01:02 pm, Tuesday 21 May, 2013

According to WorkSafe ACT, apprentices undertaking high risk work at construction sites in Canberra will be safer under their new crackdown.

Commissioner Mark McCabe is releasing two sets of guidance requirements for the supervision of apprentices.

They include a ban on trainees and apprentices working without the mandated supervision or working without the necessary accreditation.

Mr McCabe said that supervisors need to know that they are responsible for the safety of all their workers, especially apprentices who need a greater level of supervision over workers who are experienced.

He said that these two guidance notes restate the industry requirements and sanctions that are already in place. They are being released as a part of a campaign to improve safety by making sure that supervisors understand and observe these responsibilities.

The guidance notes also outline potential fines for corporations of $3million, and a $600,000 fine and up to 5 years imprisonment for individuals for breaches of the regulations.

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05:32 pm, Saturday 18 May, 2013

A couple and their two young children aged 5 and 3 have had to leave their home because of the way the builder renovating their home allegedly mishandled asbestos materials.

WorkSafe ACT will be referring the builder involved to the Director of Public Prosecutions because workers have put the family at risk for illnesses related to asbestos.

The family left their house last month for more than three weeks after builders cut through asbestos sheeting in their bathroom with angle grinders, the entire house was contaminated.

The couple said that a neighbour approached them and said that they thought asbestos was being removed from and placed in front of their house.

They spoke to the builder who denied there were asbestos products so WorkSafe was called. They tested the sheets and confirmed that they were very dangerous.

The couple with their two children had been living in the house whilst renovations were conducted and toxic substances constantly had to be removed from the kitchen and living areas.

All of the members of the family will need to undergo annual tests for asbestos related illnesses.

Mark McCabe, the WorkSafe ACT Commissioner, said that three prohibition notices, two improvement notices and two infringements had been issued to the company.

He said that if anyone is concerned about work being done in their home they should contact either ACT Planning and Land Authority or WorkSafe and they will investigate.

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06:54 pm, Wednesday 24 April, 2013

The ACT Work Safety Commissioner, Mark McCabe has announced today the launch of a new safety campaign, Speak Up About Safety. The campaign aims to encourage workers and supervisors in the ACT to be actively involved in discussions about safety concerns.

The campaign will be an ongoing initiative and will kick-off with a series of advertisements on ACT buses, as well as posters in local workplaces.

“While this campaign has been initiated as just one of the responses to the Getting Home Safely report on safety in construction, this is an important message for all workplaces in all industries,” said Commissioner McCabe.

“One of the best ways to prevent workplace accidents is through active engagement of the workers at the coalface in discussion about their safety concerns. Workers will often be alert to safety issues that managers may not have noticed. Supervisors, for their part, may be aware of existing procedures or ‘controls’ which have been put in place to mitigate such risks. They will also be best placed to take action to address new or previously unidentified risks.”

“Work health and safety legislations works best when employers and their workers cooperate to either allay worker concerns or address the real risks workers at the coalface will often be the first to identify,” Mr McCabe said.

“Workers should be encouraged to raise their concerns about safety. Some of those concerns will be about important safety issues and some may simply reflect a lack of understanding by the workers about issues which have already been addressed. In either case, workers need to be encouraged to speak up rather than say nothing.”

“Speaking up may just save a life!”

Master Builders Australia, through its Executive Director, John Miller expressed their support for the campaign.

“MBA-ACT is pleased to join Work Safe ACT and other key industry stakeholders in the launch of this campaign designed to emphasize the absolute importance of good communication and cooperation needed in managing safety and continuously improving safety on local building and construction sites,” Mr Miller said today.

Both the HIA and CFMEU also expressed their support to the campaign.

Mr McCabe said he was particularly heartened by the support the campaign has received from different organisations.

“I think this campaign shows that employers and unions both care about workplace safety and that there is a willingness here in the ACT for all parties to work together to make our workplaces as safe as they can be,” the Commissioner said.

