SAFETY SUMMIT

There is still some way to go when it comes to improving safety in our forests and a number of ideas were put forward at the Forest Safety & Technology 2018 conference in Rotorua last month.

WORKSAFE IS CALLING THE FORESTRY INDUSTRY TOGETHER for a mini summit next month to “re-set” the agenda on safety as recent serious injury and death statistics show a trend heading upwards, not down.

Phil Parkes, the new Chief Operating Officer at WorkSafe, says there needs to be a “pause” and a “re-think” about what we are doing because people are still dying and getting hurt and the industry needs to figure out why.

Speaking to the Forest Industry Safety & Technology 2018 conference in Rotorua last month, Mr Parkes highlighted recent statistics that point to a rise in worker harm, following the dramatic drop in the wake of the horror year of 2013, when ten people died. The year after, just one person died and the serious harm injury rate decreased sharply.

“Unfortunately, not a lot of that improvement has carried through,” he says. “While we acknowledge a lot of good work has been done at all levels in the industry, there is still more work to do because the dramatic drop we got in fatalities has not been sustained – and it’s not just around fatalities it’s about all injuries in the workplace.”

Mr Parkes says there were a number of things that contributed to the dramatic improvement following 2013, including the major focus by WorkSafe on the industry that saw inspectors visiting every crew, meetings with forest owners who were told they needed to set the agenda and the establishment of the Forest Industry Safety Council where the industry itself became much more involved in leading the process.

“As a result, there was a deep and dedicated focus during 2014 and the impact was clear and direct and we saw the results of that,” he says. “So the question is: has complacency set in?”

Mr Parkes goes on to say that the recent upswing could just be short-term and that the general trend may be downward in the longer term, but WorkSafe doesn’t know if that is the case, nor does anyone else.

And he adds: “We don’t think we can wait to find out whether that’s going to continue or not, we think we need to re-fresh our approach and we need to think about what do we need to do more of or what do we need to do differently to reverse that trend.”

A survey of how forest workers think about safety was commissioned by WorkSafe and Mr Parkes says the results indicate that what people are saying is not always carried out in actions.

In the last 12 months 45% of workers experienced a near-miss incident and yet the survey shows that 94% feel safe at work, which seem at odds with each other and Mr Parkes wonders if this points to a situation of risk becoming normalised, adding: “If that is the case then we have a problem, that’s got to change.”

Mr Parkes believes there is a “disconnect” between what people are saying about health and safety in the workplace and what is actually happening.

“For some reason, the indicators from our survey show there is a gap between the work as imagined and the work that is being done,” he says, “and by that I mean that people think they are safe at work, people are writing things in the hazard register, people are going on training, people are feeling good about what’s being done but when you look at the impacts and you look at the consequences, that’s not showing through.

“So our challenge is how do we translate the feelgood factor and the high amount of engagement into actions that result in less people being hurt.

“So our suggestion is that we need to pause and we need to think about what has worked and we need to refresh and regenerate our efforts, because what we cannot do is allow these statistics to go back in the wrong direction.

“We made good progress in 2014 and 2015 and a lot of good work continues to be done but unless it flows through to reduced fatalities and reduced harm on a sustained basis then all we’ve done is administer a temporary sticking plaster – if we just keep doing what we’ve been doing, those numbers are going to go back up.

“This has consequences for individuals and it also has consequences for businesses, it has consequences for the industry and it has consequences for the regulator. The reason being that all industry needs a social licence to operate and in 2013 the forestry industry was under pressure for that social licence. If we don’t continue to improve that social licence will be under pressure again.”

Mr Parkes says WorkSafe is redoubling its efforts and conducting visits to crews, as well as going back to the boardrooms to talk to senior industry leaders and to do more to understand what is behind the current trends and how improvements can be made.

WorkSafe is calling on the industry to work with it on a new collaborative development programme to drive those improvements.

A key to that outcome will be holding a mini summit with the industry in October to take stock of the current situation, assess the good work that has and is being done, and then to look at what needs to be done differently.

“Clearly we need to do more or do things differently if we are to push those numbers down and we don’t really have an option – it has to be done,” adds Mr Parkes.

NZL