Introduction to Occupational Health and Safety for new employees of WACOSS

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Introduction

Everyone in the workplace is responsible for occupational health and safety. Employers have particular responsibilities to provide for the health and safety and welfare of workers. Employers in the community services sector include management committees/boards as well as mangers/coordinators/directors. The ultimate responsibility for occupational health and safety rest with the management committee/board because the committee has the authority to endorse policies and procedures, is accountable for the financial management of the organisation and is legally considered to be the employer. Management must consider equally the welfare of volunteers and paid workers. 2. Legislation

The Occupational Safety and Health Act (1986) is the main piece of legislation responsible for governing occupational health and safety issues in Western Australia. The Act applies to most workplaces, and includes all community service organisations in Western Australia. The Act outlines the duties of care for employers and employees and the duties and responsibilities of both the employer and employee. The Act should be read in conjunction with the Occupational Safety and Health Regulations 1996 as they specify a range of requirements including information on the courses for safety and health representatives to attend in Part 2, workplace safety requirements in Part 3, Plant design and safety requirements in Part 4, and Hazardous substances in Part 5. The Act and Regulations can be viewed and ordered from the State Law Publishers on www.slp.gov.au

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Objects of the Occupational Safety and Health Act (1984)

Section 5 The objects of this Act are: (a) to promote and secure the safety and health of persons at work; (b) to protect persons at work against hazards; (c) to assist in securing safe and hygienic work environments; (d) to reduce, eliminate and control the hazards to which persons are exposed at work; (e) to foster co-operation and consultation between and to provide for the participation of employers and employees and associations representing employers and employees in the formulation and implementation of safety and health standards to current levels of technical knowledge and development; (f) to provide for formulation of policies and for the co-ordination of the administration of laws relating to occupational safety and health; (g) to promote education and community awareness on matters relating to occupational safety and health. 4. Duty of Care

The Act aims to show that all parties have a responsibility for occupational health and safety. General duties of care are required of several groups of people, including: Employers Employees Self-employed persons People who have control of workplaces or the access to or aggress from a workplace Amendments to the Act in 2005 mean that the list of people owing a general duty of care is extensive. The list now extends beyond the traditional employer employee relationship to take into account new types of work relationships. See Part III of the Act for a complete list of people with general duties of care. The general duty of care imposed on employees, contractors, self-employed persons, workers in labour hire arrangements and workers in some other arrangements requires them to take reasonable care of their own safety.

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4.1

Practicable

The duty of care applies as long as it is practicable. Community Service organisations, as employers, must ensure so far as is practicable that safety or heath is not adversely affected by: work undertaken by them or those under their direction; any hazard arising from or increasing by that work or the community services system of work. Practicable is defined in section 3(1) of the Act. Practicable means reasonably practicable having regard, where the context permits, to (a) the severity of any potential injury or harm to health that may be involved, and the degree of risk of it occurring; (b) the state of knowledge about (i) the injury or harm to health referred to in paragraph (a); (ii) the risk of that injury or harm to health occurring; and (iii) means of removing or mitigating the risk or mitigating the potential injury or harm to health; and (c) the availability, suitability, and the cost of the means referred to in paragraph (b) (iii) Reasonably practicable means that the requirements of the law vary with the degree of risk in a particular activity or environment which must be balanced against the time, trouble and cost of taking measures to control the risk. It allows the duty holder to choose the most efficient means for controlling a particular risk from the range of feasible possibilities preferably in accordance with the hierarchy of control. This qualification allows those responsible to meet their duty of care at the lowest cost. It also requires changes in technology and knowledge to be incorporated but only as and when it is efficient to do so. The duty holder must show that it was not reasonably practicable to do more than what was done or that they have taken reasonable precautions and exercised due diligence. Specific rights and duties logically flow from the duty of care. These include: provision and maintenance of safe plant and systems of work; safe systems of work in connection with plant and substances; a safe working environment and adequate welfare facilities; information and instruction on workplace hazards and supervision of employees in safe work; monitoring the health of their employees and related records keeping; employment of qualified persons to provide health and safety advice; nomination of a senior employer representative; and monitoring conditions at any workplace under their control and management.

