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Have to wonder if there was a commissioning client behind this, and whether they were held accountable?
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Rank: Super forum user 
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The only difference between this chap and dozens like him all over the country was he got caught.
He had "past form" for ignoring PNs so where were HSE between the death in jan & his arrest in feb.
As per the title, why should decent contractors bother?
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Rank: Super forum user 
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Don't you not think to some degree it's true safety is his responsibility, I have read on here loads of times that people need to also take responsibility for thier own safety. OK this might be a bit extreme because it might be deemed to be high risk, but how often do you hear 'it's common sense'
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Rank: Super forum user 
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"it's common sense"
Thing with common sense is that it shifts. I don't know how long you've been in safety Invictus, me it's about 20 years. And in that 20 years I've seen 'common sense' shift quite a long way, to the point where now it's 'common sense' to use lifting gear instead of manhandling, where it's 'common sense' to use edge protection, it's 'common sense' to use ear defenders, and so on and so on. Point is, 'common sense' hasn't shifted at random, its been driven. And a key driver is the basic duty in s2 HASAWA 'it shall be the duty of every employer....' HSE and a small, maligned but dedicated army of H&S people have taken that statement and run with it, with the support of the courts. And now the courts have teeth, and they're using them.
I've never been in the business of blaming people for their own death or disability, and I'm not about to start now. It's not ''common sense, it's the law of the land, and it's done quite a good job so far,
John
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Rank: Super forum user 
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I read about this tragic case and it's very disturbing. Yes, people must to some extent take responsibility for their actions, however when those actions are being driven by an employer it takes on a different perspective.
I too wonder what the client's involvement was. If I recall correctly this incident occurred pre CDM 2015, nevertheless where were the RAMS, etc?
It reminds me of the restaurant owner who was recently jailed for gross negligent manslaughter for not correctly identifying nuts had been used in a curry even when requested to do so by enforcement officers and the consumer. Despite all our h&s laws some people are just beyond redemption.
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Rank: Super forum user
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Whilst I agree that a cavalier attitude to health and safety by employers needs to be stamped on from a great height, I also think that individuals need to take responsibility for their own actions. When I read of injury cases where the employee has done something stupid, but the employer is prosecuted, I do feel exasperated. A classic scenario is where an employee removes the guard on a machine and sticks their hand in to remove a blockage, defeating the safety measures put in by their employer, because they can't be bothered to do it properly. In such a case, I question why the employer should be prosecuted. Why did the employee think this was a good idea?
Cases where the employee is prosecuted and not the employer are few and far between; I can remember one where an operator dropped a lifting beam on his manager's head and killed him, after overriding the lockout system on the crane. Perhaps there is a reluctance to prosecute someone who has paid for their folly through an injury, but I do think that far too often, the default position is to prosecute the employer, no matter how irresponsibly the employee has acted.
Still, evasion of responsibility goes all the way back to Adam and Eve, so I suppose we should expect it.
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Well, if somebody defeats a guard, or does something similarly daft, what should management's response be? It should be to drop from a great height, surely? But all too often (or this is the sense I get from reading safety cases in the trade press) managers turn a blind eye or actively collude in bad practice. These cases tend to be the ones that get the big fines.
I remember reading some years ago about a bloke who cut his arm off at the elbow on a band saw (I think it was a bandsaw). He got fined 15K because, and this is the important bit, in the opinion of the judge his employer had 'so far as is reasonably practicable, ensure(d) the health, safety' etc etc. And his employer really had done quite a lot to get to that point, including coming down from a great height on any infraction, with records to prove it.
People do have a duty to themselves, but sometimes that duty can be going with the flow, not showing your mates up, not getting the sack. Employers do have a duty to set the standards and enforce them,
John
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Rank: Super forum user
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Don't disagree with what you say, John, my point is that one of our key messages is that health and safety is everyone's responsibility, not just management, but the HSE and the courts often defeat this message by taking the easy option of blaming the company. Sometimes, despite the best efforts of management, people do stupid or irresponsible things, and in these cases, if it can be shown that the management has done what is reasonably practicable, then it should be the employee who is held responsible. A basic question of justice.
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Isn't Safety the only law where by you (Company/ Manager) are guilty until proven innocent?
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Most of us here will have studied human behaviours as part of our diploma. Removal of guards is a common enough occurrence, done to improve productivity through a mistaken belief.
Waste balers are a personal hobby horse of mine. Dealt with cases where staff have leapt into the baler chamber to clear a blockage and then been crushed by the stored pressure of the released ram. Employee trying to save the firm an engineer call out fee or down time have put themselves in danger.
