Resources available • I nstructor’s manual, PowerPoint® slides. IA For the instructor RA L 3rd Edition Search me! CE NG SA A M GE PL L E EA PA R GE NI S NG • Companion website: includes flashcards, crosswords and useful weblinks. A Management Guide | 3rd Edition PR OP Archer Borthwick Travers Ruschena OF for the study tools that come with your textbook! ER TY www.cengagebrain.com AU WHS A Management Guide Register online at: ST For the student Richard Archer Kerry Borthwick Michelle Travers Leo Ruschena ISBN: 978-0170196307 For learning solutions, visit cengage.com.au 9 780170 196307 Archer 3e 9780170196307 CVR.indd 1 4/04/12 10:26 AM v CONTENTS Preface viii ix ST RA LIA Acknowledgements Resources guide x About the authors Chapter 1 xii Introducing health and safety 1 2 AU The James Hardie story Defining workplace health and safety Chapter 2 TY Chapter 4 PR OP ER Chapter 5 Chapter 6 11 18 Understanding the legal framework 25 Introduction 26 Modern WHS law 27 Key elements of the WHS Act 29 Does the law work? 44 Consulting on WHS 49 Introduction 50 What is consultation? 51 What are the benefits of consultation? 53 Introducing consultation into the workplace 54 OF C Chapter 3 EN SA GA M GE PL L E EA PA R GE NI S N Consultation and cooperation G Making health and safety a priority 4 Developing a systematic approach 74 Introduction 75 Development process and rationale 75 Elements of the workplace health and safety management system 77 Managing WHS information 100 Introduction 101 Identifying needs 104 Designing and developing information processes 108 The information needs of the HS manager 110 Identifying hazards and managing risk 115 Introduction 116 Risk management 116 vi CONTENTS Chapter 8 134 Introduction 135 Duties associated with plant 135 Purchasing 136 Risk management associated with plant 137 LIA Managing hazards associated with plant ST RA Chapter 7 Controlling risk: ergonomics 153 Introduction 154 Identifying hazards Assessing risk Chapter 10 Controlling risk: occupational hygiene 172 Introduction 173 Types of hazards 173 Identifying occupational hygiene hazards and risks 176 Using equipment to monitor workplaces 195 Introduction 196 Monitoring 196 Managing psychosocial hazards 216 Introduction 217 What is stress? 217 Managing workplace stress 219 Workplace violence and bullying 225 Controlling risk: safe design 238 Introduction 239 What is safe design? 239 Why safe design? 240 The five principles of safe design 241 Contracting or purchasing 248 Safe work design 249 Auditing and evaluating WHS activity 254 Introduction 255 What is a WHS audit? 256 Planning an audit 256 OF PR OP ER TY Chapter 12 Chapter 13 161 162 CE Chapter 11 159 Controlling risk NG SA A M GE PL L E EA PA R GE NI S NG Chapter 9 154 AU Ergonomics CONTENTS vii 262 Evaluating compliance against industry standards 263 Benchmarking between organisations 265 AL IA Chapter 14 Report on the WHS audit Dealing with emergencies 270 Introduction 271 271 TR The law and emergency planning Managing emergencies Post-response or recovery phase Chapter 15 Chapter 16 TY ER OP PR 284 285 290 Introduction 291 Incident procedures 291 Compensating injured workers and managing injuries 310 Introduction 311 Legal requirements 311 The compensation and injury management process 317 Promoting a health and safety culture 330 Introduction 331 Building a safety culture 332 Building a health culture 337 Measuring a health and safety culture 341 Topical issues 346 Introduction 347 Climate change 347 Nanotechnology 350 Behaviour-based safety programs 352 Corporate reporting 354 OF Chapter 18 274 Notifying, reporting and investigating incidents CE Chapter 17 NG SA A M GE PL L E EA PA R GE NI S NG Dealing with bomb threats 271 AU S Types of emergencies Further references 362 Appendix 365 Glossary 372 Index 375 CHAPTER 1 Introducing health and safety 7 Figure 1.1 Incidence rates (claims per 1000 employees) and percentage improvement of serious* compensated injury and musculoskeletal claims by jurisdiction Australia 12.9 2006–2007 12.3 2007–2008 12.0 2008–2009 (PRELIMINARY) 2009–2010 (PROJECTED) IA 2005–2006 11.3 11.6 RA L *Includes accepted workers’ compensation claims for temporary incapacity involving one or more weeks’ compensation plus all claims for fatality and permanent incapacity. ST Source: Safe Work Australia, 2010, Comparative Performance Monitoring Report, 12th edition, Commonwealth of Australia, p. 3. • • • • Workers are not aware of their rights. They do not know if the injury or disease was work-related. It may be difﬁcult or impossible to gather sufﬁcient evidence to show that a workrelated injury or disease was in fact work-related – however that may be judged. Some diseases only result from long-term exposure (industrial deafness), have long latency periods (asbestos-related) or involve other contributing factors, making claims too difﬁcult, time-consuming or costly to establish. Even in relatively simple cases, the process seems to require too much effort. Workers are sometimes afraid of making a claim lest it affect their employment or chances of promotion. Some consider the injury too minor, although it resulted in time off work. Some work cultures treat compensation as ‘sus’ and discourage legitimate claims. OF C • • • EN SA GA M GE PL L E EA PA R GE NI S NG AU According to these ﬁgures, we appear to be winning, despite a slight increase in incidence in 2009–2010 (projected). However, a reminder: we are using workers’ compensation statistics. There are a number of reasons for this, the principal one being there is no other measure or comparable database that assesses workplace health and safety nationally. As soon as you think about it though, the shortcomings become clear. Many accidents or diseases do not result in compensation being awarded. Research carried out for Safe Work Australia shows nearly half of legitimate claims are never made.7 There are several reasons for this: TY DID YOU KNOW? PR OP ER