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The hierarchy of control refers to the range of feasible options for managing the risk to health and safety. The hierarchy normally ranges over the following controls: elimination of the hazard; its substitution with a less harmful version; its redesign; engineering controls; isolation of the hazard from people at the workplace; safe work practices; redesigning work systems; and the use of personal protective equipment by people at the workplace. Source: Industry Commission, Work, Health and Safety, Report No. 47, Sept 1995 www.nohsc.gov.au/OHSLegalObligations/DutyOfCare/dutycare.htm 4.2 Identification of hazards, and assessing and addressing risks, at workplaces

Regulation 3.1 provides for the identification of hazards, and assessing and addressing risks, at workplaces. It is the responsibility of management committee and co-ordinators to develop a system for addressing occupational health and safety in the workplace. A whole of organisation approach needs to be taken when implementing safety in the workplace. This will include developing systems for consultation with employees, policy and procedures, including safety as part of your induction training as well as specific hazard risk training. The best way of doing this is to put in place a risk management system. The risk management approach to safety includes a simple, four step method to identify, assess, control and review risks of hazards in the workplace. Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4 Identifying the risk (find the problem) Assess the risk (check it out) Control the risk (fix it) Review and monitor the risk (feedback)

If the danger is slight and implementing a particular preventive measure would be impossibly expensive or would render the work unduly difficult or time consuming, then it may be that the preventive measure is properly to be regarded as impracticable.

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Duties of Employers

As an employer, the management committee is responsible for providing a safe working environment at community service organisation based on what is practicable for the workplace. 5.1 Duties of employers

Section 19 (1) An employer shall, as far as is practicable, provide and maintain a working environment in which the employees of the employer are not exposed to hazards and in particular, but without limiting the generality of the foregoing, an employer shall(a) provide and maintain workplaces, plant, and systems of work such that, as far as is practicable, the employees are not exposed to hazards; (b) provide such information, instruction, and training to, and supervision of, the employees as is necessary to enable them to perform their work in such a manner that they are not exposed to hazards; (c) consult and co-operate with safety and health representatives, if any, and other employees at the workplace, regarding occupational safety and health at the workplace; (d) where it is not practicable to avoid the presence of hazards at the workplace, provide the employees with, or otherwise provide for his employees to have, such adequate personal protective clothing and equipment as is practicable to protect them against those hazards, without any cost to the employees; and (e) make arrangements for ensuring, so far as is practicable, that(i) the use, cleaning, maintenance, transportation and disposal of plant; and (ii) the use, handling, processing, storage, transport and disposal of substances, at the workplace is carried out in a manner such that the employees are not exposed to hazards. (2) In determining the training required to be provided in accordance with subsection (1) (b) regard shall be had to the functions performed by employees and the capacities in which they are employed. Definition of an Employer An employer is a person who engages a worker under a contract of employment, apprenticeship or traineeship scheme under the Industrial Training Act 1975.

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Definition of a Workplace The act defines workplace to mean a place, whether or not in an aircraft, ship, vehicles, building, or other structure, where employees are likely to be in the course of their work. When developing a safety program you need to consider all the work environments where your workers and volunteers provide community services to clients. These include: The office or centre Vehicles used for transporting staff, clients and volunteers Client homes Community settings such as shopping centres, day centres and other community service organisations, court, hospital, streets and parks. In each of these workplaces there are different workplace hazards that need to be addressed. You may not be able to eliminate all the hazards in the work environment, but with careful planning and training of staff risks may be minimised. 5.2 Reporting notifiable injuries and diseases

An employer must report certain cases of work-related injury, disease or injury resulting in the death of an employee to the WorkSafe Western Australia Commissioner, under s23I of the Act. The list of notifiable injuries and diseases is contained in Regulation 2.4 and 2.5. 5.3 Duty to inform employee who reports a hazard or injury (s23K)

When the employer (e.g. co-ordinator, management committee) receives a report of a hazard or injury it must: investigate the matter reported in a reasonable time frame and determine what action needs to be taken; and notify the employee of the action taken.

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Duties of the Employee

Section 20 of the Act covers the duties of employees. Duties of employees Section 20 (1) An employee shall take reasonable care (a) to ensure his or her own safety and health at work; and (b) to avoid adversely affecting the safety or health of any other person through any act or omission at work. (2) (a) (b) Without limiting the generality of subsection (1), an employee contravenes that subsection if the employee fails to comply, so far as the employee is reasonably able, with instructions given by the employees employer for the safety or health of the employee or for the safety or health of other persons; fails to use such protective clothing and equipment as is provided, or provided for, by his or her employer as mentioned in section (19)(1) (d) in a manner in which he or she has been properly instructed to use it; misuses or damages any equipment provided in the interests of safety or health; or fails to report forthwith to the employees employer i. any situation at the workplace that the employee has reason to believe could constitute a hazard to any person and the employee cannot correct; or ii. any injury or harm to health of which he or she is aware that arises in the course of, or in connection with, his or her work. An employee shall co-operate with the employees employer in the carrying out by the employer of the obligations imposed on the employer under this Act.

