Welcome to our November Newsletter and a new look. In it, we bring a digest of safety and health information that is most likely to be of interest in developing and maintaining successful systems, with particular emphasis on ACC audits, OSH rules and regulations, Training and keeping abreast of current trends.
In this edition:
- Health
and Safety Rep training?
Do you know what your employee safety reps are being taught at the Approved courses and will they be competent enough to issue Hazard Notices? We don't think the original intent has been upheld. [ more ]
- Registration
of Safety Professionals comes one step closer
The New Zealand Safety Council has now signed a joint venture with QSA International which has cleared the way for a set of recognised professional standards for safety professionals. [ more ]
- ACC
are coming to get you!
If you were an insurer, would you carry bad risks cheerfully? ACC has offered the carrot in the WSMP scheme. Now they are getting out the stick. If their computer finds you are getting a disproportionate bite of the compensation cherry, look out, they are about to hit your pocket. [ more ]
- Employee
Participation made difficult!
So, you can't make sense of the employee participation provisions in the HSE Amendment Act? Cheer up, you're not alone. We explain it all - maybe.
[ more ]
- Let's
laugh about "cowboys"
Let's have a laugh about unsafe acts. Being socially, politically, culturally and physically safe will one day rob us of all humour, so let's cherish our freedom to be dumb while we still can. Please visit our photo collection and send in your contributions. [ more ]
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Trained Safety Reps?
What's going on with the original pre requisites
for safety rep training? Doesn't Section 46A of
the Amendment Act talk about competence? Why
are employees who may have slept through an "Approved"
2 day course at your expense now allowed to roll
off their seats and slap you with a Hazard Notice, without
demonstrating they have a level of competence?
Analogy: Would you send an employee to a First Aid or Fork Hoist course if it didn't test their competence before they got the badge?
Here
are the facts so far:
- Industrial
training is going the same soft, politically correct
way as the stuff they serve up to your children·
You can't test people any more. You "follow
them up"· Dopes can now get to be
"Trained Safety Reps" when what
we really needed was strong, intelligent employees
helping to lead safety at work.Regardless
of what the educationalists say, without a test, everyone
gets through because we can't mention failure any
more.
- This
will entitle "graduates" to issue
their employer with a Hazard Notice and also
send a copy to OSH, who may use it as a basis for
an Infringement Notice (Spot Fine).
Responsibility
- Undoubtedly,
most employees will exercise this right with responsibility
and care. It may also be expected that some will
not.
- When
the Act was drafted, cautious employers made representations
about the wisdom of allowing employees to have direct
influence. Enlightened employers, however, see employee
participation as very constructive, given the right
environment.
Competence
- The
right environment was the assurance that trained
safety representatives would have to achieve a
level of competence.
- Someone
forgot this when they wrote the Employment Relations
quality assurance guidelines for the course which
includes:
- "An in-course and/or post-course method for assessing the extent to which skills and knowledge have been acquired by participants".
Wet!
- How
wet is that? Instead of assessing competence before
they set these folks loose, they are allowed to assess
it afterwards. That's akin to allowing a doctor
to graduate, then knocking on the surgery door later
to politely ask if they understood. And try taking
the qualification away once granted. This all looks
a bit politically correct and mushy.
- Wouldn't you want someone with the responsibilty of representing employees' best interests to make informed and reasonable decisions, based on known and accepted safety principles?
What should you do?
- Our advice: If you are thinking of sending employees on one of these courses, ASK: Is there an in-course assessment of competence? If not, why not? It may pay to wait a few weeks, as we understand a number of newly approved courses are to become available.
Full story and useful links to relevant OSH, Workinfo and related pages.
[ Return to Top ]- Only a minority of small to medium employers have taken up the opportunity to participate in the Workplace Safety Management Practices scheme, which rewards good safety systems with lower premiums.
- In fact, some employers prefer to dodge OSH, ACC and their responsibilities as employers too. These employers are in for a shock if their accident record is poor.
Here comes "W.S.E"
- ACC is gearing up to home in on them with a simplified version of the WSMP Audit Standard, known as the "Workplace Safety Evaluation". Enabling legislation is already in place. Non compliance with this standard will mean huge extra premiums. It's a form of user pays. It also has the canvassed support of a large number of employers who are sick of subsidising the rest.
- We understand it's all going ahead before June 2004. The existing Injury Prevention Consultants at ACC will be politely pushing poor performers (who aren't neccessarily small ratbag employers - they come in all sizes and some household names may be among them). If they don't perform, ACC will be bumping up their premium by 50%!
- Summary: It's the flip side of experience rating, penalising non performance, instead of rewarding good performance.
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Employee
Participation made difficult
The
Employee Participation requirements in the
HSE Amendment Act have been introduced to replace
what was a pretty mushy requirement under the original
Act. So the new Act would make it all clear wouldn't
it? No, not really!
What the Act now says:
(The
following analysis is a bit facetious but accurate)
-
First, there is a General Duty on all employers to involve employees in OHS, as long as you take into account certain matters in the HSE Act and any Code of Practice (if there was one, which there isn't), but you only have to give Reasonable Opportunities, so then again, you might not have to, it depends really.
-
Then, if you have more than 30 employees, you must formalise a Participation System with everyone's agreement. It can include any matters you wish, well, actually, only as long as you take certain prescribed matters into account and even then, any employee or union can make you change it a year later. Hang on though, if you had a previous system, and everyone agreed, you can use that, as long as it complies with the General Duties, (which you had to do anyway). Then it has to have a review system too.
Stay with this . . .
-
If you have less than 30 employees, you don't have to have a formal Participation System, unless one or more employees asks (except you still have that General Duty, don't forget)
-
If you fail to agree or implement the formal system as above, you've got 6 months. Then, the employees are obliged to hold an election to appoint at least 1OHS Rep or more (except they are allowed to make you hold the election for them, which must be by secret ballot).
-
And that's just the highlights. If you can get your head round it, it's actually quite a nifty bit of legislation. It's intended to be non prescriptive but prescriptive when needed! Sort of snakes and ladders. If you have a few spare hours, you can get to the bottom of it but you need to be able to draw a flowchart before it really makes sense.
Try
our Participation Game
Your opinions are welcome: E-mail
Us
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