Reporting incidents

[Ynot]

I keep coming back to two things here....

Scale and common sense.

Well - three - responsibility is the other biggie.

 

We ALL have to use common sense to assess any incident in terms of scale and consequence and take responsibility to rectify any hazard that presents itself.

 

IF that hazard is beyond our own ken or skill to correct, then yes, a report should be filed. But that then does not necessarily absolve responsibility. Share it, maybe. Delegate it possibly.

[kerry davies]

Couldn't find whole thread but...

When handling timber PPE (gloves) should be used. A small cut/abrasion can cause blood poisoning. Contaminated material is all around us all the time, report everything. When you are "working", whether paid or not, you are subject to the H&S laws. It really does help prevent far worse things happening when the whole picture can be evaluated.

I know it's a drag, I know it's a pain, but it is needed if only as a means of highlighting the safety culture of an organisation or workforce. How big a cut is too small to bother with?

Compensation is another subject entirely. Judges are beginning to throw these sort of cases out of court and it was never as prevalent as is perceived anyway.

On another track ...why do people have the crazy idea that there is anything common about common sense? In my experience it is as rare as rocking horse s**t.

[Seano]

Whether it is Tony's screw or Seano's bit of scaff, of course you would fix it, but that wouldn't fix the reason it was there in the first place and as a result could be back there the next day <snip>

Similarly with Seano's bit of scaff, somebody put it there for a reason, can't image a bit of scaff attaching itself somewhere, so if you just remove the bit of scaff there is nothing to stop it from happening again. A simple word with whoever put it there explaining the dangers of their actions would go a long way.

Education is the only way we will improve the overall safety within our profession and industry.

 

Again - its down to the culture of the workplace. We're not working in a factory with 1000 employees. How many people do you think work on the average flyfloor? A simple word with whoever put the bit of scaff there in the first place would indeed go a long way, but there's absolutely no need to involve anyone 'official' in the process in my example:

Jim knocks his head on the bit of scaff that Harry rigged. Jim re-rigs the scaff and has a word with Harry about it, or Jim has a word with Harry about it and Harry re-rigs the bit of scaff. Or Jim and Harry do it together (its probably a 2 person job anyway, right?) In the well balanced workplace, Harry buys Jim a pint later, by way of an apology for the bump on the head.

What part of this cosy picture is improved by the involvement of a load of paperwork and some gimp from the office?

 

And do we really think that now commonly accepted practises such as PAT or even a safety bond would have come into play if no-one ever reported being zapped or nearly hit by a falling light?

This thread is about reporting *trivial* incidents. Wake up and smell the coffee, pretty much nobody in our industry ever does report getting a belt if they're uninjured - though you can bet that words are pretty much always spoken about it. If someone *is* hurt by an electric shock, or in the case of a life-threatening near miss, it *is* reported and nobody is suggesting it should be otherwise. (Besides which, RIDDOR comes into play).

 

I still believe that reporting helps uncovering underlying problems that can only grow if not discovered early on. Most of those will not be obvious until you start put the bits of the jigsaw together.

You're still thinking in terms of a factory or a construction site with thousands of employees (who largely don't give a toss about each other). In our industry we deal with relatively small groups of people, and we're all aware when one of our number gets hurt.

When it works well, we have a culture wherein everyone takes responsibility for themselves and everyone else, and that is why we have historically had a very good safety record going back well before the inception of any of the paperwork systems that are beginning to take over our world.

 

Where that culture does not exist, such as on a major construction site or in a car production plant, the bureaucratic system is designed to be a (poor) replacement for it. But where that culture does exist, anything that threatens to erode it can only be a bad thing.

And an excessive zeal for bureaucracy in the name of 'Health and Safety' does threaten to erode it. When you mention those two words to any working person on the shop floor, the reaction isn't "Cool, these guys are looking out for us" its "Oh for God's sake, what half baked nonsense have they come up with now?". There's a reason for that.

 

But if Harry's actions keeps sending people to hospital

Again: we're talking about reporting daft little incidents. Nobody is suggesting we shouldn't be reporting incidents that send people to hospital, besides which there are regulations in force in the UK that make it a legal requirement to report this stuff beyond our own organisation. (RIDDOR)

 

Its widely understood by sociologists and psychologists that 'peer pressure' is a powerful thing indeed.

