting around here!!! And I've had my eye on Alf for a while, I suspect that he was just a little too quick to declare his innocence

 

 

[turboplanner]

No problem here, he's qualified to use the equipment and only requires an indoctrination on safety procedures on the site, and being made aware of any hazards.

 

 

[damkia]

Check the OHS Acts and Regulations. I'm pretty sure that unless the platform is up to code you would be in breach (= $BIG) of the OHS act and will not be covered by the companiy's workers compensation scheme should he come a cropper.

 

A properly constructed platform can be used and re-used many times over. A injured person will screw you many times over.

 

 

[turboplanner]

No OHS issues, by definition the pipe and wood are clothing accessories for a clown.

 

 

[flying dog]

I shall read "Clown" as ACROBAT with lattitude.

 

 

[motzartmerv]

C'mon, someone have a go at me. The day can't get any worse than it is already.

Ill have a go... General discusion is probably a better place for these tantelizing hypotheticals.:)

 

 

[pudestcon]

Soon we will have the National Harmonisation OHS Code (or close versions of it) as law in all Australian jurisdictions - read 'states'.

 

In my reading and interpretation of the Western Australian OHS Act (we haven't adopted the national code yet) and the National OSH Code, there is no prescriptive provisions at all in the way work must be done - there are Codes of Practise and Guidance Notes but these do not have to be complied with. My interpretation is that all hazards must be assessed, by a 'competent person' and a Job Safety Analysis (JSA), or Safe Work Method Statement created. In the building industry the JSA/SWMS is only required for 'high risk construction work'. There are 19 examples of this given in the documentation. My view of the national code is that no matter the task undertaken by a worker (not employee), there must be an assessment done and a decision made - the decision can be that no extra safeguards or new work procedures are required to do the work safely.

 

By the way FD; the 'they' you refer to is usually a 'competent person' employed by the company (new term for company/business is "Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking"), not a Government instumentality charged with administering the law.

 

Yes motz, this is a little outside the scope of this section.

 

Pud

 

 

[winsor68]

Yeah, I've seen those recent e-mails going around.All the pensioners should get in a boat and sail back into Australia and get a better deal than they are now.

 

I could find the e-mail and include it if you wanted.

Please don't... I find it mind boggling that people who I respect and who obviously aren't stupid fall for these lies just because someone sends it in an email...

 

As regards work practices... the problem really is that there will always be people who will push the limits. I guess they limit then need to be set artificially high to account for this factor...

 

 

[turboplanner]

Pud the reason you aren't reading prescriptive legislation is that the prescriptive era began to end in the 1980's.

 

The reason for that was that if a chain was specified at a minimum breaking strain for a give job and it broke, you could sue the Government which as we know, whether State of Federal, has unlimited supplies of our money.

 

 

[pudestcon]

Yes turboplanner, I'm fully aware of the move away from prescriptive legislation.

 

The point of my post was that the circus worker/electrician was not breaking any legislative law or regulations by using his work platform. He may have performed the work in an unsafe manner according to a Safe Work Method Statement, if one existed.

 

Pud

 

 

[Yenn]

Years ago there was a letout. there used to be a clause that if the peron was experienced he could do what ever others thought was dangerous. I once used that argument to stop the authorities from getting on my back when I used a single whip bosuns chair. I came down 670' working in one and now I don't think it would be possible with all the new regulations.