Reporting incidents

[Seano]

I had started writing a response to Seano's ignorant and bullying posts but decided to delete it. I doubt any of it would have made any difference to his opinionated position, nor would it have served the actual discussion.

Too bad you didn't also decide to delete this paragraph along with it, it doesn't do much for the discussion either as far as I can see.

 

I'm inclined to be sarcastic now and again, I'll give you that much - its a fairly common trait among British backstage folk.*

 

For the rest; I've tried my best to respond to your posts reasonably and where we (frequently) disagree it has always been my aim to rebut robustly without rancour, Roderick. (Sorry - too much 'Life of Brian' last night.)

I have at least managed not to stoop to calling anyone names.**

 

So, enough of this nonsense, if my posts are ignorant refute them.

If I'm bullying you: a) ignore it b) report it to the mods or c) get over it.

 

* Whingeing, on the other hand, is a quality often ascribed to the British by Australians. Ironic.

** Not strictly true, I've just remembered: I called Kerry "Rupert" just a few posts back - I'm hoping he'll be big enough to let me off the hook for that one. :)

 

The only question I would like to ask is: Where did I ever suggest that reporting should involve reams of paperwork?

We're back to civil liability yet again. If you injure yourself in a trivial way and say nothing, that's a personal decision. If you formally report it to someone in a position of 'authority' you put that person in a difficult position - if they're sensible they *have* to ask the injured person to fill out a formal accident report.

If we're talking about 200+ crew (your example) that only equates to about 2 trivial events each per ream. "Reams of paperwork" is clearly a bit of an exaggeration, but it *is* the right order of magnitude.

 

Also, way back at the beginning you talked about a H&S person identifying a pattern that emerges from these 'reports'. I was assuming from that you meant a pattern that emerges over time - and that in turn means keeping and analysing 'historical' records. If we're talking about a pattern that emerges instantly - like everybody on the crew cutting their finger on a sticky-out screw the same morning - it hardly needs analysis to identify that one. And all the more reason for the first person to cut a finger to rectify the problem straight away rather than faffing about making a report, surely now.

 

Reporting can be as simple as telling the production manager ( and yes I have read Seano's "funny" example but would suggest that if the bloke got himself in that much trouble already he probably wasn't very good at his job) or making note in the First Aid Kit log if you needed a band-aid.

Re: telling the production manager: see above.

 

<edit> Ah, I get it now. I couldn't for the life of me work out which "funny" example you meant. The point behind it was entirely serious - production managers, even good ones, are busy a lot of the time. You can't seriously expect them to deal personally with every trivial incident - they simply don't have the time. Neither does anyone else with a job to do, it'd be a full-time job in itself.

 

Regarding the Band-aid, its funny you should mention that. You won't find a sticky plaster in any 'official' workplace first-aid kit in the UK.*

"Why not?" I hear you ask, because of 'Health and Safety'! Which is, of course, a euphemism, yet again, for Litigation Mitigation (thankyou Jim).

If someone is provided with a band-aid by their employer and has an allergic reaction to the adhesive, they may sue.

 

* - Can I assume from this bit of your post that this isn't the case in Australia?

 

Didn't we grow out of this whole 'us and them' fixation 30 years ago?

We did, unfortunately they didn't! :)

Actually, the fixation on litigation has nothing to do with the old 'class war' thing - its born out of the 'compensation culture' that was unheard of 30 (or even 20) years ago.

 

If you want to view it politically, its just another facet of the enormous influence Thatcher had on our culture. As part of the relentless drive to move things into the private sector she introduced the 'no win no fee' thing to the UK and made it legal for lawyers to advertise (it wasn't before), with the intention of moving personal injury cases (among others) away from the publicly funded 'legal aid' system. Swivel-eyed madwoman that she was, I doubt even she intended the insanity that has grown out of it. She'll probably roll over in her grave when she finally has the decency to acknowledge that she died some years ago and lie down. But I digress...

 

And a final question, although going off-topic, why is it that if someone comes up with a daft H&S 'rule', people just moan and whinge but if the same person would suggest that it would be easier to use cable-ties (or zip strips) to hang lights all hell would break loose?

Sorry, this is just nonsense.

 

If we as an industry had our knowledge about H&S at the same level as our other skills, the H&S 'nazis' would disappear from the scene quickly.

As is often mentioned in the BR - it isn't the highly skilled, highly knowledgeable H&S bods who're the problem. Its the other kind.

 

Maybe one day it will become part of the training or apprenticeship.

Apprenticeships don't really exist anymore. But as mentioned, H&S issues are already a core part of all formal industrial training - on short courses they rather tend to dominate and can actually take up more time than the supposed subject of the course.

 

Had this person approached me with the same attitude I would have asked him to explain himself and point out to me where these actions would have endangered anything else than his ego or need to show-off his newly gained 'power'. 9 out of 10 times people like that who can't see the bigger picture will scurry and leave you in peace.

