Posted By Darren Glen-Egan Thanks for that Richie. I to thought it was a quite interesting read. I am going to put copies around as well. Thanks Darren

Posted By Merv Newman myth 3 It's the classic dichotomy. Ask the union rep about accident causes and it's the boss's fault. Ask the management about accident causes and it's the employee's fault. usually they are both right. Back in about 1912 two researchers (Wilson and watts ?) looked into the causes of accidents in the UK munitions industry. They concluded that the employee was 100% to blame. Fortunately research into accident causes has continued. More recently Cooper proposed (2002 ?) that a safety culture is composed of three parts ; Management, human behaviour and the physical environment. (Similar reasoning to Jim Reason's Tripos theory) Weaknesses in any one of these categories will lead to accidents. Thus root cause investigation should regard each and all of these categories. Don't just blame the victim. Look at how red your own hands are. Merv

Posted By Blaise I have to agree with Merv, Unions blame management and management blame the workers. It is the job of the H&S professional to have a foot in both camps, and balance all 3 factors. In an accident there is often a failure to manage H&S which is a contributing factor, this does not always mean Management are at fault. Reading the wording of myth 3, it does say 'most' and not 'all'. I'm fairly sure the TUC know about behavioral safety, you will usually find the trade unions at the forefront of lobbying on H&S, as they have always been. The TU's where the driving force behind employee H&S in the past, are now and will be in the future. You have also got to remember that Management have every right to be a member of a TU, So they may well know all the management techniques and responsibilities as well as the TU's opinions and beliefs. Many TU safety reps have taken on the mantle of H&S Professionals because of their commitment to provideing a healthier and safer workplace. Blaise

Posted By Sean Fraser Adrian, I am interested in your comment regarding immediate and latent causes, rather than root causes. Are there any references to follow-up on, so I can get a better idea of why there is a difference? Is it not the same thing, but expressed differently? Or is it the reasoning that there is often more than one causal factor, some being more dominant than others, which contribute to incidence and hence identifying a single cause and taking action on it is not adequately addressing the problem? I see this as being a similar discussion as the "near-miss" - logically, a near miss is actually a hit, as it didn't miss at all!

Posted By John Allen To go back to the original point of this thread we ran a lunch and learn on office safety on Monday. There were 2 groups totalling more than 40 people. At the end of each session I read out the myths and the half truths in each case followed by the true story. I was surprised that hardly anyone had read or heard of the myths. The only one which brought any recognition was the conkers story. Not a truly representative sample I know but it makes me wonder if the general public pay as much attention to these things as we do. Perhaps we should stop beating our selves up about “anti-H&S” stories in the press and get with the positive aspects of our work.

Posted By ddraigice No. If nothing came of each visit, you can congratulate yourself but thats about as far as it goes.

Posted By Adrian Watson Sean, Unfortunately there is no one single book or article. You have to read "Industrial Accident Prevention" by HW Heinrich; "Heinrich Revisited - Truisms or Myths?" by FA Manual; "Apollo Root Cause Analysis" by DL Gano; "Human Error" and "Managing the Risks of Organizational Accidents" by J Reason. In respect of whether or not root causes exist or are the same as latent causes; a root cause is supposed to be the hidden main cause or causes that led to the accident - which if you would have removed would have prevented the accident! Accidents are rarely if ever caused by a cause. Slipping for example needs a slippery surface and unsuitable shoes and the person to lose their balance! All are necessary for person to the slip. There are the immediate causes and there are latent or underlying causes that contributed to the accident; but they are not "root causes" in the sense that if you removed them the accident could still happen. Regards Adrian Watson