Legal Analysis of Workplace Incident on a Production Line - Case Study Example

Legal Analysis of Workplace incident on a production Line Students Name Institution Supervisors Name Date Introduction Occupational health and safety is one of the most complex issues in Australian society to date. It is in fact estimated that between the year 2009 – 2013 more than 2 million Australian workers experienced work related illness or injury. In the past decade the legislatures in Australia have been working hard to come up with improvements in the regulations and rules and other policies that are aimed at protecting workers from suffering work related accidents and injuries (Queensland, 2014). However, the current trend still indicates that individuals are still exposed to dangerous situations at their workplaces; this can result in to dire ramifications (Solicitors, 2014). The country recently came up with the Workplace Health and safety act of 2011, which was geared towards enforcing rules that protect workers and impose penalties when this is ignored. This paper will provide a holistic overview of one such case from various perspectives. It will look at issue to do with medical, social ethical and legal provision that is involved for instance. The patient at the focus of the paper is Rob Hansen, who is a worker at the Do More Steel Manufacturing Company and has had a health problem following a workplace injury that still affects him. Legal Aspect of the case under the Workplace Health Safety Act The person who has duties under the workplace health and safety can is the one will should comply with their duties by following the company’s or the technical standards of operating machinery. This is if the standards will provide work health and safety that is equivalent or higher that the normal code of practice. In this case, Joe Rite who is it the machinery supervisor will refer to an approved code of practice when issuing an order for the repairing of machinery or prohibiting workers from operating the machine. He can also offer the workers a choice on ways in which the machine could be repaired of made to work (Holt & Andrews, 2010). Person Conducting Business or Undertaking Under the Work Health and Safety Act, a person conducting business or undertaking is one who has the basic duty to ensure that all workers and other persons are not exposed to any form of health and safety risk that are as a result of business or undertaking. There are more specific obligations that this person needs to work under in relation to the Do More Steel Manufacturing case scenario. First of all, that person must ensure that so in relation to a reasonable form of practice, the layout of the workplace, including the way that the machinery is designed, the lighting, ventilation and other operational lines are designed in such a way that allow for workers to conduct their duties without risk to health and safety. In the same way, this person must also ensure that so far as it is with reasonable practice, there is the provision of adequate facilities like water, toilet, washing and eating facilities. He or she should also be able to manage risks that are associated with remote and isolated work and prepare emergency plans (Stranks, 2012). In this scenario, the Persons conducting Business or Undertaking will include; Joe Rite- Mechanical Supervisor, Joseph Spark- plant engineer, Craig Pollard- Slitting line operator and Fred Hope- Safety Advisor. Reasonable practicable means that the rules and regulations that are laid by the person conducting business or undertaking must be able to achieve work health and safety in areas that can be prevented and controlled. Looking at the scope and extent of duty, the person must also ensure that while at the workplace, the means of entering or exiting the workplace and all other issues arising from the area of work is without health and safety risks to any worker under his jurisdiction. This means that duty to provide and maintain a safe work environment is not is duty alone and can be shared by other workers too; For example, an owner of the company, line manager and other supervisors. In this kind of situation, the holder of duty should, so far as reasonably practicable, seek direction from co-operate and co-ordinate activities with each other. The person who also designed that machinery and the location of the machine that was used in this case scenario must also ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that the building or the structure carries no risk to health and safety (Stranks, Health and Safety at Work: An Essential Guide for Managers, 2010). Company Officers An officer is anyone in the company with the heading responsibility such as the director, the foreman, manager or the supervisor who has a duty to exercise due diligence so as to ensure that the business or undertaking is in line with the Work Health safety act and regulations. The scope and extent of their duties may include, but not limited to taking reasonable steps that will ensure the business or undertaking has and uses necessary resources and processes that will provide and maintain a safe working environment and adequate facilities for its workers. Officers in this scenario will include Joe Rite- Mechanical Supervisor and Fred Hope- Safety Advisor. Workers Workers are employees of the company with a duty to take appropriate amount of care for their own health and safety so that they can prevent accidents that might lead to putting the health and safety of other works at risk. Workers of any company have the responsibility to always comply with any reasonable instruction and also be able to cooperate with any reasonable policy and procedure that is related to health and