Jim, Harry, John and Fred are all likely to ignore Rupert the 'health and safety' guy from the office. (Especially given Rupert's unfortunate history of trying to enforce impractical rules, like always wearing riggers gloves whilst doing any kind of woodwork - even precise joinery with dressed timber.)

But when John, Fred and Jim have all been on Harry's case about his using the wrong screws, and the minor cuts they have as a result, you can be sure he'll take notice.

 

 

When handling timber PPE (gloves) should be used. A small cut/abrasion can cause blood poisoning. Contaminated material is all around us all the time, report everything.

Ah, Rupert, we were just talking about you. :) I'm guessing you don't do much woodwork in your typical working day.

 

I know it's a drag, I know it's a pain, but it is needed if only as a means of highlighting the safety culture of an organisation or workforce.

"Highlighting the safety culture of an organisation" serves no purpose in terms of the health or the safety of the people within that organisation. Its only purpose lies within bureaucratic realms - its about demonstrating compliance with regulations to the authorities, and about 'arse covering' in terms of liability (and particularly in the context of compensation claims).

This stuff is important, of course.

But its the pretence that this is actually about 'health and safety' rather than about liability management and compliance with regulations that bring H&S into such disrepute with the people on the shop floor. Its crying 'wolf' - Rupert's unfortunate history of spouting half-baked dogmatic nonsense means that Harry, Jim and Fred don't take him very seriously, which is a real shame because often he's talking sense and what he's trying to say is important.

 

How big a cut is too small to bother with?

How big a hit is the organisation willing to take in productivity? 5% of everybody's working day spent filling in forms? 10% ?

How many extra people can the organisation afford to hire to analyse all this bumf? (And they better had, because if *everything* is being reported there's going to be a lot of trivia masking anything serious.)

 

Compensation is another subject entirely. Judges are beginning to throw these sort of cases out of court and it was never as prevalent as is perceived anyway.

Judges have always thrown these cases out of court, when they get to court. Unfortunately, insurance companies have an inglorious history of settling before the case gets there - pressuring people with a genuine claim to accept less than they should, and rewarding people with a frivolous claim with a couple of grand to make the claim go away.

Cases are being thrown out of court more often these days only because they're a bit more likely to get there in the first place, insurance companies are finally beginning to realise that settling daft claims quickly only saves them money in the short term. Too bad they didn't see it coming before our public and employers liability premiums were pushed up into the stratosphere. (And before schools started making kids wear goggles to play conkers, councils starting putting barriers round fruit trees and clowns had their bubble machines banned.)

 

On another track ...why do people have the crazy idea that there is anything common about common sense? In my experience it is as rare as rocking horse s**t.

Among people with the words 'health' and 'safety' prominent on their CV I agree with you, but it can still occasionally be seen down on the coalface.

 

Sean

x

[Ynot]

<snipped>Sean

Well....

All I can think of to say here is EXCELLENT post Sean!

 

 

Couldn't find whole thread but...

It's this one.

With your H & S experience, maybe you have some observations on the bubbles? :)

[Roderick]

(snip)

When it works well, we have a culture wherein everyone takes responsibility for themselves and everyone else, and that is why we have historically had a very good safety record going back well before the inception of any of the paperwork systems that are beginning to take over our world.

(snip)

In response I would like to quote Tim Norman of Edwin Shirley Staging (you may have heard of him) who states: "We have a very good record for Health and Safety within our industry, but the reason we have such a good record is not necessarily because we are safe, but because there are no records!"

 

As for the rest of the post, I think you need to broaden your perspective. Sure, if you narrow it down to your fly floor there may not be the need for any paperwork but where most of us work in an environment that may involve 200+ people from a wide variety of suppliers (lighting, audio, A/V, staging, rigging, security, loaders,catering, ushers, etc. etc.) you don't always have that 'one on one' contact whilst your actions could impact on many people.

Honestly, can we just get over the whole concept that H&S laws are implemented by some dark overlord on a personal vendetta (quote from Marco van Beek's excellent 'Practical Guide to Health and Safety in the Entertainment Industry).