Clearly you don't have much experience of being in the situation that Ike was describing. Its reassuring to see that you would have concurred with Ike's on the spot 'dynamic risk assessment', as would I. But "No Hi-Viz, No Job" is implemented with the same blind dogma that the billboards imply. 9 times out of 10 you would then have been invited to put your hi-viz back on immediately or leave the site. The remaining 1 time you'd just be kicked off the site without further discussion.

Unfortunately, when unshakable dogma becomes the basis for 'Health and Safety' policy the process of ad-hoc 'dynamic risk assessment' is the first casualty. Those whose job it is to enforce the dogma don't scurry away, and they most definitely make a point of never leaving 'offenders' in peace.

 

So now I have the facts and can I try to find a balance between the regulations and the job at hand. And weed out unworkable or plain imaginative 'rules'. And I hope that more people will do the same, up to whatever level they are happy with, so that we can actually improve health and safety on our worksites rather than pushing it aside. There is still a long way to go but we will only get there by working together.

Did you mean "imaginative" there, or did you mean to say "unimaginative"?

Anyhow, I'm glad to hear of your pragmatism in the real world. Do you really believe we have a "long way to go" though? I'd prefer to say we have room for improvement, we've already come a long way since we had a long way to go.

 

And reporting incidents ;)

Oh yes! (But not trivial ones, ah... no. :D)

 

Sean

x

 

(One thing I really don't get about certain sites is the "No Hat/H-Vis/Boots - go home" mentality that vanishes the moment a VIP steps inside the building in their suit and stylish shoes - even though major work is still ongoing!)

 

I was with you 100% up to this bit. In my experience it doesn't vanish - and the dignitaries seem to enjoy having their photo taken wearing their nice new hard-hats and spotless hi-viz. (Or clean-room gear, white coats, whatever.) Politicians, especially, seem to love a chance to dress up as ordinary working folk.

 

Regarding hi-viz, something that does strike me as very inconsistent is this:

If there was ever a need to wear it, its whenever you're near a public road - there aren't many places on a building site where the people/machines interface is anywhere dangerous as it is on an ordinary city street. So when people who work in offices nip out during the working day - to buy a sandwich, post the mail, go to a meeting or whatever - how come they don't need to wear hi-viz to walk down the street and (horror of horrors) cross the road?

 

Regarding boots, just to make my post even longer, here's a story:

 

A few years ago, I was working - along with gawd knows how many others - on a large opening ceremony for a certain athletic event.

The freelance H&S bod who was there at the time had the foresight to bring a container load of PPE with him, which included a large box of steel toe-capped wellies in bright yellow. (Which earned him the not-very-affectionate nickname of "Yellow Wellies" among the crew - and I think its best if I stick with the pseudonym.)

When people he could exert some authority over didn't have safety boots, he would issue them with a loaned pair of wellies - trading the risk of traumatic toe injury for the risk of terminal trench-foot, the daytime temperature was typically around 40 degrees.

 

During one 'official' visit, the politics of the occasion put the VIP's inside Yellow Wellies' sphere of influence. Only one of the party, a fairly petite lady, didn't have steel toecaps and so was duly issued with a pair of yellow wellies to wear instead of her perfectly sensible but non 'safety' shoes. Unfortunately there weren't any in 'petite lady' sizes, so the nearest fit was about 4 sizes too big. Inside the stadium, the upper tier steps are extremely steep (much steeper than would be allowed for a new-build in the UK) and sharp edged - a slip on the steps could, conceivably, prove fatal.

To all intents and purposes - in the name of "safety" - our H&S officer made that poor woman walk up and down those steps in clown shoes.

It made us all very proud to be British (not), but in a funny sort of a way you couldn't help admiring his bizarre quixotic single-mindedness. :o

[Ike]

I wasn't suggesting that Health and Safety should be learnt in isolation but it does surprise me how many people just accept something a Health and Safety Rep tells them and then complain about it later. The example in your previous post where you used your Hi-vis vest to mark a potential trip hazard. Made perfect sense to me and I may have done the same, chances of being run over on a zip tower are pretty slim. Had this person approached me with the same attitude I would have asked him to explain himself and point out to me where these actions would have endangered anything else than his ego or need to show-off his newly gained 'power'. 9 out of 10 times people like that who can't see the bigger picture will scurry and leave you in peace. But if they have a valid point they will be able to explain it in a reasonable manner.

As others have pointed out it's very different knowing what you should have done and actually doing it. This was far from an isolated incident. I was contracted to the major contractor, and sub contracting further work out to a laborer and technician. Every time I was stopped I was still paying two peoples wages, equipment hire and risking running over which would have involved huge financial penalties which could have easily bankrupted me! Now if I had to stop because of genuine health and safety concerns it would, of course, have been understandable however the fact was we were being stopped because we broke the rules.

