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Health & Safety Q & A
Q1. Which of these is responsible for the highest percentage of work-related accidents?
Grievance Failed as Employee Didn’t Advise of Stress Early
While the obligation for Employers to ensure their employees’ health and safety at work is well established, the Employment Relations Authority recently reinforced that employees also had responsibilities towards ensuring their own safety in the workplace.
Health and Safety at Work is Improving, but More is Needed
Safeguard magazine have announced that one year on from the change of health and safety legislation in New Zealand, their annual survey shows optimism that engagement with health and safety at work has already improved.
Worksafe Release Their Strategic Plan for Healthy Work
WorkSafe NZ’s vision is that everyone who goes to work comes home healthy and safe. They have released a new 10-year strategic plan for work-related health which is aimed at improving awareness, attitudes and behaviours around work-related health, and through these, better management of work-related health risks and reduced exposures to health hazards.
Health & Safety Quick Guides
Check out the best practice guides and health & safety checklists below:
Health and Safety obligations for members of charity or volunteer organisations
It is important for Board Members or Trustees helping to run a charity or a volunteer organisation to know where their obligations begin and end under the new workplace health and safety law, which comes into effect on Monday 4 April 2016.
Home Detention for Workplace Death
Last week a company Director, Rodney Bishop, of Steelcon Construction Ltd was sentenced to four months home detention after the death of a worker who was buried in a trench that collapsed. The company was also fined $56,000 and ordered to pay $212,320 reparations.
Regulations to Support the new Health and Safety at Work Act
WorkSafe NZ had advised there would be two phases of regulations to support the new H&S at Work Act 2015. The majority of the first phase of regulations will come into force on 4 April 2016; the same day as the new Act. They are available on www.legislation.govt.nz.
Five Areas of Focus to Improve Health & Safety
The new H&S at Work Act 2015 and associated media coverage has brought a much needed focus onto health and safety in the workplace. Tragically 29 men died at Pike River to initiate this level of attention. According to WorkSafe NZ an average of 71 people are killed in New Zealand workplaces each year. Between 2013 and 2015 the ages of those killed in workplaces ranged from 7 months to 81 years. In 2015 alone, there were 3385 serious harm accidents reported.