By this whole pretending 'we are special' attitude you only play into the hands of some H&S jobsworth, whilst accepting that we are nothing different from a building site, and implementing the same basic systems, you would take the wind right out of their sails.

A good Health and Safety culture is not based on policies thought up by some pen pusher in a air conditioned office but on the interaction between the different disciplines in the industry. By reporting things to the production manager, who can then decide how to take it further, is the best way forward - in my humble opinion.

[Ynot]

Honestly, can we just get over the whole concept that H&S laws are implemented by some dark overlord on a personal vendetta

<snip>

A good Health and Safety culture is not based on policies thought up by some pen pusher in a air conditioned office but on the interaction between the different disciplines in the industry.

Rod, the problem is that whilst H & S laws may not be written by the dark overlord, the way that those basic laws are interpreted by the wannabes and jobsworths that are in virtually every business are the problem. That goes for pro's and amateurs alike, small, medium and large concerns..

 

If you were to take any of the countless articles in the press that refer to the latest purge on supposed unsafe practices and present the facts to the HSE, I could have a safe bet that a big majority would get summarily laughed out of the office!

We've all seen instance where the letter of the law is mis-interpreted by a bureacrat who is indeed likely sitting in an air con office with little or no practical idea of what the implications will be to the ordinary man/woman in the street.

 

Example 1:

The Oxfordshire school's pear tree that got chopped 'In case a pear dropped on someone's head'.

"A risk assessment was done on the tree and it was found necessary to have it removed. The risk was mainly from falling pears" . (Source - Times online)

 

I'd frankly LOVE to see the RA on that one!

And where were the 'green' lobby - chopping down a perfectly good tree....??!!

 

Example 2:

This one's already been discussed here, but it's the subject of orchestras etc 'playing too loud' and risking hearing damage...

 

Whilst the principle behind this one is sound (pun intended) the practicalities are not so well defined. Can we really see a raft of law suits from old philharmonia players because their hearing's not what it used to be? Have there been any cases fought thus far??

The text from this one (Source again Times online) includes a quote from the RPO's concert director... This is in response to the suggestion that earplugs are used, and that rehearsals are carried out at lower volume...

 

"“Very few concerts at the moment use earplugs. They’re not ideal for hearing the ensemble and what your colleagues are doing,” she said.

 

She added that rehearsing at a lower volume could cause problems because conductors needed to know what the music sounded like on stage."

 

My point (again) is that ANY HSE dictates should be assessed properly by the qualified people in each field to determine whether the measures under consideration are appropriate and practical. And by qualified, I mean those who know the job(s) affected and not just middle/senior management who are so far removed from operations that they don't really have a clue.

 

please, please, please don't get me wrong - I am in NO way against H & S regulation and would not sacrifice good H & S practices in any environment. In my day job we've been living & breathing good safe working practices since before I started work in the late 70's. But the overbearing argument is that until the inexperienced dozy management STOPS making decisions that affect the real world then the reputation of H & S will remain forever tarnished - thus leading to more & more sensible guidelines being ignored by many in the workplace.

[Seano]

In response I would like to quote Tim Norman of Edwin Shirley Staging (you may have heard of him) who states: "We have a very good record for Health and Safety within our industry, but the reason we have such a good record is not necessarily because we are safe, but because there are no records!"

 

RIDDOR has been in force since the mid '90s. I'm not sure what proceeded it, but there was certainly some legislation covering other industries. I certainly remember there being an accident book in every formal workplace I've ever worked in. (Since the early '80s - though the 80s were almost over before I ventured into the business of show.) I have a vague feeling that there was something about accident reporting in the original 1974 H&S at Work Act - maybe one of the UK based H&S bods could enlighten us on that point. Anyhow, serious accidents in large scale rock and roll tend to be somewhat newsworthy, reported through official channels or not they have always had a habit of being reported in the national press.

 

I suspect you're taking this quote out of context. Where did Mr Norman say this, under what circumstances and to whom? It looks to me like he's merely saying we shouldn't be complacent. And if that's the case I agree with him wholeheartedly.

