Tragedy in the workplace

By ASHLEY CAMPBELL

In one week last month two Auckland men died at work - one was crushed by a machine, the other was killed by a falling crane.

Both tragedies rated only short mentions in the news, a sign of just how common such workplace deaths have become - 73 were reported to Occupational Safety and Health from July last year until the end of June this year.

Not all of those who died were working - for example, the figures include deaths in public swimming pools where lifeguards are working. And OSH has recently changed the way it records bystander deaths.

But the descriptions of how people died on the job make chilling reading.

"Working in the yard of an industrial premises when he was run over by an unmanned tractor." "Felling exotic trees near the lake edge. It appears that a tree fell on the victim." "Fell from the platform 3.9 metres on to concrete." "Victim was using an ATV [farm bike] to spray thistles. Lost control and rolled down a bank."

Then there were the high-profile murders in workplaces as diverse as a pizza outlet, bank and RSA.

Grim as those stories are, the real picture is even worse: OSH doesn't investigate deaths in the aviation and maritime sectors. ACC recorded 85 claims for fatal work-related injuries in 2001-2002 - that's more than three a fortnight.

And, as OSH general manager Bob Hill wrote last year, about 400 people die every year from work-related illnesses such as occupational cancer. "The true cost of work-related death is under-acknowledged by New Zealanders," he said.

We don't even rate well internationally. A 2001 study comparing work-related fatal injuries in the United States, Australia and New Zealand found we had the highest rate of deaths in the late 1980s to 1990s - 4.9 deaths per 100,000 workers, compared with 3.8 for Australia and 3.2 for the United States.

Part of that is because more New Zealanders work in the dangerous sectors of agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining and construction. But once the figures are adjusted for these differences, New Zealand's death rate is still 10-15 per cent above Australia and the United States.

The good news is that our work-related death rate is gradually falling. A 1999 Environmental and Occupational Health Research Centre study recorded a fall in both the number and rate of workplace deaths from 1975 to 1994.

But while there was a 30 per cent fall in the death rate in the high-risk construction sector, there was only a 10 per cent fall in the even higher-risk agriculture, forestry and fishing sector. And no matter what year you look at, the self-employed were more likely to die than are employees.

OSH policy manager Graeme Cahalane says this year's changes to the Health and Safety in Employment Act aim to improve workplace safety and cut that death rate. The act now covers more workers, emphasises employee participation in workplace health and safety programmes and strengthens penalties when employers breach safety requirements.

And the ACC is pouring resources into its Farm Safe campaign, which it is running with Federated Farmers, to get farmers to take better care of themselves.

But in the end, it's only employers and employees who can have any real effect on New Zealand's workplace fatality statistics.

Cahalane refuses to accept the excuse that some industries and occupations are inherently dangerous. "Some occupations have more hazards that have to be managed," he says. "But if the hazards are managed, then it's possible to work in a safe environment."

And, he says, they can only be managed by employers and employees together. "The employer has the resources to create a safe work environment, but the employee also has to choose to work safely in that environment."

While it's up to the employer to provide safety gear, he says, it's then up to the employee to use it. And research shows that, when they work together to improve safety they succeed.