Maintaining workplace safety in your team.
Published in: New Zealand Forest Industries Magazine
Date: 10/1/2003
Extracts from a paper presented by Richard Parker, COHFE, to last month’s FICA conference.
Forestry is one of the most dangerous occupations in New Zealand. This is reflected in the very high ACC levies that forest contractors must pay. and continual effort is needed to reduce the injury rate.
In the year January to December 2002 there were 119 lost time injuries (where a logger missed the next day’s work because of injury) and 1852 work days lost. This resulted in an injury rate of 17 lost time injuries per million man-hours (see Table 1).
In the early 1980s the Logging Industry Research Organisation (LIRO) recognised that the forestry industries needed a national forestry injury database, and developed an accident reporting system. After a successful 15month regional pilot trial, the scheme was extended to cover the whole of the New Zealand workforce. The scheme, which still operates today, relies on logging companies providing monthly summaries of injuries and near-miss events to COHFE. Contributing companies also supply exposure information (total man-hours worked) from which injury rates can then be determined.
The data collected enables the analysis of accidents in terms of a range of factors, including lost time, time of day information, activity at time of accident and body part injured. This information is analysed quarterly and fed back to the industry via newsletters and other COHFE publications in the form of summary statistics of trends and patterns in injury data. Secondary, but related uses of these data are to identify key areas of concern regarding forestry safety, and provide a baseline against which interventions can be evaluated.
The New Zealand Forest Owners’ Association and the Forest Industries Council fund the scheme, and the ARS is unique–no other country has been able to maintain such a comprehensive scheme. (The South African and Australian forestry industries have recently copied the New Zealand ARS for their own countries.)
Cost of injury
Besides all the pain and suffering that occurs when a person gets injured there are costs. These are financial costs (which can be measured and are mostly well recognised) and social costs, which are often ignored or not recognised. And it is not just the injured person that incurs the costs, but their employer and family too.
In one example, a logger was breaking out for a hauler and got too close. A stem in the drag hit him.
* He suffered a broken pelvis and a broken thighbone.
* The helicopter broke down so an ambulance had to come.
* Another contractor’s tractor had to clean up the road for ambulance access.
* He had a total of three opera lions and was in hospital for five weeks.
* Then followed four months at home lying in bed.
* Then a year of physiotherapy.
* Then two years on crutches.
The costs involved were tremendous, both financial and social, to the injured logger and to the contractor (see chart).
Research by LIRO in ]997 showed the average cost of an injury to the forest contractor was an additional $500 per day for each day off work.
* Costs identified by contractors were:
* Down time of crew when injury occurred.
* Safety discussions after the accident.
* Repairs to equipment damaged when injury occurred.
* Time involved in accident investigation.
* 80% of first week’s wages.
* Cost of transportation of injured person to medical help.
* Cost of advertising and interviewing for a new crew member.
* Communication
The single greatest skill a contractor, crew foreman or manager can have is an ability to communicate with their crew. They can then be come aware of situations before they develop into major problems. If the crew can talk openly with their boss problems can be solved when they are small.
Be particularly aware that young or new crew members may be intimidated or make poor (and dangerous) decisions because they don’t yet communicate well with the rest of the crew or” with the contractor.
Other causes of injury include:
* Fatigue.
* Taking short cuts.
* Production pressure.
* Lack of training.
* Hazards.
* Drugs and alcohol.
Finding a solution has to be a priority.
Every crew needs some sort of safety system and ACC has one that will save you money.
ACC Workplace Safety Management Practices (WSMP) lay out the health and safety requirements employers need to achieve to receive a 10% to 20% discount on their ACC levy.
There are three stages to the process–self-assessment of the workplace, sending the application to ACC, and then having the workplace audited by an ACC approved auditor
The basic system requires:
* Hazard identification, assessment and management.
* Incident and injury reporting, recording and investigation
* Emergency planning and readiness.
* Protecting employees from hazards posed by contractors and sub contractors (that come into your crew).
Most important is building the knowledge and skills of your workforce through information, training and supervision–making it work requires real management commitment and full employee participation, as well as ongoing planning, reviewing and evaluation of your workplace health and safety programme.