 

As for the rest of the post, I think you need to broaden your perspective. Sure, if you narrow it down to your fly floor there may not be the need for any paperwork

It isn't my flyfloor, I was exploring the example originally given by Gareth in support of the idea of reporting everything. (You remember, the topic of this thread.)

 

but where most of us work in an environment that may involve 200+ people from a wide variety of suppliers (lighting, audio, A/V, staging, rigging, security, loaders,catering, ushers, etc. etc.) you don't always have that 'one on one' contact whilst your actions could impact on many people.

I think you'll find 'most of us' in the context of this forum are working in regional theatre, quite a few are amateur or semi-pro.

Few of us are regularly working on gigs of that scale, but I happen to be one of them.

 

So lets look at that:

Security and FoH staff already have procedures in place for reporting problems. Because they're mostly reporting potential problems for the punters rather than existing problems for themselves, they aim to deal with problems *before* an incident occurs - if they're any good, they're already much more proactive than the 'report everything via the accident' approach you advocate, and therefore it adds nothing.

 

<second draft>

I went into enormous detail about the 'technical crew' on a big, big gig here. God it was wordy, so I've cut it again. I'll try to be more concise:

 

At most, this adds one additional degree of separation. Even where the members of different crews don't know each other well (and often they still will), the heads of department are all, of necessity, working very closely together.

 

These gigs are much less ad-hoc than what happens on Gareth's fly floor - bits of scaff are not going to be rigged in semi-random positions in the same way. But lets just say they do - Bill the video guy has a problem with a Biglite - where its rigged he can't get access behind his LED screen without risking a clout. He doesn't know the lampies or the LD personally, so takes his problem to the video crew chief. Bob the video crew chief then has a chat with the lampies to see if it can be moved a bit. a) It can - problem solved. b) It can't, "you know what an arse this LD can be about things like that", so Bob bobs along to have a word with the staging guys and/or riggers to see if they can sort some other access route. a) They can - problem solved. b) They can't - Bob bobs along for a chat with the production manager, and maybe informally approaches the H&S guy(s). Still nothing in writing, and it gets sorted out.

 

And caterers? Are you kidding? The caterers know *everybody*. If a caterer asks a favour from anyone on any crew - it gets priority. Sometimes it gets a higher priority than what the production manager wants done *yesterday*. (Unless we're talking about a member of the crew who never eats. Or drinks.)

 

And lets not forget that on a gig that size there's always a H&S department (sometimes of one, usually more than one person). If they're any good at their job at all they should have good informal communications with all the HoDs, with everybody, in fact.

 

If they're not the kind of H&S people who have good informal relations with the crew what on earth makes you think trivial incidents are going to be reported formally, whatever the rules? If the crew don't trust them enough to pass things on verbally, you can be very sure they're not going to volunteer anything in writing they don't absolutely have to. That kind of H&S person has to resort to covert surveillance and dirty tricks to even see what the crew do all day, they have a serious knack for bringing out a person's secretive side.

 

Now lets expand *your* horizons a bit. You have 200+ people working on site, and every time one of them stubs a toe, turns an ankle or breaks a nail they come to the H&S office and fill in a form. How many H&S bods are you going to have in that office, how the hell are you going to fit that operation into a portacabin, and how do you expect any of the H&S bods to get on with anything more important?

 

Honestly, can we just get over the whole concept that H&S laws are implemented by some dark overlord on a personal vendetta

Maybe you should quote where I've suggested anything of the kind, because I'm damn sure I haven't.

 

However, if someone makes my job more difficult for no reason, sucks the fun out of my day, or costs me money for no return - I don't care two figs what their motivation is. I don't have to imagine for a moment that they mean it as a personal slight, I'm going to take it personally anyway.

 

I recently spent almost £500 on a bit of plastic calling itself a 'licence' (it is no such thing) because my previous 'licence' (neither is that one) has 'expired'.

The only reason I did this is because I can't afford an unreasonable 'Health and Safety' person preventing me from operating the kind of machine I've been using regularly for a decade and a bit. (I say 'unreasonable' because the only basis for that would be mis-interpreting the PUWER regulations and being rather bloody minded about it - sadly this is not an unlikely occurrence.)

