Health and Safety

• Health and Safety Representative Training - Register your interest here
• Unions Talking Health and Safety - newsletter
• Workplace Injury Advocacy Service
• Workers Memorial Day
• Human Health and Safety or Cost/Benefit Analysis?

  Click the map below for scheduled Health and Safety Rep Training Courses

Health and Safety Training Map

WANTING TO ATTEND A HEALTH AND SAFETY REPRESENTATIVE TRAINING COURSE?

You will need to fill out the Expression of Interest form for Health and Safety Training - please click here.

The information that we will require to process your registration is as follows: Name, Address, Date of Birth, Contact Details, Employer Name, Employers ACC number, Employers CU Code (Classification Unit Number), Employer Contact Details.

Click on the thumbnail below to see all details required. 

Thank you for taking the time to complete this form. This will assist our Training Co-ordinators to schedule courses and ensure that Health and Safety Representatives are trained in a timely manner.

Update from NZCTU regarding ACC funded Health and Safety Training. 

New Zealand Council of Trade Unions – Te Kauae Kaimahi is the leading provider of Health and Safety Representative training in New Zealand.  NZ Council of Trade Unions has a long history of working on economic, social development and health and safety issues.  We have been delivering health and safety representative training since 2003, and are currently the largest providers of this training in New Zealand. 

We have developed health and safety representative course materials for stages 1, 2 and 3.  These courses have been approved under part 19G (1) and 46A of the Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992. Our reach extends to employers and workers across New Zealand and in a wide range of industries, through our existing membership base; training is offered in both metropolitan and provincial centres. We offer the following advantages:

• a network of professional trainers across New Zealand
• proven experience in achieving good outcomes through training and training across all three levels of training
• the ability to consolidate learning through workplace union networks and onsite support;
• existing close working relationship with the ACC and the Department of Labour, as the prime government agencies working in this area;
• an understanding of the importance of excellence in health and safety practices at workplaces in the context of the need to build modern competitive workplace organisations based on a commitment to workplace and workforce development.

Please note that there are strict criteria around eligibility for this funding which is only available for active health and safety representatives (not managers).  Priority will be given to H&S reps who work in ACC’s key industry sectors: Agriculture, Construction, Forestry, Residential Care, Manufacturing (all areas) and Road Freight Transport.

For a list of the qualifying classification codes (PCU) please click here.  A small number if funded places are also available for other sectors but the allocation is strictly limited.  As well as ACC funded courses we provide in house training and user pays courses.

For information about registering for courses please contact our Regional Health and Safety Training Coordinators.

Pat Bolster  patb@nzctu.org.nz  for Auckland, Northland, Waikato and Taranaki regions. Phone: 04 385 1334 ext 821  or  Helen Mulholand helenm@nzctu.org.nz  for Rotorua, Wairarapa, Manawatu-Wanganui, Wellington, Nelson, South Canterbury, Christchurch, Dunedin.  Phone: 04 385 1334 ext 826.

If you require additional information about our training the course outlines are available for viewing or download. 

• Stage One (PDF doc 79kb)

• Stage Two (PDF doc 28kb)

• Stage Three (PDF doc 29kb)

For further queries contact our Health and Safety Team Manager , Monica O'Connell.

Unions Talking Health and Safety - the newsletter for workplace health and safety reps

Unions Talking Health and Safety December 2011

Unions Talking Health and Safety July 2011

Unions Talking Health and Safety March 2011

Unions Talking Health and Safety December 2010

Unions Talking Health and Safety October 2010

Unions Talking Health and Safety July 2010

Unions Talking Health and Safety March 2010

Workplace Injury Advocacy Service

• Are you a union member?
• Have you suffered an injury that affects your ability to work?
• Do you need help to access ACC?
• If you answered yes to all 3 questions click here to find out what the Workplace Injury Advocacy Service can do for you.

Click here for more information.

Human health and safety or cost/benefit analysis?

  
In the aftermath of the Pike River Coal Mine disaster it is time to ask how the Government will continue to regulate health and safety in New Zealand. With the growth of self-governance in the occupational safety and health (OSH) arena, and a top Department of Labour official recently talking about replacing the term ‘hazard’ with ‘risk’ in legislation, we need to consider our priorities.

The regulation of safety in mining and Government resourcing in New Zealand has changed dramatically over the past few decades making it a crucial factor in the Pike River disaster. In 1992 sweeping changes were made with the introduction of the Health and Safety in Employment (HSE) Act which introduced performance regulation and the concept of ‘practicable steps’ and cost benefit analysis.