Forget common sense - it has no legal standing or definition and in my experience, is simply lacking in society. We in this industry (safety) may feel we have some common sense but that is driven by the knowledge of what can go wrong. It causes us to pause and take stock of the dangers (and do a risk assessment) before proceeding. Most people do not have that knowledge and are simply blind to the dangers they are exposed to.
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Rank: Super forum user
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quote=jwk]"it's common sense"
Thing with common sense is that it shifts. I don't know how long you've been in safety Invictus, me it's about 20 years. And in that 20 years I've seen 'common sense' shift quite a long way, to the point where now it's 'common sense' to use lifting gear instead of manhandling, where it's 'common sense' to use edge protection, it's 'common sense' to use ear defenders, and so on and so on. Point is, 'common sense' hasn't shifted at random, its been driven. And a key driver is the basic duty in s2 HASAWA 'it shall be the duty of every employer....' HSE and a small, maligned but dedicated army of H&S people have taken that statement and run with it, with the support of the courts. And now the courts have teeth, and they're using them.
I've never been in the business of blaming people for their own death or disability, and I'm not about to start now. It's not ''common sense, it's the law of the land, and it's done quite a good job so far,
John
I started as a union rep, when I was 18 and on a job creation scheme and only got involved because my dad was high up in another union and I asked his advice and his advice was 'if you want to change something do something and stop moaning' that was 36 years ago, I did have a year out so depends on if you count that as a break in service.
I wasn't trying to make light of it but playing devils advocate. The term 'common sense' I don't like because sense isn't that common when it comes to safety, that is why people do daft things and get hurt. I do however believe that to change safety we have to change peoples thinking towards it and that is why I am sick and tired of the 'conkers bonkers' type safety that I believe we should move away from and deal with risks that come directly from working practices and not from everyday task just because they are now in a work setting.
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Rank: Super forum user 
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Common sense implies a level of understanding which is inherent.
Competence, on the other hand is learnt through training and experience.
Neither of which are an excuse for an employer to not provide effective safety measures. However, competence needs to be measured and judged, common sense is just assumed.
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'Common sense' is not as common as it should be, otherwise most of us wouldn't have a job.
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Rank: Super forum user
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WatsonD wrote:Common sense implies a level of understanding which is inherent.
Competence, on the other hand is learnt through training and experience.
Neither of which are an excuse for an employer to not provide effective safety measures. However, competence needs to be measured and judged, common sense is just assumed.
Competence can also breed contempt for measures that are put in place because they have done it that way for 20 years why change now. Even if it is unsafe i.e. table saw no guards or removal to get a bigger piece of wood in.
So competence and common sense could walk hand in hand.
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Rank: Super forum user
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It's important to remember that employers are NEVER prosecuted, convicted, etc for the failings of employees. Employers are prosecuted for their own failings, and if they're convicted it's because the court thinks THEY failed.
Whether or not the employee also had responsibility doesn't matter (although it may be taken into account in sentencing) - if an employer runs his business in a way which instructs, condones, encourages or fails to act on life-threatening working practices then they deserve it.
People are rarely the first person ever to dangerously remove a guard in a workshop.
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Rank: Super forum user
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Mr.Flibble2.0 wrote:Isn't Safety the only law where by you (Company/ Manager) are guilty until proven innocent?
I assume you are referring to 'strict liability' offences where the the accused have to show they did all that was reasonably practicable to comply with legislation. This is not guilty until proven innocent. The only difference in criminal law is that a guilty mind (mens rea) does not have to be proved by the prosecution, unlike most other criminal offences. The same prinicple applies to other regulatory law, not just h&s offences, e.g. road traffic offences, etc.
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Rank: Super forum user
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gramsay wrote:It's important to remember that employers are NEVER prosecuted, convicted, etc for the failings of employees. Employers are prosecuted for their own failings, and if they're convicted it's because the court thinks THEY failed.
Whether or not the employee also had responsibility doesn't matter (although it may be taken into account in sentencing) - if an employer runs his business in a way which instructs, condones, encourages or fails to act on life-threatening working practices then they deserve it.
People are rarely the first person ever to dangerously remove a guard in a workshop.
Accidents or at least a large majority are caused by the human influence and normally this is the worker!
Not following instruction or training, not paying attention, doing it the easier rather than safer way, doing something they are not trained to do, trying to bypass safety features, not looking at what the outcomes of his behaviour could be, acting the goat, not raising safety issues, leaving a couple of screws out of the guard so it makes it easier next time or removing the guard because the equipment keeps failing and it makes it easier etc.
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Rank: Super forum user
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Invictus wrote:gramsay wrote:It's important to remember that employers are NEVER prosecuted, convicted, etc for the failings of employees. Employers are prosecuted for their own failings, and if they're convicted it's because the court thinks THEY failed.