 

Next year I'm going to have to do the same thing with two more - fork out the best part of a grand and waste a couple of working days sitting through a bunch of tedious powerpoint presentations (the same ones, probably), feigning interest as much as I can, and waiting to be allowed to breeze through the laughably easy 'test'. (Laughably easy because its designed to be passed by a high proportion of people who've had a single day of second-rate instruction - as opposed to a decade of daily experience.)

 

In return for the grand coming directly out of my pocket, I get nothing whatsoever, other than being allowed to continue to do what I already do by people who are in a position to prevent me from earning a living even though their interpretation of the law is in fact flawed. You don't think I should take that personally!?

 

You've ignored many of the points I've made in this thread, and I can't be arsed to repeat them. But this I will repeat.

Let me quote Jim Webber's rather excellent post further up this thread:

I think we need to clarify the purpose of your hypothetical 'Passport to your Toolbox / Hand Tool Licence'

 

Such a licence would have NOTHING to do with stopping people hitting their thumbs with hammers, nor is it intended to. The sole purpose of said licence would be so that in this compensation hungry culture of ours, when the company/theatre is being sued for an employees loss of texting ability, they can turn round and say "We took every precaution to stop Mr. xxxxx hitting his thumb, therefore it is his fault, not ours.

 

A great deal of the stuff that "Health and Safety" people do is not actually about health, or safety. Its about demonstrating compliance with regulations to various authorities, and managing liability, both legal and (especially) in the context of compensation claims. We on the shop floor are (mostly) not stupid - we may not be articulate about it, and we may choose not to comment, but we are well aware of the difference between a measure that is being introduced to genuinely improve our lives and a measure that is being introduced to protect someone higher up the food chain from criminal or civil liability.

 

Wearisome measures introduced for arse-covering reasons, rather than actual safety reasons are never going to be popular. But speaking purely for myself, the thing that most annoys is the sheer bloody hypocrisy of claiming its for my own good. <another protracted rant snipped here - I'll save it for another time>

 

Perhaps things would be clearer if we split the role of the 'Health and Safety' person into two, what do you think?

We could have one person who concentrates solely on things that genuinely improve our health and/or safety. We'll call that one the 'Safety' guy.

Then we could have another person who focusses on doing the 'liability management' things that cover our employers' collective arse. Lets call him the... well, maybe you can suggest a name. <_<

 

By this whole pretending 'we are special' attitude you only play into the hands of some H&S jobsworth, whilst accepting that we are nothing different from a building site, and implementing the same basic systems, you would take the wind right out of their sails.

Right. So you're suggesting we should take the wind out of the sails of some H&S jobsworth by second guessing him and pre-emptively complying with whatever poorly thought out demand he may be about to make?

If ever I'm about to be mugged, perhaps I could also take the wind out of my would-be mugger's sails by handing over my wallet and hitting myself on the head with a brick before he even gets a chance to threaten me? He certainly would be a bit fazed, I'll give you that.

 

We are not the same as a building site, we are starting from a position already ahead of the one they're striving for. If we're not careful about how we override our existing culture with elements of the one they pay lip service to (and may or may not actually implement on the ground), we risk taking a significant step in the wrong direction.

 

A good Health and Safety culture is not based on policies thought up by some pen pusher in a air conditioned office but on the interaction between the different disciplines in the industry.

(My emphasis) Here at last, we agree completely.

So why would you want to erode our existing positive interactions between disciplines with something based on the filling in, shuffling and analysing of bits of paper?

 

By reporting things to the production manager, who can then decide how to take it further, is the best way forward - in my humble opinion.

Whoah. The goal posts have just jumped ten feet to the left.

This isn't what you were advocating at the start of the thread - you started by suggesting that we should be reporting *every* minor incident, via the 'accident book', in writing, to some hypothetical H&S person. (Who would then read and analyse said reports, presumably in real-time, in order to be able to act on whatever trends are identified.)

 

Never mind, the essence of it is the same. Lets go back to Gareth's fly floor:

 

I'm the production manager, and Jim, who works on the fly floor comes to me to say that Harry has rigged a scaff boom an inch too low, resulting in a tiny bump on Jims head. Jim wants me to go and tell Harry to sort it out before something nasty happens.