 

The thing is in my eyes this is hugely detrimental to real health and safety. In an ideal world everyone looks out for everyone else and if someone suggests something is unsafe it is because they have experience of the job (not "health and safety") and genuinely think it is unsafe. In my experience the situations like the example above are becoming all to common. Everyone on site thought this guy was a t**t and nobody would have paid him any attention even if he had spotted something genuinely unsafe which was incredible unlikely due to the fact his head was buried in the rule book the whole time.

 

I started in this industry in 1975 and have worked in a variety of jobs, companies and continents ever since. I'd like to think I know this industry quite well and also have come across my fair share of 'jobsworth'. It got my back up enough to make me read the Act, the Regulations, have specific training and try to understand where it all came from. So now I have the facts and can I try to find a balance between the regulations and the job at hand. And weed out unworkable or plain imaginative 'rules'.

I will admit my knowledge of the "regulations" isn't maybe what it could be and I've certainly been meaning to read up some more on LOLER and the low voltage directive for some time, oh and the EMC regulations, and MSER, and you get the idea. My question would be is this actually detrimental to my (or anyone else's) health and safety? I think you can probably guess what my answer would be. Why then should I take time off doing my job (which on the whole I enjoy) to sit behind a desk reading regulations, standards and ACOP just to enable me to quote references next time I have to tell a "health and safety rep" to f**k off? Surely that time would be better spent gaining practical experience of the job, its challenges and dangers? Don't get me wrong I do have have a decent working knowledge of a fairly long list of rules and regulations and have read a fair few HSE and other reports however I think this has to be done in a way that complements practical experience.

 

I would genuinely have loved to have had the opportunity to do an apprenticeship, unfortunately I didn't have. I honestly believe the only way to increase health and safety is to get back to good old industry based training/apprenticeships and do away with "health and safety" initiatives.

 

A friend works on a large construction site that is currently celebrating god knows how many days accident free. A representative from the HSE visited the other week for a photo op, everyone got a bonus and a good (but gentle) pat on the back. Unfortunately he wasn't on site that day as he broke his finger mixing concrete in his garage, another guy was off after falling on a bit of re-bar while doing some gardening and seriously damaging his shoulder. Another success story for "health and safety" in the construction industry then?

[Andrew C]

I would genuinely have loved to have had the opportunity to do an apprenticeship, unfortunately I didn't have. I honestly believe the only way to increase health and safety is to get back to good old industry based training/apprenticeships and do away with "health and safety" initiatives.

Devil's Avocado

If one is to accept the statistics (somewhere above?), under the previous apprenticeship schemes, 10 time the number killed every year. I know what you're thinking "lies, damn lies and statistics", but it should give one cause to think. Were less than ideal working practices being perpetuated through a type of "Chinese Whispers" teaching in the workplace?

 

"When I were a lad, we didn't bother with all this safety nonsense, why use on of those fancy safety lamps, a candle was always good enough for me down 't pit!"

[Seano]

"When I were a lad, we didn't bother with all this safety nonsense, why use on of those fancy safety lamps, a candle was always good enough for me down 't pit!"

If you were a lad in the early 19th century that might not have been as daft an idea as it sounds. The introduction of the Davy Lamp actually resulted in an increase in mining fatalities in the early years. As the House of Commons select committee dealing with mining accidents reported in 1834:

Many mines previously thought to be too dangerous to work have been opened due to the introduction of Sir Humphrey Davy's lamp, and accidents in these mines have accounted for many fatalities.

source

 

Sean

x

[Ike]

Devil's Avocado

If one is to accept the statistics (somewhere above?), under the previous apprenticeship schemes, 10 time the number killed every year. I know what you're thinking "lies, damn lies and statistics", but it should give one cause to think. Were less than ideal working practices being perpetuated through a type of "Chinese Whispers" teaching in the workplace?

I think it's safe to say accidents are decreasing, not due to better training but because everything is getting easier and safer.

 

Someone with no knowledge of electrical work can now go down to a local DIY superstore, pick up a leaflet and all the bits and rewire their house. It'll probably work and they'll probably get away with it without injury. All the components come with instructions and with the amount of over engineering and testing that goes into every product you can push things way past there limits without problems. With the standards modern equipment is manufactured to even if you don't have an earth the likelihood of actually having a incident is relatively small and with the trend towards disposable goods nothing gets old enough to become a danger.

 

Likewise a £10 hardhat can take ridiculously large blows without even giving the wearer concussion, compare that to old tin hats or a home made bitumen covered cap. Pretty much anyone can build a zip-up tower without incident, use a modern ladder or drive a cherry picker. You can buy a fully tested fall arrest harness for £40, steel toe caps for £20, insulated tools for a few quid each.

 

People expect not to have to think for themselves and are generally poorly trained because they can be. One day courses are being used to prove competence while actual on the job training and experience are being ignored. Know the difference between PME and TNS then your an electrician, SWL and WLL and you're a rigger. Mess up because you're not competent then blame it on your boss, sue them and appear in an advert explaining how you "were given the wrong type of ladder". Whatever you do don't accept responsibility for your own mistakes, that'd be litigious suicide and where's the money in that?