Posted By MP Grayson Difficult one this and no doubt what I am going to write now will get some peoples backs up. Each and every one of us as a H/S professional has to say “SACK EM”. And that includes those that had a quick and crafty smile at the young lad being “cling filmed”. What I see here is a group of young men acting like kids. Which is exactly how young men do behave. And we as professionals need to remember that. YES I think that what was needed was to make a stand and show that this behaviour is intolerable. The company has clearly done that as they have sacked 8 of them for breaches of Health and Safety. Was that the right thing to do? (answers on the back of a £20 note please). I cannot say yes or no as I wasn’t there. I don’t know how often it happened, was it a one off, was there a ring leader and I don’t know what their attitude was. If they were sorry and remorseful, with a good chance that it would never happen again. Would demotion or removal of their FLT licence (which often results in a pay cut) be a more measured approach. Of course if their attitude is TWO FINGERS TO YOU, then the Management attitude should be “see yer latter looser”, I would show them the door myself. The answer is of course that I don’t know and before I get slated, I DO NOT approve of this behaviour. But it worries me that we seem to live in this all or nothing world and I can actually remember being 19 (just, with the help of some photos of course), so I can remember being young and stupid. Now, let me give you two different scenarios. 1. I had a job where I worked with a person that was responsible for maintenance. His attitude was negative to say the least. On one occasion when we stood toe to toe and I gave him a bit of man on man, one on one positive counselling, he responded by saying “Mark, I don’t care what health, safety or environmental legislation I break”. Unfortunately the fact was that; as the H/S bod I was the necessary evil. As the Maintenance Manager; he was critical to the efficient running of the business. And that is just how the senior management team saw it, so the end result is a guy who is untouchable. He would instruct his staff to use a FLT as a lifting platform with a pallet used as a seat, refuel a tractor next to a surface water drain. And he was once heard bragging that whilst I was teaching new staff H/S, he was working in the same room, on a defective step ladder, investigating a leaking roof, with no risk assessment or method statements. NOW there’s a man who needed his P45 and I was a man in need of serious Management support. So I read that report and think, why couldn't I just have had half of that support. 2. I did some years as an aircraft fitter in the RAF. At one time we had a permanent detachment to an American Airbase in a sunny part of Italy. In fact, it was a really nice, sunny part of Italy. The base had no aircraft at the time as it was on war reserve. It was however fully equip to take USAF reserve forces in the event of the “big bad commie army” pouring over the German border. Everything was there ready; all it needed was planes and people. Then we moved in. We were based in a really big hangar with several dozen Wendy’s in the corner. The Wendy looks like a go-cart with forks on the front. It is specially designed for loading bombs or fuel tanks onto aircraft. A few months after I arrived I was talking to one of the few American staff at the base. He commented on how much luck we had brought to him. Part of his job was Wendy maintenance (there could be a joke there, move on, quick). Before we arrived the Wendy’s were hard to start as each one was only fired up every other month. Now they all started first time, every time. He didn’t see the obvious, but I did. The little tinkers on my shift were waiting until night shift, fixing the Wendy’s and then having races around the Hangar. Needless to say it stopped and words were said. Yes OK I couldn’t fire them, but they could have been sent home complete with tails between their legs. It was dealt with there and then, no one died, no one got hurt and it never got repeated. Thankfully it was before the time of mobile phones with cameras and at a time when old farts like me had never heard of the Tinternet. So I watch programs like that on U-tube and think. That could have been my shift. Sometimes I think that we get it all wrong, (in fact, I know we get it wrong) as do the Management team and the other staff members. Clearly we can all see here a situation where Health and Safety has received the full backing and support from the Management (top banana). Many of us will look on in envy at that and think, oh please just once, back me up, just this once, please. Unfortunately it seems that often we can be partially guilty when we take our eye off the ball, we forget about how daft young people are or how arrogant crusty old giffers who have always done it that way are. We seem to always be thinking reactive and not pro-active. True we cannot be every where at once………. Drat, dinner break over, gotta go back to work. Cut a long story short. Don’t know the answer. Crack on…