 

I'm thinking: "What the hell is wrong with these people!?! Do they have any idea how busy I am? The costumes are over budget, the automation has broken down AGAIN meaning we've lost the juveniles for the second act rehearsal. The director is having kittens because a bit of the set isn't the same colour he thought the set designer promised him and the MD is threatening to walk out because the LD wants to turn off the music stand lights for two minutes at the top of Act 1. Now the second flyman has come into my office wanting me to ask the deputy chief LX (who he was sitting in the crew-room with 2 minutes ago) to move a scaff bar an inch? Is he crazy!? Sod it, I'm going to sack both of them and replace them with grown-ups!"

 

Sean

x

 

ps: This is the version of this post with most of the ranting taken *out* believe it or not. I can't believe how much time I've spent on it, bugger, and I need to be up at the crack of sparrow's fart. I think I've made myself pretty clear, and I've already repeated some of this stuff, so unless something new comes up I reckon I'm done with this thread. ta ta.

[kerry davies]

[Thanks Sean;

The name is Kerry or Hat but definitely not Rupert.

The original thread comes rom yet another crap article in the national press about H&S which the CEO of the HSE spends a hell of a lot of time rubbishing, there is a section on their site giving dozens of letters to editors repeatedly telling them they are wrong/stupid/dangerous. (http://www.hse.gov.uk/press/record.htm)

Bubbles? Ah yes you mean getting called out at 2 am to take stilt walkers to hospital from club nights with busted collar-bones.

( No one on site was capable of driving)

Gloves? Yes spent a short while climbing big wooden sticks with BT (20 years) and as a safety supervisor seen some lovely 2-4 inch creosoted splinters through palms into wrists...yummy.

As far as "incident reporting" goes the production/site/safety manager should be keeping the record, and filling out reams of forms is counterproductive: minor injuries, minor reporting. It really does help. Any near miss, even a complete miss, is noteworthy because near misses are, in reality, near hits. A spanner dropped from a rig onto a stage/floor is important to know about and deal with ( I remember when lanyards first became normal gear, never considered worth it in the past).

In the 60's some 1200 people were killed at work every year, it is now about 200 and falling. We are in an industry and, since the mines and shipyards closed, we form a higher percentage of the industrial base. This may explain why we are now being looked at a lot more closely, event construction sites really are building sites of a kind and just take a look at what has happened to them over the past few years (No hats, No boots, No jacket, No gloves, No job!). The HSE is now fining people BEFORE accidents occur, how long before someone in events gets done for simply not "clipping on?"

[Seano]

The name is Kerry or Hat but definitely not Rupert.

Just kidding. <_<

The original thread comes rom yet another crap article in the national press

Nope, it comes from a crap article in my local press, and the salient facts are correct.

 

Bubbles? Ah yes you mean getting called out at 2 am to take stilt walkers to hospital from club nights with busted collar-bones.

If only there was some kind of 'emergency service' that could be called out to take injured people to hospital. Ah well, we can dream...

 

But no, the story refers to a children's entertainer being refused liability insurance unless he agrees to stop using a small hand-held bubble machine at kids parties. Its usual for the kids to be sitting on carpet. I think he'd have been quite happy to limit the use of the bubble machine to times when members of his audience were not stilt walking on a polished floor.

 

Gloves? Yes spent a short while climbing big wooden sticks with BT (20 years) and as a safety supervisor seen some lovely 2-4 inch creosoted splinters through palms into wrists...yummy.

I see a pattern forming: safety precaution necessary for A, therefore also necessary for B. (A and B not necessarily the same thing at all.)

I bow to your greater experience of climbing big creosoted sticks, and agree that gloves are necessary for that. How do you get from that to the assertion that they're also necessary for joinery with dressed timber? (Or even that they aren't worse than useless - since they're clumsy and yet a good sharp chisel will penetrate a basic 'riggers' glove like it isn't there. ie: mitigation of trivial injury moot, serious injury more likely with the glove than without.)

 

filling out reams of forms is counterproductive

Hoorah!:)

 

Any near miss, even a complete miss, is noteworthy because near misses are, in reality, near hits.