Personal Contractor
Financial costs Lost income Lost production–long
smokos, meetings,
paperwork
Family visiting hospital Securing a replacement
& going shopping breaker out
At home–extra heating Lost production–until
and eating replacement “beds in”
Repair and maintenance
increases–not used to
gear
ACC costs rise
Social costs Low self esteem Contractor and crew
distressed
“Useless” around the
house–arguments
Give up sport
Being at home all day–
arguments
Table 1–Injuries and incidents recorded by the Accident Reporting
Scheme from 1997 to 2002 (Calendar year–January to December)
Year January to December 1997 1998 1999
Fatal injuries 7 5 5
Lost time injuries (LTI) 172 115 138
Minor Injuries 103 147 250
Near miss incidents 147 183 304
Lost time injuries/million hours 29 17 2
Annual harvest (million [m.sup.3]) 16.9 15.3 17.8
Lost time injuries/million [m.sup.3] 10.2 7.5 7.8
Year January to December 2000 2001 2002
Fatal injuries 3 3 4
Lost time injuries (LTI) 122 122 119
Minor Injuries 265 280 318
Near miss incidents 483 763 1205
Lost time injuries/million hours 11 16 17
Annual harvest (million [m.sup.3]) 19.3 20.7 22.6 *
Lost time injuries/million [m.sup.3] 6.3 59 5.3 *
* Source: Provisional data, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry,
round wood removals
Communication is vital. Young or new crew members may be intimidated or make poor (and dangerous) decisions because they don’t yet communicate well with the rest of the crew or with the contractor.
Picture this scenario: A young logger loins a crew as a fallen He’s Intimidated by skiddies who “insist” he trims all limbs off stems before they reach the landing. The young logger works out the odds:
* Trim all the limbs off the stems, even it that’s dangerous = 10% chance of getting hurt.
* Trim only limbs that can be reached safely = 100% chance of being hurt by skiddies.
So he trims everything, falls off the stem onto his saw and cuts his arm.
The result–five days off work and some very upset skiddies and contractor.
Making Industry Safer
ACC says up to $600 million could be saved over 10 years as a result of its Safer Industries programme, which aims to cut injuries in 11 of New Zealand’s highest risk industries.
General manager, injury prevention, Darrin Goulding, says the target is conservative and is based on an annual injury reduction of 2.5-5% during the next 10 years.
“But our target is actually to reduce injury rates by 50% over the next 10 years,” he says. “This will be achieved through a range of industry-specific initiatives and through other programmes such as employer and safety representative training that will be rolled out over the next year.”
ACC is targeting 11 industries that between them cover 30% of the workforce but contribute 60% of workplace claims.
New ACC Safer Industries health and safety groups are already identifying common processes, work practices and equipment that can cause injuries and are developing plans and initiatives to manage them. Participating industry stakeholders include employers, employees, training organisations as well as ACC and Occupational Safety & Health Service.
To date, six industry groups have set 50% injury reduction targets over the next 10 years with the other five having draft plans close to completion.
Agriculture, construction dairy processing, grocery and supermarkets, labour hire and roadfreight will work towards halving injury rates over 10 years while the meat industry has set a 2007 target to halve the financial cost of injuries.
The programmes for forestry and wood processing are still being negotiated, but are expected to be finalised soon.
ACC figures show that half the construction industry workforce had undertaken safety induction training in the past 18 months and claims to ACC had remained stable despite higher activity in the industry as measured by building consents.
In agriculture, the second phase of a FarmSafe training programme is under development and to date over 1300 farmers have attended safety workshops. The impact of the FarmSafe programme is becoming apparent among high-risk dairy farmers with claim rates again stable despite a significant increase in the national dairy herd.
ACC is also running an employer early intervention programme which identifies employers whose staff are making high numbers of injury claims. In the past six months of 2002, 295 employers were assisted. For the 168 employers who were well advanced or had completed the programme, claims fell 11.4% (884 injury claims,) in the September quarter compared to the same quarter in 2001.
Key employer organisations, unions and industry training groups will join ACC in working towards lower industrial injury rates at the ACC Safer Industries Conference to be held on November 3-4 2003 at Te Papa, Wellington,
Darrin Goulding says the conference will enable key industry groups to identify common processes, work practices and equipment that can cause injuries.
“When they have done this, they will be able to share ideas for plans and initiatives that will overcome these injury risks,” he said.
The conference features guest speakers Cathy Walker, national health and safety director or the Canadian Auto Workers Union and Mike Cosman, head of the UK’s Construction Sector, Health and Safety Executive.
The Safer industries programme revolves around health and safety forums involving 11 key industry stakeholders, including employer and industry organisations, trade unions, industry training and research groups and government agencies such as OSH. For more information, phone 0800 106 060 or visit www.safeguard.co.nz.
COPYRIGHT 2003 Profile Publishing Ltd.