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Posted By Peter Scott
Good Afternoon
Does any one know a person who knows French H&S law that my client can talk to.
They need information on Safety Signs, machine safety etc
Regards
Peter
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Posted By Merv Newman
Peter,
I live and breath it. Talk it too
Send me an e-mail
Merv
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Posted By Bob Youel
The last time that I looked we [the Brits] had killed ten people to the French sore of 0 re the tunnel; yet they were almost as fast as us and their quality etc was as good
the above gives you a picture of French attitudes towards H&S - from my exp of working there on large power plant
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Posted By Rob T
Bob,
This is the old myth!
The French reporting of deaths at work only applies to those who are pronounced dead at the scene (and not after they are removed and die in hospital etc.). Far, far, more people died on the French side of the tunnel than on the British and it still annoys me that this urban legend, of it being safer on the French side, still grates on me. It's a total fabrication!
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Posted By Bob Youel
You are correct re european reporting systems are different. When I worked in Europe many accident stats posted only reflected the home nationals in many cases and not 'guest workers' so the figures were skewed one way
However after working on both sides of the tunnel I know that figures were used differently and did come across situations where 'agency staff' were not counted into the figures at all, and came across 'gung-ho' attitudes that were much more risky on our side that the other
The figure I qupoted was from an official report presented by the senior Americian engineer responsible for a large part of the program -Its something that has stuck with me
I also came across under reporting/gungo-ho attitudes in the early / mid 70's on the rigs - I feel that if it was not for the likes of Norway/ Holland/ Ireland etc we Brits would still be working as unsafely as they were - to quote many ministers of other countries [>10 years ago]'The UK has more laws re H&S but they dont enforce them'
generally we have good standards noting that the vast majority of people work for companies that are v-small and their standards are never [in my experience] included in any significant surveys etc
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Posted By Merv Newman
Rob,
sorry but I'm going to disagree with you. A fatal accident is a fatal accident. But only counted as such if you die within TWO WEEKS of the event. Same with road accidents. I know it's weird thinking but so is the three-day rule.
As for the tunnel, I remember the breakthrough photo showing both teams. Brits were in shorts and tee-shirts, French were in full PPE. (I think that photo was later "officially" replaced by one more PC)
The ten British-side deaths were in the tunnel. To the best of my knowledge there were none in the French tunnel. There were others on both sides during construction works land side but I don't have the figures. Typically the accident/death rate in French construction is about twice the "all industry" rate. How does that compare with the UK rates ?
Remember the HSE shut down the British side until management got serious about safety. This included calling in DuPont construction safety engineers to advise.
Accidents/injuries to agency or contractor workers are never included in the user-company statistics. That is for THEIR employer. However a French legislation puts the same responsibility on the user-company for "non-employees" as does UK legislation.
I think that overall the French management thinking about safety, accidents and statistics is broadly similar to that in the UK. No manager likes to hear that an accident has happened and no manager wants the stats to go up so there will always be, on both sides of the channel, pressure to suppress or avoid reporting (remember the "is it RIDDOR" pleas)
Countering that is pressure from the unions and from the medical profession to have any injury turned into a Lost Time Injury.
Merv
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