Agree entirely. Not the subject of this thread though, that isn't what the OP was advocating back at the start.

 

People have always been, and will always be, extremely reluctant to report near-misses through formal channels. The reasons for that are obvious.

If you seriously want to deal with them, good informal communications are the only way anyone up the food chain will even get a whiff of what's happening on the shop floor.

 

In the 60's some 1200 people were killed at work every year, it is now about 200 and falling.

I live in Sheffield.

In the 60's there were large, labour intensive steelworks all around here, and collieries galore just down the road. Sheffield arena stands on the site of one of the largest, along with a bunch of offices, a cinema and some fast-food places.

In the north east the main employers these days are call centres, rather than shipyards.

Its a lot more difficult to accidentally kill yourself in a call centre than it is in a foundry, a mine or a shipyard. (Though its a hell of a lot more likely that you'll think about doing yourself in on purpose.)

 

You're not comparing like with like, there have undoubtedly been improvements since the 60's (such as a moderately well known bit of Health and Safety legislation in 1974) - but most of the most dangerous jobs from back then simply don't exist anymore.

(Or rather they do, but in other countries where we can just outsource the work to people without any of our silly burdensome H&S stuff - or even our basic essential sensible H&S stuff - and not have to witness the carnage - keeping our hands and conscience clean.)

 

If you want to compare statistics, how about comparing like for like. How many scaffolders, per capita, were killed in falls in the 60's - and how many in the 90's? I'm genuinely interested if you know the answer. I don't, but I'll bet you a quid the number hasn't fallen by anywhere near 83%.

 

Heres one for you: do you know how many high steel workers were killed in falls during the building of the Empire State Building?

 

These guys I mean:http://www.projectrebirth.org/img/ss_steel-worker.jpg

 

God that looks dangerous, and what a huge project.

 

The answer is zero. There were some fatalities during the project, but not one single steel erector was amongst them. Why? They were competent - and by 'competent' I mean they served an apprenticeship. They didn't attend a one-day course and get a nice little plastic card.

 

event construction sites really are building sites of a kind

Already dealt with that one.

 

(No hats, No boots, No jacket, No gloves, No job!).

Exactly the sort of inflexible dogmatic rubbish that I'm afraid of. Its arguably counterproductive in their industry, it would definitely be counterproductive in ours. (Which is a moot point - since I doubt our industry would survive the heavy handed implementation of that sort of stuff. In some industries you can't deliver a product millions over budget and years late and still expect to get paid.)

 

This is all straying far away from the original topic of this thread. And I already said I was going to bail... Must try harder next time...

 

Cheers

Sean

x

[Ike]

No hats, No boots, No jacket, No gloves, No job!

Ahh that old Chestnut. A few months ago I was installing some neon lighting at what was at the time a building site. We were working at one end and the nearest other workers were at least 100m away, the nearest heavy plant was about twice that with a building in between and the area we were in wasn't accessible to vehicular traffic.

We had just repositioned our zip up tower and one of the outriggers was protruding slightly into a walkway so I removed my hi-viz vest and tied it to said outrigger. Unfortunately the "Health and safety rep" had seen this and having nothing better to do came over to give me an earful. He actually had the cheek to untie my vest, throw it at me and tell me what I had done was "very dangerous and irresponsible". He was damn lucky I didn't jab him with the live high voltage cables I was holding at the time (current limited to a relatively safe but bloody painful 25mA).

 

I have no objection to health and safety, I do however have major objections to wasting time filling out paperwork and giving lip service to satisfy someones power trip of prevent litigation.

 

I defiantly don't think everything needs recording, for example today I managed to cut my finger on my multi-tool. I was on location and removing a small tree (about an inch diameter an inch from the ground) to enable the DP to get the shot they wanted. I couldn't get at it at a particularly good angle, ended up slipping and jabbing the saw blade into my finger. Now this was quite embarrassing bearing in mind my job used to involve hacking bits off trees with chainsaws but it wasn't particularly serious. Now what would be the point of reporting this? I know I was in the wrong by not taking enough care, maybe we could start up the "Take care. Stop accidents." campaign again, I bet I would have taken more care if a poster told me to!

 

off topic rant snipped

[Roderick]

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.