Posted By Fornhelper Tend to agree with you there Mark....haven't seen the utube vid, don't know if there are any mitigating factors, remorse etc but being fired for what is essentially horseplay and, I assume, no malicious intent, is quite severe in my opinion. OK give them a 'formal warning', demotion, whatever but rather than sack them why not give the offenders an option that would benefit the employers, the 'offenders' and the wider community?. Give the offenders the option of raising X amount for a charity by running a 10K for example, publicise in the local press / in house magazine the reason they are doing this, at the same time stressing the importance of workplace H & S and give the money to a local charity. This would get the message across to all concerned and also be good positive publicity for the company Just a thought Regards FH

Posted By Alex Ryding I expect they were sacked because they posted their antics on Youtube. Yes they are lads (maybe a teeny smile at the cling fiming), but jumping on and off lift trucks then putting yourself on youtube and listing the company name. Should they be sacked? Absolutely. How to sack them? By the quickest and easiest method: gross misconduct for breech of H&S. Is using this as the method of dismissal right? That's another debate.

Posted By Karen Todd OMG!!! I'm trying to decide which bit I was most shocked by, having seen/investigated a fair amount of horseplay over the years. I think it was where the employee was being pallet-wrapped. Only consolation was that there were 3 others with him and they didn't go off and leave him - otherwise they could have come back to find him dead. KT

Posted By Phil Errup Could they have learned from their mistakes? Were they usually a bunch of real hard grafters, letting off some steam? Have they contributed to the success of the company in any way in the past? The nutters in Dirty Sanchez and Jackass employ a qualified safety practitioner (Please don't ask how I know) Their activities are far more dangerous, and millions of people watch them wondering what is the next stupidly dangerous thing they are going to attempt next. Why, because some of us like danger, like risk, like having fun. If I was their manager, I would be giving them all a serious kick in the pants, putting details of the incident on their personnel file, re-educating them, and retraining them. But If this was the first instance of it's kind I sure as hell wouldn't have sacked them. Oh, and I would make them write a personal apology to the company they insulted (the hitting of the visitor). In fact I would turn it on it's head and use the same team to make a "real promotional safety video." Now that is what I call being productive. Right, mine's a shandy...putting tents up in the rain tonight :-(

Posted By John Richards Modified dismissals procedure In a few cases of gross misconduct the employer may be justified in dismissing immediately without investigation. In these cases a two-step "modified dismissals procedure" will need to be followed, otherwise it will be automatically unfair. Written statement - the employer must give the employee a written statement setting out the conduct that has resulted in the dismissal and informing the employee of the right to appeal against the decision to dismiss. The employee must appeal to complete the statutory procedure. Appeal meeting - if the employee wishes to appeal they must inform the person named in the procedure. A meeting must be held. The employer must inform the employee of their decision following the meeting ****************************** One assumes that the above was followed.

Posted By MP Grayson Some good comments on this thread and I actually agree with every single one. Of course I’m not going to say if I have ever used a pallet truck as a scooter……..But what I will say is that maybe a few of us may have done little tiny things in the past in our youth. The best game keepers were always ex poachers. Some of you have already touched on something that may have been influential on the end result. You cannot use and abuse your organisations name and simulate a happy slapping on another organisation, especially one that is perceived as a competitor. Nuff said. There has been mention of programs etc on TV or MTV that encourage this behaviour. They are an issue and we need to be aware of them, sadly some such as a certain Japanese game show with a connection to Red Dwarf are often entertaining. Some in our profession will not watch the clip for their own reasons and I respect that, but what I would recommend is; Watch the video, take it on board and then treat it in the same way as you would a Diploma question. Cut out the red herring (a brewery). This is a general workplace; it’s a distribution centre, a large supermarket, a garage, a railway station or an engineering works. It could be anywhere in Eire, N Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales or IoM. The question is. How do YOU stop it happening at YOUR workplace? When you do find the golden answer, it will make all of us redundant. Crack on.

Posted By John J While I would say that there are serious breaches in H&S I would suggest that there are other issues such as damage to stock and a lot of people wasting time that were probably used in the disciplinary

Posted By Tabs I have to wonder what the posters would say had the bloke running in front of the unmanned fork lift tripped? Or the man being shrink-wrapped had suffocated (you see one man pulling film down below subject's chin)? Or the skidding FLT had skidded into the spectator? This is not gentle horseplay, but serious and dangerous misconduct. Sacking was of course justified - I would never believe an apology, nor a promise to never do the same again. Regardless of H&S, why should any employer put up with such behaviour and disrespect?