Whether or not the employee also had responsibility doesn't matter (although it may be taken into account in sentencing) - if an employer runs his business in a way which instructs, condones, encourages or fails to act on life-threatening working practices then they deserve it.
People are rarely the first person ever to dangerously remove a guard in a workshop.
Accidents or at least a large majority are caused by the human influence and normally this is the worker!
Not following instruction or training, not paying attention, doing it the easier rather than safer way, doing something they are not trained to do, trying to bypass safety features, not looking at what the outcomes of his behaviour could be, acting the goat, not raising safety issues, leaving a couple of screws out of the guard so it makes it easier next time or removing the guard because the equipment keeps failing and it makes it easier etc.
Blaming the employee is basically a quick and easy cop out. A decent safety professional should be asking WHY the employee acted in a particular way rather than immediately pointing the finger of blame. Once you understand why you may be able to fix it.
The WHY can be so many things, peer pressure, Management pressure, lack of resource, lack of training, too great a work load, unattainable work targets, job insecurity etc etc. 9 times out of ten always a management failure somewhere.
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Fair comments Invictus. I got my first H&S training through the TU, and that was 30 years go. Didn't get the opportunity to really use my knowledge for ten years after that though,
John
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Rank: Super forum user
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Invictus wrote:WatsonD wrote:Common sense implies a level of understanding which is inherent.
Competence, on the other hand is learnt through training and experience.
Neither of which are an excuse for an employer to not provide effective safety measures. However, competence needs to be measured and judged, common sense is just assumed.
Competence can also breed contempt for measures that are put in place because they have done it that way for 20 years why change now. Even if it is unsafe i.e. table saw no guards or removal to get a bigger piece of wood in.
So competence and common sense could walk hand in hand.
If you assume that once competence is reached, that is it problem solved and whatever new things you throw at them (metaphorically speaking) they will forever be competent.
Competence needs to be reasserted when new methods/ technologies are adopted. And like I said measured; Otherwise it comes back to calling it common sense and trying to deflect blame.
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Rank: Super forum user 
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quote=Invictus]Accidents or at least a large majority are caused by the human influence and normally this is the worker!
Not following instruction or training, not paying attention, doing it the easier rather than safer way, doing something they are not trained to do, trying to bypass safety features, not looking at what the outcomes of his behaviour could be, acting the goat, not raising safety issues, leaving a couple of screws out of the guard so it makes it easier next time or removing the guard because the equipment keeps failing and it makes it easier etc.
But all those things you list can also be put down to management failings in one form or another as well as employee issues.
Ie
1) Not following instruction or training - Possibly poor training and or Lack of supervision to pick this up.
2) not paying attention - People can not be expected to pay attention 100% of the time
3) doing it the easier rather than safer way, doing something they are not trained to do, trying to bypass safety features - Lack of supervision, pressure of getting things finished etc
4) not raising safety issues - Is this really the employee duty - yes we would all like them to but if the Risk assessment was done properly and those responsible for the area did their parts, employee would not need to pipe up.
5) acting the goat - Where is the supervision, where are the records where others have been pulled up etc, yes it can happen, but have management come down hard when previously encountered
5) leaving a couple of screws out of the guard so it makes it easier next time or removing the guard because the equipment keeps failing and it makes it easier - Badly maintained equipment if it keeps failing or inappropriate equipment purchased.
You are right employee have some responsibility, but the pressure to do well for the company can be high for some employees and they think they are helping in these tough times (always tough times). Company management should not be putting people in these positions. As noted above company's get prosecuted or sued for their failings. The employee is normally punished for their part with pain and injury.
Employees don't go into work to hurt themselves , management do go in intending to hurt employees, yet it happens. Rarely a single fault to an incident and if you accept that it can not be wholly the employees fault other than the most exceptional cases in my view.
Ps Invictus I only used your post as you kindly listed issues out.
Chris
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Rank: Super forum user
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oops that should be - management don't go in intending to hurt employees
I hope
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Rank: Forum user
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My point is this employer killed a man for profit and only got a 30 month sentence of which only 15 months will be served.
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Rank: Super forum user
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Accepted 30 months is too short for killing someone, the boss who took the worker home after he fell from scaffold and put him to bed should of got life, but he didn't.
The point is it is easy to look at management and as for the blame game aren't both sides of the fence doing it, one will say management and the other will say employee. I believe like all or at least most on here we all have a role to play, but there are times when you need to point the finger at the employee and not palm off all injuries at work on 'The Management' Lack of supervision plays a big part but if you have a factory and 40 people on the line and two supervisors then near impossible task.
Training and education are a big part of it but just saying it's a management fault they need to do something is naive.
I been there banging my hand on the board room table demanding better working conditions, better training etc. But I have also been there defending an employee who acted irresponsibly and got caught.
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