 

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

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.

 

I still believe that reporting is a simple and positive way of maintaining a safe workplace and looking after each other, and not as a means to satisfy some strangely assumed 'liability' cover for someone 'up the food chain'. Didn't we grow out of this whole 'us and them' fixation 30 years ago?

 

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?

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.

H&S is a skill, as is coiling a cable, lifting a flat, focusing a light, rigging a PA. Maybe one day it will become part of the training or apprenticeship.

[Ike]

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.

H&S is a skill, as is coiling a cable, lifting a flat, focusing a light, rigging a PA. Maybe one day it will become part of the training or apprenticeship.

What do you mean by "H&S"?

 

I don't mean to cause offence but this is exactly the type of comment that gets my back up and in my mind creates a "them and us mentality". Health and safety has been part of every decent bit of training I've done however I would never suggest it is a separate skill that can be learnt in isolation. I can teach someone to coil a cable with no problems but how on earth do you teach "H&S"?

 

Take manual handling for example; I'm not a muscular guy (in fact I'm positively lanky!) and I've no recollection of any formal manual handling training yet I can load trucks and throw stage weights around with the best of them. Not because I'm a H&S guru but because I've worked with experienced crew, I've seen the correct way of doing things, been told when I'm doing something wrong and I know my own limits. When I lift something I don't think to bend my knees and not my back, I just do it.

 

Just because somebody doesn't know the numbering scheme for risk assessments or the latest H&S buzzwords doesn't mean they aren't perfectly capable of working in a safe manor. In fact I'd go as far as to say they are probably better than somebody who has been sat in powerpoint presentations while they have been out gaining practical experience of the job.

[Roderick]

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.

 

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'. 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.

And reporting incidents ;)

[JimWebber]

I think the point Sean has been trying to make, is that (IMO) Most company H&S policies and directives have little (Or nothing) to do with health and safety at all, but are entirely in aid of a*se covering ("Litigation Mitigation").

 

Only yesterday, in my day job, I had some contractors come over to remove an old, obsolete weapon system. When I was asked "Are these the only electrical supplies to the system?" I was compelled to say "I think so, you wil have to check"

 

Now, I knew damned well that they should have been the only supplies, however IF at some point, some-one had introduced another supply, from an alternative point that I didn't know about, and one of these contractors got a belt from it, I could just imagine the questions... "Well, Mr. Webber said it was all isolated"

 

When I was an apprentice, if you got a belt, two things happened.

 

1. You got a real belt (from a blunt instrument) from somebody in authority for being so bl**dy stupid.

 

2. You learnt a valuable lesson.

 

Nowadays, if somebody gets injured it's not a case of "Oh deary me I'm a silly bugger aren't I?" It's a case of "Hmmm how much can I get paid for this?"

 

I do appreciate that some routines are genuinely in the interests of safety, but in this compensation hungry culture of ours, many are just a paperwork excercise...

 

Jim

 

PS I suffered an injury this morning that wasn't my fault (I tripped over the cat) does anyone know of any solicitors out there would be willing to handle my case (Perhaps on some kind of "No win no fee" sort of basis?

[Tomo]

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'.

Really?

When you are tired, annoyed, have heavy, dangerous kit in your hands, know that you are in the right and somebody with the H&S hardhat on starts throwing things (metaphorical or real) at you, what would you actually do?

Most people would come close to flipping their lids!

 

There is a HUGE problem with "H&S Training".

Anybody who has done a "H&S Course" can only have been taught the legislation and RA methodology - they cannot know how to do any of the actual jobs they are supposed to be assessing.

 

Of course, this lack of job knowledge makes them incompetent to do those RAs!

 

Ergo, there is no point whatsoever in a pure H&S course. It has zero value on its own.

Combined with on-the-job knowledge and job-specific training, it may be useful.

 

And this is the main reason for the Great Divide and Us!=Them mentality.

 

If the suggestions/requirements they make are reasonable and practicable, then pretty much everyone accepts it.

If they aren't, then we'll fight it!

 

There are two reasons why unreasonable demands are made by H&S bods - either they are on a pure ego trip, or they don't understand the task(s).

 

(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!)