Posted By Tabs I like your posting, but I also think that cheering "sack them" will provide a much better response from other would-be pranksters. If the next generation of workers see that the worse that happens is a good telling off, or a charity run, we may face a repetition and even escalation. No workplace is constantly under the watchful gaze of the most sensible, therefore we need to make sure that people understand that trust must not be broken. Dangerous sports, and dangerous livelihoods have their place. I do not think that just any old workplace should be turned into a place of danger for employee's entertainment.

Posted By Pete48 This is a very interesting thread. This episode is a very explicit example of unsafe acts in a workplace situation. Any one of those involved could have been killed or seriously injured. Of that there can surely be little doubt? Their sacking was inevitable because their actions were downright foolhardy on a number of levels, safety being only one of those levels. Almost inevitably then, we have two camps of opinion, the sackems and the redeemums. But is that the point? This is not about taking risks or having fun, both of which are essential parts of everyday life. For me this is about how adult employees have clearly neither understood nor accepted the reasons for the operating standards that keep them and their mates safe. they have shown us explicitly what they think of the safety standards. Cocking a snook is the most polite term I can think of. For example, would they have embarked on robbing the company safe, videoed it and posted it on the web with the same abandon I wonder? And would that have been funny or cool?And would we then have people saying aah, poor misguided fools, they made a mistake? Without a doubt! But they would not have been able to avoid paying the penalty and neither should these guys. p.s. I bet a few others have been in the hot seat over this as well but quite rightly we are not being told about that, it is an internal matter.

Posted By John A Wright Very interesting reponses here. Just two comments to add (if they haven't been already). If they had NOT been sacked the YouTube fans would be saying "See it's OK to prat around at work, you won't get sacked, c'mon lads what can YOU do?!" Secondly, every year there are 8000 lift truck accidents in the UK, 10 are fatal, the others often cause unnecessary suffering for the people involved and for their dependants. John W

Posted By Pete48 JR, how do you know that the actions you suggest have not been taken? Why would they not be taken? The only reason that the sacking of the employees has been made public is that they chose to put the matter in the public domain by publishing their folly, thus leaving the company little choice in this modern world but to respond in public. However, they have no obligation to publicise their investigation into this incident and any actions arising from that investigation. Therefore, your assertions that the management at this company have significantly failed cannot be justified on the evidence that you have seen in public. It may or may not be true, if so then I agree that their part in this sad incident should be handled with equitability and equanimity. However there equally may be histories of previous misconduct, attempts to change the behaviour of these employees etc, etc. If, lets say by way of example, these employees had been given chances to improve their performance, previously warned of their behaviour and were causing concern amongst the managers. Managers who were trying very hard to build a positive culture. What then is your answer to this situation? To try your best and fail is not yet an automatic sackable offence for any employee, whether manager or not-is it? The one benefit from this incident, in my view, is that it has provided a very good example of just how difficult and important it is to get safety right in the workplace. It is essential that we work together and not in opposition if we are to have any chance of making things better. We are all to blame because we are human beings, lets get over that bit and get on with the real job.

Posted By Pam Phillips I'll bet any amount of money that if one of those idiots did die as a result of this behaviour all the fellow numpties would close ranks, make up some storey all about 'poor Jimmy all his did was....' (fill in the blanks with appropriate phrases about how it was 'just an accident' and he was totally innocent) leaving his wife free to sue the company. Too right they got fired, they should be prosecuted by the HSE too.

Posted By John Richards Bottom Line: I work on a shop-floor. The workforce will get away with what they can, if they are allowed to. I've SEEN an accident that resulted in permanent injury to a worker because ANOTHER worker laid a cable across the workshop, and the injured worker tripped upon it. The injured worker had complained MANY times to managers about that practice (3-phase extension cable) and been ignored. 40 thousand pound awarded. And before the [inevitable] comments,along the lines of "he should have been looking", the worker wears full-head welders RPE all day...so has limited vision. It is a management job to provide training, and a management job to ensure that the training is used. I promise not to mention that some managers would use events similar to that to avoid redundancy payments, in the event that a company had been laying people off anyway, maybe, possibly.