Labour Inspectors find 75% Health & Safety Law Compliance

SA Labour minister Mildred Oliphant said Labour inspectors found that 75% of employers complied with health and safety laws in 2014.

In the Department of Labour budget vote address in July 2014, Oliphant said the DOL Inspection and Enforcement Service has during the 2013-2014 financial year visited and inspected 164 868 workplaces.

“Of these workplaces, 75% were found to be compliant, and 25%, or 41 217, were not.” Among the 25% non-compliant employers, 82% received notices or referrals to court. “This represents an improvement from the previous years, but there is still room for improvement,” said Oliphant.

However in some recent years the Labour inspectorate reported higher compliance rates after its follow-up visits to errant employers.

Labour Inspectors to Follow ILO Guide

“To strengthen Inspection and Enforcement and to fall in line with the International best practice, Convention 81 on Labour Inspection provides useful guidance for designing and monitoring a labour inspection system.

“In the coming years, the Department will be working within the framework of the Convention to make improvements to the functioning of the inspectorate and to monitoring compliance with our labour legislation.

“The Chief Inspector has also engaged with social partners on the activities of the inspectorate and will continue to do so within the framework of the Convention.

“Last year, the Department commenced a process of professionalising the inspectorate so that it can improve our enforcement capabilities but also respond to the needs of the different sectors that the Department is responsible.

“We have completed the first phase of this process and the Department will be commencing with the second phase. A detailed plan will be presented to the Portfolio Committee for Labour.

Coega Company Fined R100 000

“Not so long ago the country watched with horror the collapse of the Coega Bridge in Port Elizabeth killing two people and injuring 13 people. More recently in Tongaat, a mall that was under construction collapsed fatally injuring two people and causing serious injuries to a further 29 workers.

“As was the case in the Coega incident, the Department conducted an enquiry into the collapse of the Tongaat mall. In the Coega incident, the construction company pleaded guilty and paid R100 000 admission of guilt fine, which is the maximum penalty provided for in the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHS Act).

“The Inspection and Enforcement Services branch started the investigation of the Tongaat Mall collapse. Given the seriousness of the matter the Department escalated the investigation into a formal inquiry in order to thoroughly identify the cause of the collapse, prevent re-occurrence of this type of incidents and also to institute criminal proceeding against any party that may have transgressed the provisions of the Occupational Health and Safety Act and the Construction Regulations.

Social Partners want OHS Registration

“The Department has in the last financial year worked together with the social partners in the construction industry to stem the tide of incidents. The collaboration with stakeholders under the guidance of the Advisory Council for Occupational Health and Safety (ACOHS) resulted in the promulgation of new Construction Regulations.

“A new provision in the Construction Regulation 2014 is the registration of the Construction Health and Safety Practitioners. This is our first step towards the regulation of the occupational health and safety profession. This in our view will go a long way in contributing towards the reduction of incidents in the construction industry,” said the minister.

Compensation Problems

“During the last year considerable strides were made to reduce the service delivery challenges experienced by the Compensation Fund and its clients. The Fund has worked hard to improve services to beneficiaries and to improve communication with its stakeholders. The claims backlog should be substantially reduced and the turnaround time on claims and employer services improved,” said Labour minister Oliphant.

“The Fund will continue to keep the Portfolio Committee fully briefed on progress and those areas that may still remain challenges.

“The COID Amendment Bill is at its final draft stage and the Policy Framework will have to go through all other due processes including consultations with our stakeholders. We will keep Parliament posted on the state of readiness for the Bill to be tabled.

“With respect the employment of people with disabilities, the department reached the 2.5% level of representation. Whilst this represents progress there is still some way to go.
The Department “has made some progress on the ICT front and the State Information Technology Agency (SITA) will soon be appointing an IT service provider on behalf of the department by the end of August 2014”.

Department of Labour strategic priorities for 2015
For the 2014/15 financial year, an appropriation of R2.527-b has been awarded to the Labour Department. The increase of R82-m when compared to the 2013/14 adjusted appropriation can mainly be attributed to “the carry-through effect of salary adjustments”.

Department of Labour priorities include;

• Strengthening the inspection and enforcement services.
• Raising awareness of the Amended labour laws in order to encourage compliance.
• Working with the State Information Technology Agency to stabilise the Information Technology work stream.
• Strengthening the role of Public Employment Services.
• Initiating high level dialogue on the key challenges in the labour Market Environment.
• Addressing the challenges at the compensation Fund.
• Addressing the challenge of the infrastructure with respect to the Labour centres.
• Improving Communication and outreach programmes.
• Commence the due processes with respect to appointment of the Director General of the Department and the filling of vacant senior management positions.
• Investigate the modality for the introduction of a national minimum wage as one of the key mechanisms to reduce income inequality.

Labour Laws Under Review
In the legislative and policy environment, the DOL plans to:

• Amend the Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act to develop a rehabilitation, re-integration and return to work policy for injured workers and workers affected by occupational diseases.
• Amend the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHS Act). “The Act places responsibility for creating a healthy and safe working environment on employers, but there are shortcomings in the way that health and safety is being regulated in the workplace,” said the minister.