More information about the campaign can be found on the WorkSafe ACT website.

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06:47 pm, Wednesday 27 March, 2013

Work Safety Commissioner Mark McCabe
Photo: WorkSafe ACT

Work Safety ACT Commissioner Mark McCabe released a statement today in response to Master Builders Australia’s review of the Getting Home Safely report.

Mr McCabe said that while he recognises MBA’s commitment to addressing safety issues and their cooperation, some aspects of their statement regarding the report concerned him.

“The MBA’s lack of unequivocal support for the report’s call for a 35% improvement in the local industry’s safety record is potentially a serious setback for local workers,” said Mr McCabe. “In many senses this is a modest target. After all, if achieved it would simply bring us up to the national average, no more.”

“As difficult a target as this will be, however, its best chance of success lies in the united efforts of the industry, unions, the regulator and the Government to achieve it. The industry’s continuing denial of our local record, despite the MBA national office using this very same data in its own report on OHS Performance in the Construction Industry in November 2011, and the MBA referencing the national component of that data in their own submission to the Inquiry, is an impediment to change. A critical component in achieving change is an acceptance of the need for that change to occur.

“My other disappointment is in the MBA’s rejection of the report’s call for them, as one of the two significant industry representative bodies here in the ACT, to show the leadership the industry needs at this point in time.

“The Getting Home Safely report was a damning one for the local industry, and the calls for reform and change are significant. While I understand the difficulty in accepting such criticism, the industry has to do more than sit back and call on everyone else to lift their game while rejecting the pivotal importance of their own responsibilities,” he said.

In its review, the MBA did not support two of the report’s 28 recommendations. MBA said the development of frameworks “relating to the management of safety were not tasks an industry association such as the MBA could undertake” because of the diversity and size of organisations in the industry, and because “safety management is a fundamental corporate governance matter that rests with building companies and developers.”

MBA also said they should “promote and develop very specific ‘culture change’ training programs aimed at middle management,” which is an idea identified in the Getting Home Safely report.

“I am very heartened by the MBA’s support for the call for cultural change,” said Mr McCabe. “It is important, however, for local employers to recognise that cultural changes which works invariably does so as a result of a top-down approach. Such change needs to start with an employer’s management team, and gain genuine support and commitment there, before it moves on to a call for workers to also embrace the change needed.”

In February, the ACT government adopted all of the inquiry’s 28 recommendations. It also found that the ACT had the highest injury rate in Australia with one in every 40 workers expected to sustain serious injury at work every year.

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05:53 pm, Wednesday 13 March, 2013

Baroness Rita Donaghy
Photo: UK Parliament website

Baroness Rita Donaghy, trade unionist and Labour life peers in the House of Lords will visit Canberra in June 2013 to deliver the keynote address for a forum on work safety.

Fairfax Media reported that the Baroness warns “political commitment to safety can mean the difference between life and death for construction workers.”

In 2009, Baroness Donaghy chaired a landmark inquiry into the alarming increase in fatality rate of 86 construction workers in Britain in 2007. She said Australia shared many similar patterns with Britain  in terms of construction safety failings.

She authored the report, One Death Is Too Many recommending several measures to reduce worker death which have been similar to ACT’s independent inquiry recommendations into construction deaths, Getting Home Safely, including tougher sanctions for companies who will breach work safety laws.

Fairfax Media further reported that Baroness Donaghy believes the Health and Safety Executive which is similar to the ACT’s Work Safety Commission was cut back even with her appeal for additional resources.

“To say things have been deteriorated is an understatement. So it may sound political, but a government which listens is enormously important,” said Baroness Donaghy.

ACT Work Safety Commissioner Mark McCabe said the work safety conference, “Building Safety: Bridging the Gap” would highlight new sanctions which allow a company to be fined up to $3 million for serious safety violations, and a company manager to be fined up to $600,000 or jailed for up to five years.