An important feature of the growth and development of the labour market over the past 20 years that has influenced the development of workers’ compensation schemes, in particular, has been the shift away from traditional employer–employee, full-time work arrangements as contract, casual and part-time work arrangements have increased. There is growing evidence that this has adversely affected OHS outcomes and reduced the likelihood of workers lodging claims. Source: Productivity Commission, 2004, National Workers’ Compensation and Occupational Health and Safety Frameworks, report no. 27, March, Canberra. CHAPTER 15 Notifying, reporting and investigating incidents 291 INTRODUCTION CE NG SA A M GE PL L E EA PA R GE NI S N G AU ST RA LIA When a workplace injury or illness occurs, the following four steps should be taken as soon as possible: 1 Help the worker (or non-worker): provide ﬁrst aid and any assistance in receiving medical or hospital care. If helping a worker, supply them information on making a compensation claim and assist with the submission. Monitor the claim closely and keep in touch with the worker regularly while they are away from the workplace. Depending on the severity, keep management informed throughout. 2 Inform the regulator: if it is a ‘notiﬁable incident’ – a fatality, serious injury or illness, or dangerous incident, as deﬁned in the Act – tell the regulator. You may have to secure the site. 3 Record and investigate the incident: record details in a register of injuries. Find out why the controls didn’t work and implement recommendations to prevent a reoccurrence. 4 Notify the insurer: notify your insurer of a fatality, injury or illness and provide details, normally within two days of learning of the incident. Advise the insurer if the worker will be claiming compensation. In this chapter, we look at steps 1, 2 and 3. In the following chapter, we look at step 4 and the arrangements for compensating workers, managing their injuries and return to work. INCIDENT PROCEDURES PR OP ER TY OF As the most basic requirement, every workplace needs a simple set of procedures for dealing with incidents. Depending on the workplace, such procedures could combine with those covering emergencies – ﬁres, ﬂoods, bomb threats (see Chapter 14). A small wallet-sized card containing the basics and distributed to all workers is one step towards making sure procedures are followed. Besides forming part of the training for everyone, procedures should be provided to contractors and labour-hire. They should be checked regularly to reﬂect changes to the law, workplace and personnel and to see whether people are actually aware of them. A full set of procedures should contain: • deﬁnitions of incident categories – injury or illness with or without lost time, nearmisses • responsibilities of employees, managers, ﬁrst aid ofﬁcers, medical personnel, authorities, insurers • rights of employees; for example, to compensation information • required activities and timeframes to cover treatment of injuries; notifying, reporting, investigating and record keeping • any maps • contact details. 338 WHS A MANAGEMENT GUIDE CE NG SA A M GE PL L E EA PA R GE NI S N Trauma assistance G AU ST RA LIA Anti-harassment and anti-discrimination policies, together with corporate programs to deal with workplace stress, form the basis for a psychologically healthy workplace, but additional work is needed to help workers with existing illnesses such as anxiety and depression. It is beyond the scope of this chapter to canvas such a complicated problem except to say that, whether it is considered culture-building or risk management, mental wellbeing should be part of the corporate HS strategy. With professional assistance, mental illness in the workplace can be handled with informed policies, procedures and training. Making yourself aware of the issues, raising them with others and treating people who experience mental health issues sensitively are ﬁrst steps. Drawing on specialist resources is the next one (see additional resources below). Occasionally, some employees experience traumatic events in their lives and the effects, both physical and emotional, can be long-lasting. Many experience feelings of anger, guilt, panic, emotional lability, depression and confusion. If the person does not deal with these feelings, they may suffer repercussions that affect personal and work relationships. Sleep, job performance, concentration and stress tolerance can also be affected. Trauma counsellors can defuse any workplace trauma and counsel the people involved. Sometimes the after-effects are delayed and close liaison with sufferers and the employer can ensure that counselling is made available to people affected in this way (see additional resources below). DID YOU KNOW? OP ER TY OF The Australian Services Union and the Torquay-based Victorian Surf Coast Shire have made the first enterprise collective agreement that allows for an extra 20 days leave for victims of domestic violence. The Surf Coast agreement applies to around 260 council staff and is intended to help victims of family violence hold down a job. The agreement allows for up to 20 days a year of this leave and requires the employer not to breach the privacy of victims. It covers physical, sexual, emotional, financial, verbal or emotional abuse by a family member. The union intends to seek to include the family violence clause in all negotiations with employers. PR Employee assistance programs Employee assistance programs (EAPs) are another way of emphasising human wellbeing and building the health and safety culture. EAPs are short work-based programs designed to assist employees with work-related, health, family, ﬁnancial or emotional concerns. EAPs can help deal with issues such as high stress levels, conﬂict resolution, sexual harassment, violence, absenteeism, high staff turnover, declining productivity and workrelated injuries and diseases.