This article by Edmond Furter via SheqAfrica.com

OHSAS18001 and Health & Safety Legal Compliance

Health and Safety Legal Compliance and OHSAS18001: Differentiating between clause 4.3.2 (Legal & Other Requirements) and 4.5.2 (Evaluation of Compliance)

In order to comply with clauses 4.3.2 and 4.5.2 under OHSAS18001, the differences and similarities between these two clauses must be clearly understood.

Clause 4.3.2: Legal and Other Requirements

In terms of this clause, an organisation must establish, implement and maintain a procedure for identifying and accessing the legal and other occupational health and safety requirements that are applicable to it.

This clause therefore directs that an organisation firstly needs to identify all laws and other requirements which it must comply with which relate to health and safety.

The identification of applicable legal compliance requirements should be undertaken by an individual who is competent to do so, such as a person who is legally trained (attorneys, advocates etc) in order to ensure that none of the relevant requirements are overlooked.

A list of these legal compliance requirements must be compiled in the form of a legal library, database or register.

Health and Safety Legal Compliance

Sources of legal compliance requirements could include:

• National, provincial and municipal legislation
• Decrees and directives
• Permits, licenses
• Orders issued by regulatory agencies
• Customary/indigenous law
• Treaties
• Conventions
• Protocols

“Other” requirements to which an organisation must comply could include inter alia:

• Agreements with customers
• Non-regulatory guidelines
• Voluntary principles
• Codes of practice
• Agreements with community groups
• Public commitments of the organisation
• Company requirements

It is critically important that these “other” requirements are not overlooked, and are also properly managed.

This clause then directs that the organisation must have access to the aforementioned requirements, so it is not sufficient to simply list the applicable requirements.

Further, this information needs to be kept up to date, and there must be a procedure to communicate the legal compliance and other requirements to employees and interested parties. Updates to the relevant requirements will need to be communicated to these parties too.

Clause 4.5.2: Evaluation of Compliance

As it states, this clause directs that an organisation must establish, implement and maintain a procedure for periodically evaluating compliance with the applicable legal and other requirements which were identified under clause 4.3.2, and that records of the results of these evaluations must be kept. The frequency of the periodic evaluations may vary for differing legal compliance requirements.

In order for an organisation to comply with this clause, it will need to undergo health and safety legal compliance audits. Legal compliance auditing should only be conducted by individuals who are competent to do so, such as individuals who have been legally trained.

It is further important that an organisation is audited against all of the laws which are applicable to it – not only National Legislation, and not only against the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

It is a common problem that organisations are not aware of the Provincial and Municipal by-laws which are of application to their operations – this exposes the organisation to significant risks, since the by-laws quite often attract substantial penalties for non-compliance thereto.

There are roughly 250 pieces of South African legislation that relate to safety, health and environment which could be applicable to any organisation. It is therefore fitting that these legal compliance audits should be conducted by individuals such as attorneys or advocates, who are comfortable with reading, interpreting and applying legislation.

Conclusion

Based on the above discussion, it is evident that the management of Health and Safety legal compliance is critical in order to achieve and maintain OHSAS18001 certification.

Article by Natalie Graaff via SheqAfrica.com

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"Safety First" - but how do you know?

Safety first, or not? That is the question. You walk into a company and see the sign. How do you know Safety is really first? Maybe there are other signs you should rather look at if you are interested in the truth.

Safety First

What do the signs tell you?

Usually, when I see the “Safety first”-sign I immediately start to suspect the worst. Over the years, the sign got a bad name. Too many companies and organisations have misused the Safety First concept for their own gain.

Most companies have “Our people is our greatest asset” and “Safety First” in their boardrooms, on all the notice boards, “bold print” in communications and on company promotional material. Spending lots of money in promoting, Safety and Safety systems as “Safety is priority in our company”.

But do we really “walk the talk”? Let us look at some of the signs that tell the real story.

Who will win, Production or Maintenance?

Usually the question is, “Is our company a “maintenance driven”, Production company or a “Production driven”, Maintenance company?”

There is always finger pointing between Production and Maintenance on who’s to blame for production interruptions/downtime.

Usually this fight is won by Production, but where does Safety fit into this argument or will Safety only be mentioned if there is an accident, sometimes even resulting from, or during a maintenance or production incident?

“ZERO Tolerance”! Have you seen this sign before? If we subcribe to Zero tolerance, do we then declare, “Our company is a “Safety driven”, Production/Maintenance company”?

Is it really SHEQ or actually just Safety?

What about the “H – Health”, “E – Environment”, “Q – Quality” and another “S – Security”, which is also usually excluded from the SHEQ acronym? Most companies talk “SHEQ” but only do the Safety part.

Is SHEQ only an “after thought” and spoken about or considered if there is a negative impact on the company?

All SHEQ hazards/aspects have the potential to harm our business, people and natural environment, hence require equal consideration and focus.

Do we talk integrated and manage separately?

The initial focus on SHEQ was silo driven as legislation dictated and was managed independently. Now the focus on Safety, Health, Environment, Risk and Quality along with the traditional Operations and Supporting services require an integrated, dedicated and focused approach.