“It is important that we see this report, and the recommendations, as a starting point and not an end point,” said Mr McCabe.

“This conference will be build on the findings from the report and promote discussion regarding how to achieve the agreed goal of a significant improvement in the local safety record,” he said.

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11:42 pm, Monday 4 March, 2013

A report summarising the process followed and the results of a recent residential construction blitz on the Canberra suburb of Harrison was released by WorkSafe ACT.

A total of nine areas of compliance were pointed out as a focus for the residential construction blitz at Harrison. According to the released report, a total of 98 Improvement Notices, 2 Prohibition Notices and 18 Infringement Notices were issued during the blitz. Majority of the notices served were for issues on site security (fencing), amenities, housekeeping, and signage.

“PCBUs in residential construction need a greater understanding of and commitment to their obligations and responsibilities relating to the current WHS Act, Regulation, Codes of Practice and other related guidance,” says WorkSafe ACT in its report.

“PCBUs have a duty of care to ensure when conducting a business or undertaking that the health and safety of workers, or any persons accessing the site, is not put at risk.

“There also needs to be greater awareness by sub-contractors and individual workers that they have responsibilities under the current legislation and that they also have a duty of care to ensure that they undertake works in a manner that does not put the health and safety of themselves or others at risk.”

The blitz was conducted on 30 January 2013 by WorkSafe ACT.

More information about the blitz is available at WorkSafe ACT website.

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11:46 am, Tuesday 26 February, 2013

Starting this year, private sector workers’ compensation insurers and self insurers will have to pay an annual levy to ensure the long term sustainability of workers’ compensation and work health and safety regulation.

According to a news release by the WorkSafe ACT, the government expends around $5 million each year regulating and administering the Territory’s workers’ compensation and work health and safety laws. Only around ten percent of these costs are met by the people the system is designed to serve. The remainder of these costs is funded from the ACT budget.

Because of this, the ACT Government decided to progressively transfer the cost of regulating the workers’ compensation and WHS legislation to Scheme approved insurers and self-insurers through a levy. Doing this will gradually unwind the subsidy and bring the ACT in line with other jurisdictions.

• from 1 July 2013 - The Government will collect a new levy from insurers and self insurers. The levy will be based on what Government will spend that year regulating and administering the ACT’s workers’ compensation legislation.
• from 1 July 2014 - The Government anticipates introducing the enabling legislation to apportion work health and safety regulatory costs in the latter half if 2013. Subject to the passage of legislation, the 2014 levy will include costs associated with regulating and administering the ACT work health and safety legislation as well as the costs associated with workers’ compensation.

What do the changes mean for employers?

The new levy will be collected from workers’ compensation insurers.

Insurers will determine if they can absorb the funding into their existing cost structure or increase premium rates to partly or wholly offset this expense.

The amount of money collected under the new levy will be subject to a cap. This will mean that workers’ compensation premium rates should not increase by more than 0.015 percentage points year on year, even if insurers elect to let the full cost of the new levy flow through to the premium rate.

To further reduce the cost impact for employers, the Government has reduced the amount it will collect over the next five years from insurers – to cover the cost of compensation claims by workers whose employer did not have a valid policy of insurance. The amount of cost relief resulting from this decision is being calculated by independent actuaries and will be known in March 2013.

What do the changes mean for workers?

There will be no change for Act workers. They will continue to be covered by work health and safety and workers’ compensation legislation.

More information is available at the WorkSafe ACT website.

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12:53 pm, Tuesday 19 February, 2013

A new incentive program has been launched on Monday by Work Safety Commissioner Mark McCabe to provide funding for healthier workplaces.

The ACT Small Business Workplace Health and Wellbeing Incentive Program aims to provide funding to organisations for activities which promote healthy lifestyle choices for ACT workers by targeting the following key health areas:

• Increased physical activity
• Healthier eating
• Reduction in harmful alcohol consumption
• Smoking reduction/cessation
• Improved social and emotional wellbeing

“The program, to be managed by Healthier Work, the ACT Government’s free workplace health support service, will provide funding for small businesses in the ACT to kick start health and wellbeing initiatives in their workplace or to extend and add value to existing programs,” said Mr McCabe.

