Health and Safety (Jeezo)

[Northernraider]

You made a comment about a site warden being unhelpful, it was bound to get both positive and negative replies as do most "complaints" on Fun.

Yes there are always defenders of arseholes.


That's how the world is in such a state.

 

[Northernraider]

H& S was a good idea but its now become a money making bureaucratic exercise , that actually often impeded good safe working practices ,, wastes alot of time and makes UK uncompetetive ,, The H&S companies and their lobby are very very profitable .. and one of UKs success stories for exports infecting all corners of the globe ... BUT only UK gold plates it in practice ...

Biggest cause of both accidents and downtime in the last company I worked for was down to health and safety and the abuse of it.

 

[Northernraider]

Health and Safety...I worked in the Petro/Chemical industry where H& S was invented.
After a few years of it's implementation This is a golden Gem of an incident all true of what it turned into once the Shirkers from the real world took hold of H&S.

Imagine a night shift 4am and the Shift Controller (Harry) is a useless item scared stiff of his boss and always sucking up the higher management.
He thought he would gain some brownie points by doing a job that had nothing to do with him, it involved taking off a Manway on top of a large filter vessel, said Manway weighed about 800lbs and was fitted with a Davit to lift it clear from the vessel.
You require 1-7/8th Ring Spanners to undo the bolts, Harry doesn't have these but has found a pair of 24" Stillsons.(Pipe Wrench designed for gripping pipes, Clue is in the name).
Certainly not the correct tool but this doesn't bother Harry, as he pulls on the Stillson it slips off the Nut and hits Harry in the mouth breaking two front teeth.
H&S safety meeting which I couldn't attend the committee decide that when working with Stillsons they shouldn't be pulled towards you.

Moving forward 3 months and it's 4am in the morning and once more Harry the idiot Shift Controller is back on top of the C4 dryer Vessel doing the same job, now Harry isn't that stupid he remembers the Safety advice so instead of pulling on the Stillsons he pushes, oppps this time as they lose their grip and slip off the Nut he falls forward and hits his mouth on the edge of the Davit, knocking out his two new front teeth.

This time I'm sitting in the Safety meeting and the committee decide the safe way to use a pair of Stillsons is not to use them in a Pushing motion, it's at this moment I burst out laughing saying hang on a minute before you actually write this into procedure you have to realise that you have just forbidden the use of this formidable and much used tool across the whole of the refinery. Stillsons have a single job and that is to grip and turn what ever is required, so Pulling on them is how they work, as you outlawed that in your last meeting their only other option is Pushing which although not recommended does work.
The problem here is Harry, we have a mantra of Time, Tools, and Ability.
The questions that you should be asking is, Did Harry have the Time.....Not really it wasn't his job he should have just stuck to that.
Did Harry have the Tools....Definitely Not.
Did Harry have the Ability...Most certainly Harry did Not.

Sorry for the long winded story but remembering it does still make me giggle.

I could tell you many MANY similar stories to this but it would take too long.

One quick one though. Also on nightshift one idiot skates up the warehouse floor on a pallet hand truck ... proceeds to speed round a corner loses control hits the control post of a laser bench punch and wipes it out causing the machine to shut down instantly breaking a tool and it being out of order for 3 days and him breaking his arm .

Meanwhile the idiot dreams up an excuse for how he hit it accidentally with the barrow. And wants to claim for injury.

Next day the skoda fabia driving corduroy trouser wearing h&s rep for our warehouse decides that all 834 employees both in the factory and the warehouse require training how to properly use a hand pallet truck and will need a certificate to say they've done the training ( to avoid any claims of injury )

So 2 weeks later and taking over 3 months to train everyone to use one properly the company has spent a fortune .

The right approach would have been to sack the idiot .

No one else was that stupid

 

[Northernraider]

Incidentally when I worked as a Welder I took a frozen 2 litre bottle of water to work every day for years . Not once did a bottle explode .

 

[Razamataz]

Incidentally when I worked as a Welder I took a frozen 2 litre bottle of water to work every day for years . Not once did a bottle explode .