safety at the workplace (Channing, 2007). The cause of the Incident To understand the cause of the incident leading to the death of Rob Hansen, we first of all re-visit the whole event. Hansen’s death is related to the default of the slitting machine. During the shutting down of the slitting machine, a threader clap crept down the table causing the front wheels to ran off the track and the hinged section of the table. After the operator noticed that the safety pin had not been inserted well, he advised the production foreman Ima Necte who went ahead to consult Craig Pollard to help him fix it. But this became difficult as the overrun wheels had jammed against the table frame preventing any kind of movement. At this they contacted the maintenance fitter, Rob Hansen, who would help then relocate the clamp back onto its track. Hansen being the expert on the area attached a pull lift device to the pinch hall frame and the threader clamp and proceeded to which the clamp back on its wheels. It was at this point that the clamp assembly automatically returned to the pinch roll end of the threader table. During this time, Hansen was standing between the clamp assembly and the pinch roll housing and the speed of the clamp came fast that it did not allow him time to move away. Sadly Hansen was crushed between the pin locating lugs on the clamp and the pinch roll housing. Looking at each duty holder, it is possible that they may have committed a breach of the work health safety in the following ways: Craig Pollard_ Slitting Line Operator: He was the person who had the responsibility of operating the slitting line machine, meaning that he should have ensured that the slitting line threader was well placed with its safety pin. However, we one looks that his statement, he confesses that he found it strange the slitting line machine was not inserted with a safety pin even though the machine was shut down as it is supposed to be in the standard practice. Besides, Ima Necte though was the foreman, had no knowledge of starting the pumps. Secondly, Craig was also among the people who knew to switch on and off the slit line machine. In addition, Craig failed to raise the lower half of the table in order to release the clamp by placing the control lever in the IN position. This showed a proof of safety negligence from Craig. Ima Necte: Production Foreman- Being the production foreman, he was also in breach because at the time he was doing overtime shift, Dave Basse who is an operator from the slitting line informed him that the threading table clamp had come off its rails. However, Ima did not attend to the clamp immediately. Dave on the other hand also informed him that he realised the pin had not been inserted earlier in the shift but did not tell anyone or did not think to put the pin himself. To add on the above, Ima also did not take necessary measures to ensure the safety of Rob Hansen as he directed him to clamp the machine. In addition, he asked the wrong person to do the job while he could have assigned Dick Snell who was well versed of the machines. In fact, Dick confesses that this should not have happened since it is a standard rule that when the lower half of the table is down the clamp should automatically be driven up to the pinch rolls when the hydraulic pumps are turned on. Joe Rite- Mechanical Supervisor; He too being the mechanical supervisor can be said to have been in breach of the work health and safety act. This is because he confesses in his statement that he was aware of the threader table clamp problem and that the problem had existed for a long time. He also confesses that the problem had been known to all and sundry for some time and that nothing had been done to rectify the problem. Joe had actually supervised its correction for a couple of times. However there was no written procedures for its correction, for example, the commonly accepted method that all of the fitters for doing the job is to isolate the hydraulics, attach a pull lift device by using a sling onto the pinch roll housing on one end and the chain of the pull lift to the clamp frame and then stand behind the pinch roll housing to operate the device. An operator of the machine must stand behind the pinch rolls for own safety. Joseph Sparke- Plant Engineer: The plant engineer was also in breach of the Work health and Safety act. This is because he failed to act on the problem when it was brought to the engineering department’s attention on several occasions. The department was also aware of the clamp tendency to creep down the table after the hydraulics is turned off. He also confesses that the engineering department put in place a temporary solution instead of repairing the whole machinery once and for all. Reasonable, Practicable Measures In order to prevent the accident from happening, the person conducting a business or undertaking could have taken several reasonable practicable measures as follows: a) Consulting with fellow works Consultation in this sense, would involve sharing of information regarding the status of the machine. This would also allow workers to express their views and enable the plant engineer or the plant supervisor take reasonable measures in to account before making decision on the health and safety matters. According to section 471 of the Work Health and Safety act, it is required that the person conducting a business or undertaking should consult so far as is reasonably practicable with workers who carry out work for you who are or likely to be directly affected by a work health and safety matters. Section 482 also states that if the workers are represented by a health and safety representative, the consultation must involve that representative. At this, the