Health And Safety At Work - Essay Example

? HEALTH AND SAFETY AT WORK Ensuring the health and safety of employees is a fundamental responsibility of every organization that respects human rights and welfare. It was initially common for employers to ignore injuries sustained by workers in their course of duty or while serving their masters. This assumption caused a lot of suffering and loss to the employees who as at the time of injury were performing profitable duties for their particular employers. In rescue of employees’ safety was the introduction and approval of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 in Britain. Since the adoption of this Bill, the provisions therein have made it easy for employers to determine the scope to which they should cover to ensure safety in work places. The Act has also made it easy for settlement of cases that concern injuries incurred in working places and even schools. To clarify the scopes of action of the HSWA 1974, it is important to review Section 2 (1) which pre-empts that it is the duty of every employer to ensure the health, safety and welfare of the employees as long as the practice is reasonably practicable. Further review of Section 3 (1) of the HSWA 1974, unveils that it shall be the duty of every employer to ensure safety and health of every individual and not his employees but exposed to risks of his operations as far as the practice is reasonably practicable. It can be inferred that Section 2 of the HSWA 1974 offers obligation to the employers to ensure safety of the employees, while Section 3 extends the responsibility to the non-employees, but who might become victims of the risks. In general, the provisions in the HSWA 1974 have been used expansively by jurists to argue particular cases involving occurrence of risks to employees when performing their duties. A perfect example is the case outlined by Harrington and Forlin (2008, 102) in which an accident occurred in Hillgrove School in North Wales in 2004 where a child of three years injured himself while climbing stairs. The injury suffered by the three year old child called K involved him hitting his head on the bottom stairs and developing complications that eventually led to his death. Upon litigation, the school authority developed defence mechanism that though the entire school was rugged and had steps leading to classes, there was an ‘out of bound’ sign at the place where K injured (Harrington & Forlin 2008, 102). Another defence was that such accidents had never occurred since the inception of the school in 1930 because every activity of the children had been under supervision of experienced teachers. The prosecutor tried to convince the court that the defendant, which was the school failed to perform its duties of supervising the children while out for break even with the knowledge of the existing risk in the stairs. The prosecution also pointed out that indication of “out of bound” sign in the region of the accident was lacking the support of the clause ‘reasonably practicable’. This is because the school had assessed the risks attached to that region but failed to set fence or hindrance mechanisms against access to the point. However, after examination of witnesses and inspection of the region of the accident alongside scrutinizing injury records of the school, it became evident that Hillgrove School had great cognition for safety than any other neighbouring school. Thus, the jury concluded that the occurrence of the accident in that particular region was unforeseeable noting that there were evident steps by the school to enforce practicable efforts towards risk aversion. Another case involving place of work injury circulated between Mr. Shaun Riley and Chargot limited in 2008. In this case, Mr. Riley sustained fatal injury while driving a dumper truck belonging to Chargot Limited (Horlock & Snarr 2009, 390). This case also involved other appellants among them, Ruttle Contracting Limited who was the principle contractor in the site and George Henry Ruttle, the director of Chargot Limited and managing director of Ruttle Contracting Limited. Riley was asked to substitute a truck driver who was out for an urgent event. The work involved making of a car park and excavation of the topsoil was the main need for the dumper truck. It then happened that Riley fell from inside the truck and was covered by the soil, thus fatally injured. The jury took three divergent interpretations of the different sections of the HSWA 1974 in accordance with the roles played by each appellant in the occurrence of the accident. First, Chargot Limited was proven criminally liable under Section 33(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 (Horlock & Snarr 2009, 391). The charges were continued on the basis of prime facie a breach of Section 2 (1) that stipulates the responsibilities of employers in case of occurrence of injury to an employee during work. Ruttle Contracting Limited was convicted under the basis of prime facie breach of Section 3 (1) of the HSWA 1974, which provides that employers will be liable for injuries sustained by non-employees due to the business practice of the employer as long as the risk can be prevented under reasonably practicable clause. Here, Ruttle Contracting Limited met such rulings because it contracted the services of Riley in driving and excavating the topsoil in construction of car park (Horlock & Snarr 2009, 391). Longitudinally, Mr. George Henry Ruttle was also convicted and charged for consenting to contraction of Riley and neglect that caused Ruttle Contracting Limited to breach the provisions of Section 3 (1) of the HSWA 1974. All the appellants were fined with measures of their roles in the occurrence of the accident with Ruttler Contracting Limited incurrent the greatest fine. From the above outlined examples of cases, it can be noted that health and safety at work is fundamental and remains to be the core responsibility of the employer no matter the circumstance. The laws regarding health and safety at work are limitless upon occurrence of an injury. The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 extends the responsibilities of the employer to define risks and set possible measures towards aversion of injuries as well ensuring safety of individual employees (Collins 2009, 14). The only defence that can be provided and proved by an employer is that the alleged risk and injury was unforeseen before its actual occurrence. Negligence or carelessness of employees that leads to individuals’ injury is unjustified point of defence by employers upon occurrence of an injury. References Horlock, T, & Snarr, M, 2009, Regulatory / Health & safety, viewed 2012-01-15, . Harrington, P, & Forlin, G, 2008, Health and Safety: Child’s play, viewed 2012-1-15, . Collins, S, 2009, Health and Safety: A Workbook for Social Care Workers, London; Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Read More