Hahaha

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[tonyidle]

How did we ever survive post H&S.

Many didn't.

 

[nicholsong]

I could tell you many MANY similar stories to this but it would take too long.

One quick one though. Also on nightshift one idiot skates up the warehouse floor on a pallet hand truck ... proceeds to speed round a corner loses control hits the control post of a laser bench punch and wipes it out causing the machine to shut down instantly breaking a tool and it being out of order for 3 days and him breaking his arm .

Meanwhile the idiot dreams up an excuse for how he hit it accidentally with the barrow. And wants to claim for injury.

Next day the skoda fabia driving corduroy trouser wearing h&s rep for our warehouse decides that all 834 employees both in the factory and the warehouse require training how to properly use a hand pallet truck and will need a certificate to say they've done the training ( to avoid any claims of injury )

So 2 weeks later and taking over 3 months to train everyone to use one properly the company has spent a fortune .

The right approach would have been to sack the idiot .

No one else was that stupid

A few weeks ago I was in an Italian S/market and found my way to the wine shelves blocked by a loaded pallet..

I was not able to find any staff to move it, but I did find the pallet truck, so moved the pallet myself. I used them frequently on trucks(without H&S training). I expected to get an Italian shouting and waving but no.

Basia was against my doing it, butshe did not know that I had used then often - well OHs don't need to be bored with detail like that, do they?

 

[jerryz]

Worked for a Norweigan company for 5 years we did projects all over the world they mostly had similar fixed costs just logistics and travel made any real difference ,,, EXCEPT in UK all UK jobs cost 30% more due to complying with UK bureaucracy on mostly H&S ,, even though Norway and most Western countries we worked in had similar H&S .
UK was always the nightmare outlier ....
More rules, more Bull, more cost ,, Its also why UK major projects in UK are slow and more costly than EU equivalents

 

[meanders]

But this official graph from the HSE shows the effect! Every one of those thousands of deaths per year before the 70's would have left families devastated.

 

[KASPAR]

But this official graph from the HSE shows the effect! Every one of those thousands of deaths per year before the 70's would have left families devastated.

View attachment 998004

I wonder what effect the deindustrialization, closure of mines, steel works, ship building, manufacturing and other high risk industries had on the graph?

Does it include fatal RTI's for people on duty?

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[meanders]

I wonder what effect the deindustrialization, closure of mines, steel works, ship building, manufacturing and other high risk industries had on the graph?

Does it include fatal RTI's for people on duty?

A significant effect I am sure but partially replaced with oil and gas rigs, and the like. No idea on the RTI question. It's not specifically mentioned. The trend is clearly very much a huge reduction over time.

 

[KASPAR]

A significant effect I am sure but partially replaced with oil and gas rigs, and the like. No idea on the RTI question. It's not specifically mentioned. The trend is clearly very much a huge reduction over time.

Do you mean the O&G rigs that are produced in yards where there are on site morgues due to the high fatality rates that the 1st world listed O&G giants overlook?

Perhaps the fatalities have been offshored to other countries to allow figures to meet the narrative?

 

[jerryz]

The jebel Ali dry dock disaster April 2002 when at least 1800 3rd world workers . indian, pakistani,thai, africans , etc died in 5 minutes drowned when it collapsed ,, all covered up , officially only 29 deaths , a few westerners also died in the ..accident.. The bodies were being carried away for weeks after , most were buried in pits in the desert and the families were ignored ,, many other workers who survived were kept for another 5 years in barracks and not allowed to go home until it had all blown over . UAE is a horrible place for foreign workers .. Even us westerners were treated like dirt by the locals ,,I was on big money ,,, but was monitored all the time ... Locked in the docks not allowed into the city ...But the 3rd world workers were treated like slaves .... UAE is a big UK Heatlh and safety user Ha ha ,,, its all about money .

 

[Googlebot]

Does it include fatal RTI's for people on duty?

No, they aren’t reportable as far as I am aware under the RIDDOR guidance.