(c) (d)

(3)

Employees are required to take reasonable care for their own safety and health at work and to avoid harming the safety and health of other people through any act or omission at work. Employees must comply as far as they reasonably can with instructions given by their employer in the interests of safety or health. They must also cooperate with their employer when the employer carries out his or her duties under the Act. Employees must report to their employer work-related injuries and any hazards at the workplace that they cannot correct themselves. Employees must use personal protective equipment as properly instructed, and not damage or misuse any equipment provided in the interests of safety and health.
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Penalties

The penalties for breaches to the Act are based on a four tier system. The penalties are substantial (see s3A of the Act) and are determined by the breach: Level 1: miscellaneous breaches Breach of general duty of care Level 2: without death or serious injury Level 3: causing death or serious injury Level 4: and with gross negligence. 7.1 Meaning of Gross negligence

Gross negligence is defined in s18A of the Act and occurs if the offender: knew that contravention of the Act would be likely to cause the death or serious harm but acted or failed to act in disregard of that likelihood; and the contravention did in fact cause death or serious harm. In some cases of gross negligence, an offender can now receive a prison sentence in addition to a substantial fine. 7.2 Enforceable undertakings

As described in sections 55H and 55N, if a community service organisation, as employer, is found guilty of a level 1 or 2 breach, it may elect for an enforceable undertaking of equal dollar value to the penalty to undertake one or more of the following: improve Occupational Safety and Health compliance; publicise the offence and related details; remedy the consequences of the offence; and promote a community Occupational Safety and Health project or activity. 8. Safety and Health Representatives

Safety and Health Representatives are not responsible for solving safety and health matters in the community service organisation. They represent fellow employees in Occupational Safety and Health matters and carry out specific functions related to workplace safety and health. It is important that there is discussion between the employer and employee on safety and health issues. While not compulsory, it is encouraged that consultation be made through safety and health representatives and committees.

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8.1 Responsibilities of the OS&H Representative and Employer The role of the safety and health representative is one of great importance and a role that should be taken seriously. The person elected as the organisations representative should be aware of the responsibility the role holds. The legislation is complex and the areas of responsibility are vast. Because of this, the Occupational Safety and Health Act 1984 makes provision for the representative to receive detailed ongoing training at the cost of the employer. See s14(1)(h) of the Act and 2.2 and 2.3 of the Regulations for details. The employer also has certain responsibilities towards the Safety and Health Representative such as time off with pay to perform the function and to attend relevant accredited training, to inform the representatives of all information the employer has on hazards in the workplace. Certain duties of employers in relation to safety and health representatives are covered in Section 35. 9. Responsibilities within community service organisations

In addition to the responsibilities of the Occupational Safety and Health Representative and Committee, the community service organisation as a whole has a responsibility to the successful implementation and promotion of an Occupational Safety and Health policy. As the employer, the management committee and the manager are responsible for promoting a safety and health culture within the organisation. This can be achieved by understanding the employers responsibilities under the Act, ensuring that there is an active Occupational Safety and Health policy in the organisation that is regularly reviewed, and integrating safety and health issues into all relevant aspects of the organisation. One way of ensuring an understanding of the OSH issues and the job the OSH representative has to carry out, is to attend the OSH Representative Introductory course (1 day). The Manager is responsible for maintaining a safe work environment and providing adequate supervision, information and training so that staff, volunteers, clients and visitors to the organisation are not exposed to hazards. This responsibility also includes the implementation of procedures or policies in all areas listed previously e.g. induction of staff, etc. The manager should then inform the others in supervisory roles of their responsibilities as these people are in a better position to assess what is going on in specific areas of the organisation. All staff has a level of responsibility. They are responsible for their own safety and health and that of others around them, including clients. They must follow the Occupational Safety and Health procedures developed by the community organisation to prevent accidents and report all accidents or potential incidents.
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Where to go for more information

Up to date copies of the Occupational Safety and Health Act 1984 and regulations can be viewed and ordered from the State Law Publisher (www.slp.gov.au). WorkSafe Western Australia (a Western Australian government initiative) has set up an information service on the Internet called SafetyLine. This service allows you to look at many aspects including: Occupational Safety and Health Act; substantial explanatory information on the Act and current safety issues; Safety Representative information on training sessions and current issues; WorkSafe Smart Move, a web based program used by students before commencing work experience. www.worksafe.wa.gov.au Further information on the legislation is also available from : WorkSafe Western Australia WESTCENTRE 1260 Hay Street WEST PERTH WA 6005 Tel: (08) 9327 8777 Fax: (08) 9321 8973

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