The new program offers funding for workplaces of up to 50 employees, both in the private and community sectors to develop and implement health and wellbeing activities. Depending on the number of employees, organisations can apply for funding of up to $1000, $3000 or $5000.

“Some examples of activities workplaces could organise include on-site exercise classes, fruit and veggie baskets for staff, provision of counselling services or a health and wellbeing expo,” said Mr McCabe.

“Creating healthier working environments not only has real potential to positively influence the health of our workforce, it also makes good businesses sense – increasing employee engagement and team cohesiveness in the short-term and leading to reduced absenteeism, increased productivity and improved corporate image in the longer term.”

The program is part of a joint Australian and Territory Government initiatives under the National Partnership Agreement on Preventive Health, which is committed to reducing the risk of chronic disease.

Program applications commence 18 February and will close on Friday 12 April. To be eligible for funding, applicants must have had a visit from a Healthier Work Industry Advisor within six months prior to the date of application.

More information about the program can be accessed at the WorkSafe ACT website.

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07:04 pm, Monday 28 January, 2013

The ACT’s Work Safety Commissioner, Mark McCabe has lashed out at the manager of an apartment site in Canberra where an apprentice suffered from electric shock last Thursday.

According to a Fairfax Media report, Mr McCabe accused the building site manager of dismissing the injury as an incident which could not have been prevented.

The work safety commissioner reacted to the manager’s comments on Friday about the incident being “isolated” and that issues concerning the site would be “non-life threatening.”

“The response sort of suggests that accidents will happen and there’s not much we can do about it,” said Mr McCabe.

“That’s an issue that came up in the Getting Them Home Safely report [on construction safety].

“It’s very disappointing to see a principal of a major construction company voicing such a view.

“The young woman who received the shock is probably lucky that she didn’t get a far worse outcome.

“What I would prefer to hear from employers is that they are doing everything they reasonably can to prevent those situations from happening,” he said.

The building site manager issued a statement last Friday saying that a safety audit conducted by the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, project managers and workers found no safety breaches which would prevent work on site.

Site workers walked off the job after a meeting between union representatives and construction managers was held. (Read SafetyCulture Report)

WorkSafe ACT issued a prohibition notice on the project which forbids any additional work to be done on the conditioning system on which the apprentice was working on at the time of the incident.

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12:45 pm, Monday 28 January, 2013

Canberra safety inspectors have issued 60 notices for safety breaches so far in a crackdown on dry cleaners in the territory and have reportedly found a “shocking” rate of dangerous work practices.

The inspectors have only just commenced the inspections and have visited 6 dry cleaners so far but according to WorkSafe ACT all of them have numerous electrical, chemical or equipment maintenance problems that are a danger to safety.

WorkSafe ACT said that the safety breaches are being found in higher numbers than with the ACT construction industry and more breaches have been uncovered in the 6 stores than over a three-month period of time at the Cotter Dam project.

Mark McCabe the ACT Work Safety Commissioner has said that the breaches that have already been found have the potential to make the dry cleaning industry a worse safety offender than the construction industry in the territory.

A near fatal carbon monoxide leak from a boiler inside a dry cleaning store sparked the crackdown. The gas, which is odourless and colourless is thought to have traveled through the air conditioning to a store next door where two workers collapsed.

Initial investigations showed that the boiler had not been maintained correctly and was faulty.

Two stop work orders and over 50 improvement notices were issued to the 6 dry cleaners that were recently inspected. The worst offender had 17 identified safety breaches.

Mr McCabe said that approximately 20 dry cleaners will be inspected and that the problems that are being discovered are mostly around electrical systems, storage and labeling of dangerous chemicals and the maintenance of plant and equipment.

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