SHEQ should be integrated in the day-to-day activities and managed accordingly.

Our business should be managed as “Partnerships” across functional boundaries:

• Partnership between Production and Maintenance: Production needs Maintenance to ensure available and reliable equipment.
• Partnership between Maintenance and Commercial: Maintenance needs Commercial to ensure contracts are in place with suppliers/service providers to ensure required material/equipment/resources availability.
• Partnership with Human Capital Management (HR) to ensure required availability of skilled and competent personnel.
• Partnership with SHEQ to ensure we operate our business in a sustainable and responsible manner, not harming our business, people and natural environment.

The blame game

We also often question our SHEQ systems: “The system is not working for us; The system is too cumbersome…”. We conveniently forget that the same system we’re now complaining about was implemented due to previous systems, “not working for us…”or being too “cumbersome”.

We’ll rather blame and change systems than taking responsibility to “manage” the system as an integral part of our business processes.
“No system replaces a business process; it merely supports the process.”

Safety first?

SHEQ Systems should be implemented, embedded and managed as an Integrated Management Information System, which reflects your company’s conformance and performance accurately.

Safety First

With management direction, drive and an integrated business process approach, SHEQ will contribute to sustainability, growth in a responsible manner and add value to any company in an ever changing global arena.

We no longer will need to make silo focussed statements like “Safety First”. We will declare, “SHEQ is our company’s drive”.

Article by Harvey Du Pisanie via SheqAfrica.com

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Health and safety skills shortage on the brink of HR chaos

Acute health and safety skills shortage has led operational risk management to the brink of chaos, writes Mabila Mathebula.

We are living in a scary era of rising population, dwindling natural resources, and proportionally dwindling human resources. As our number increases, we need ever more skilled people, particularly in preventing loss and waste, and maintaining personal, environmental, organisational and ethical health.

According to The Sunday Times a crisis is looming in South Africa’s 25 universities because more than 1430 professors from 13 institutions will reach retirement age in the next 10 years.

Meanwhile United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-Moon noted grave consequences of dwindling resources; “Water scarcity threatens economic and social gains, and is a potent fuel for wars and conflict”.

African brain-drain continues

No industry is not immune from the brain-drain as experienced engineers retire en masse and others go overseers to explore ‘greener pastures’. Our experienced railway human resources, like our water resources, should to be carefully managed by virtue of their fragility and rarity.

The state’s infrastructure programme has hit rock bottom due to inexperienced engineers, architects and quantity surveyors.

Ralf Dahrendorf, an outstanding German sociologist, noted that social change was ubiquitous, seeming to be everywhere. Industrial and business reform, like social change, is also ubiquitous, or ‘alomteewoordig’ in Afrikaans.

Infrastructure renaissance

Railways around the world are ‘hauling’ themselves out of the decline phase, hopefully into infrastructure renaissance. But this transition is tumultuous since the Baby Boomers, armed with critical safety skills, are gradually retiring or starting their own businesses, making room for Generation X and the Millennials.

To rub salt into the wound, a global battle to attract talent has been declared. The ‘brain magnet’ effect is exacerbated by new employment contract formats that make sheltered employment obsolete if not archaic.

Conserve skills like water

Human resources is like the game of chess, needing strategy, persistence, cunning, and the ability to look further into the future than competitors.

Strategies used in the competition and conservation of water also apply to skills. What the UN calls ‘land grabbing’ could be extended to ‘skill grabbing’.

Saudi Arabia, for example, one of the Middle East’s largest cereal growers, announced it would cut cereal production by 12% a year to reduce the unsustainable use of its groundwater.

To protect its water and food security, the Saudi government has issued incentives to lease large tracks of land in Africa for agricultural production.

The United Kingdom and Australia are aggressively recruiting railway engineers from Commonwealth countries such a South Africa and Zimbabwe. Skills grabbing is not a stream, but a river and a tide.

Management consultants and gurus encourage organisations to think outside silos, and that applies particularly to skills and HR. The skills silos are running empty and soon we would be forced into new assumptions. Skills do not grow on trees.

Railway and health and safety skills has to be grown years in advance and stored in the ranks of organisations.

Canadian Prof Igor Grossman found that older Americans were wiser than younger Americans. But in extended research in Asia, particularly Japan, he found that the young were as wise as the elders, suggesting that the Japanese learned wisdom, or advanced skills, faster than Americans.

This does not imply that Americans are dimwits, but they approach skills and careers from a different perspective. In Singapore, if a father sent his child to fetch a hammer, the child would bring the hammer, nails and measuring tape.

Retirement age is too young

The mandatory retirement age of 65 in rail and other sectors robs the country of vital human resources.

Employers of older workers must manage health risks better, such as stress, diabetes, blood pressure, cancer, arthritis, stroke and ergonomics, but they should equally attend to skills transfer.

• Mabila Mathebula is a senior researcher at the SA Railway Safety Regulator. Her writes for Sheqafrica.com in his personal capacity.

Article via sheqafrica.com