foreman must have consulted with fellow staff operating the plant on any changes or the fault that the plant had. This should include changes to the plant operations that may affect their health and safety and when making decisions about how the plant should be switched on and off. Consultation must also include access, maintenance and cleaning of the plant. If the facilities for operations are also provided at the workplace, in this case at the plant, one should consult workers and their health and safety representative Fred Hope, who is the safety supervisor when the changes on the plant were affected by the engineering department. This would make workers determine whether it is safe to work with the plant or that the plant should have been replaced. Consulting, co-operating and co-ordinating activities with other duty holders According to section 463 of the work health safety act requires that a person conducting a business or undertaking co-operate and co-ordinate activities with all other persons who have a work health and safety duty in relation to the same matter so far as is reasonably practicable. At times the person conducting a business or undertaking may be called upon to share responsibilities for a health and safety matter with other staff, like the mechanical supervisor, plant engineer, slitting line operator and safety advisor who are involved in running of the plant and other workers that share the same workplace. This means that all these people should exchange information to so as to find out who is doing what and work together in a co-operative and co-ordinated way so that all the risks that were involved with the plant are eliminated and minimised so far as is reasonably practicable. The Plant engineer should also share responsibility in the same way by providing a safe physical work environment and plant with the plant line operator or the machine supervisor. They should also come together and discuss machine requirements with regard to the plant in question. This would include checking that the machine is in good condition and operational instructions are in the right place so that it can assist in the maintenance of the plant. This would include emergency switch of the plant in case of default among other facilities. With this, the Plant Engineer should have also looked at the work space that the plant had been provided. According to regulation 404 of the Work Health and Safety act, a person conducting a business or undertaking must ensure so far as is reasonably practicable, that the layout of workplaces allows and is maintained to allow, persons to enter and exit the workplace and move within it safety, both under normal working conditions and in an emergency, as was the case in the scenario. Work areas should also have space for the machine to be operated safely, floors and other surfaces should be designed, installed and maintained to allow work to be carried out safely, lighting and placement of the machines should enable workers to operate the machine safely, persons to move around safely and safe evacuation in case of an emergency. Conclusion This paper looked at the work place safety with regard to the Work Health and safety act by analysing a workplace incident on a production line at Do More Steel Manufacturing Company. Looking at the above case scenario, the incident could have been avoided if all the safety measure regarding work health and safety were put in to consideration. For example, the engineering department would have requested for the plant to be replaced immediately they found it to be in fault. At the same time, plant foreman could ensure that the thread pin is restored immediately he realised that it was missing. However since this was not considered, then the family of Rob Hansen should be compensated for negligence on the side of the person conducting a business or undertaking. This means that the people responsible should also be penalised according to the work health and safety act of 2011. The plant must also be replaced with immediacy it deserves in order to avoid the same incidence from repeating. In case the company may not afford the new plant (Hughes & Ferrett, 2011). Then the engineering department should ensure that it trains every worker in the production line on how to handle the plant, especially after the modification that was done in the plant. There should also be a well written procedure on how the plant should be switched on, operated and switch off. In case of a default of the same kind, the slitting line operator must call the necessary department so as to repair the anomaly and not just any worker at the scene. If such measures are put in place then the incident that happened may not be repeated again. Lastly, the company needs to carry out repeated induction courses so as to make their workers aware of new development with regard to plant operation; safety measures other lines of production. Bibliography Channing, J. (2007). Safety at Work. Routledge; 7 edition. Holt, A. S., & Andrews, H. (2010). The Principles of Health and Safety at Work. IOSH Services Ltd; 5th edition. Hughes, P., & Ferrett, E. (2011). Introduction to Health and Safety at Work: The Handbook for the NEBOSH National General CertificateIntroduction to Health and Safety at Work: The Handbook for the NEBOSH National General Certificate. Routledge; 5 edition. Queensland. (2014). Work Health and Safety Act. Australian Government. Solicitors, H. F. (2014). Health & Safety at Work Essentials. Lawpack; 8 edition. Stranks, J. (2010). Health and Safety at Work: An Essential Guide for Managers. Kogan Page; 9 edition. Stranks, J. (2012). Health and Safety at Work: An Essential Guide for Managers. Kogan Page; 9 edition. Read More