Never before had financial considerations been legislated into health and safety. The HSE Act replaced and repealed two more prescriptive pieces of legislation, both of which required periodic independent monitoring.
Under the Mining Act 1971 two union inspectors could be appointed to inspect a mine once every fortnight. It also required that every employee in a mine that became aware of the presence of inflammable gas “shall immediately withdraw from that place and inform his superior”.

The Coal Mining Act 1979 allowed government inspectors to enter the mine at any time, day or night, and the owner was to afford all assistance. Inspectors could investigate any health and safety complaint.
The 1979 Act also prescribed other inspectors: the underviewer and the fireman deputy. These were required to “at least once in each working day, inspect every accessible cavity or ‘dead end’ where gas may accumulate within 90 metres of any working place [and] inspect every working place therein at intervals of not more than 5 hours.”
After the 1992 HSE Act there were absolutely no mining regulations in place for seven years until the 1999 Health and Safety in Employment (Mining—Underground) Regulations.  These regulations, however, are performance based and simply require employers to test for flammable gases ‘as often as practicable’, and they are to take ‘practicable steps’ in preventing ignition or combustion. All reference to independent inspectors had been removed and replaced with these vague obligations. A Code of Practice for mine safety remained in draft form until 2006.

The BP Deepwater Horizon oil disaster, where 11 workers were killed and the Gulf of Mexico catastrophically polluted, illustrates how things can go terribly wrong in a high trust, low regulation model.
The US Presidential Commission’s report on the BP disaster found significant systemic failures with the non-regulatory environment.  The industry’s ability to serve as a reliable standard-setter was “compromised by its role as the industry's principal lobbyist and public policy advocate”. The oil industry regularly resisted standards that would increase costs and its so called ‘expert advice’ was biased. Furthermore, decisions intended to save BP time and money created unreasonable risk, and the other companies involved had sacrificed safety to save money. The Commission warned that without significant reform in both industry practices and government policies another disaster could occur. “Fundamental reform will be needed in both the structure of those in charge of regulatory oversight and their internal decision making processes to ensure their political autonomy”.
The terms of reference of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Pike River disaster set out a much narrower investigation than that into the BP incident. They mention the practices used or other steps taken at the mine for its operations and management in achieving compliance with the law or recognised practices. The employer’s ‘practicable steps’ are not prescribed in current law, which means a flexible computation will occur that looks at the owner’s financial and other resources balanced against risk.

Like the US Presidential Commission, the Pike River Inquiry should confront the systemic issues of government resourcing and authority, deregulation, so called ‘expert advice’, and performance versus prescriptive regulation. First and foremost, we should be asking whether our current ‘performance law’ is adequate. How would the previously prescribed regulations have protected mine safety? Will the Inquiry investigate whether government regulators lacked the authority, resources and expertise to prevent any safety lapse by the company? The terms of reference only apply to the resourcing of the administration and implementation of the current laws or recognised practices that apply to the mine.

In September a senior NZ Department of Labour official was reported in Safeguard magazine as saying he could foresee an opportunity to align ACC audits and performance in a way that could create some self-governance.  He also said ‘risk’ will replace ‘hazard’ in the language we use, and could be included in New Zealand legislation.
A hazard is an identifiable danger (to people, in the OSH sense), while risk is about exposure, probability and the consequences (frequently used in a business management context).  From the risk management (rather than safety management) perspective, a possible result is that an organisation could take risks that may cost a worker’s life or injury or illness, but save itself millions of dollars.

In the interests of ensuring the safety and health of New Zealand workers I would argue strongly against this policy direction. New Zealand doesn’t need to learn any more of the hard lessons associated with business priorities taking precedence over basic worker safety standards. We have to remember that our priority must be the safety of our workers. 

To download this report please click here.

Workers Memorial Day, April 28 2010

Workers’ Memorial Day is the day when we “mourn for the dead, but fight for the   living”, drawing attention to the plight of the hundreds of New Zealand workers who still die every year as a result of their work.                                          
The memorial day also serves as a reminder that the workplace can be a hostile environment towards a worker’s health and safety. It should also remind us that there can never be enough laws and safeguards protecting workers’ health and safety and that we need to continue the fight to strengthen those laws.  

Unions will be focusing on education and organising around health and safety. We will also be demanding accountability from employers who refuse to meet their obligations to provide a healthy and safe workplace.

Remembering the dead, fighting for the living...  (photos on the CTU Flickr site)