Global Health and Safety - Possibility or pipedream?

David Towlson looks at whether it’s possible for a global organisation to have a unified health and safety culture and to achieve harmonisation, despite global differences in legislation, cultures and language.

Can a global organisation have a unified health and safety culture? The simple answer to this would probably be no. However, if the question was rephrased as ‘can a global organisation have a unified health and safety approach’, the answer would be, yes, most definitely, given time. According to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), a positive health and safety culture can be developed by giving attention to the four “C”s: competence, control, co-operation and communication.

What’s New on the Web...

FREE IOSH Working Safely e-Learning now available

RRC Training have been running IOSH programmes for many years with great success. But our experts have now created an IOSH Working Safely e-learning programme that is completely free of charge.

This free course includes access to online course materials, multiple-choice review questions and a mock assessment. On completion, you will be given the opportunity to attempt the real IOSH assessment for just £50 and potentially receive a nationally-recognised IOSH certificate.

From January 2008, we'll also be offering IOSH Managing Safely and Managing Environmental Responsibilities by e-learning.

Click here to register for our IOSH Working Safely e-learning course for free. Or click here for details of our IOSH Managing Safely or Managing Environmental Responsibilities courses.

Latest Podcast now Available

In the November podcast we look at the business case for giving attention to health and safety. Ultimately good health and safety makes good business sense. John Caruthers may take some convincing though... Download the full podcast to hear this for yourself at: www.rrc.co.uk/Podcasts.aspx.

Podcast competition!

As most of our readers are well aware, in February 2007 RRC Training launched a monthly series of podcasts on a range of topical health and safety issues.

So far we have received great feedback from our listeners who often suggest topics they are interested in. That’s why we want you to tell us what you would like our podcasts to be about. You can now submit your views on the subject of future episodes to competition@rrc.co.uk. The winner will take part in the recording of their chosen podcast.

Moving up the Ladder

Many of you will already be familiar with Dr David Towlson who, until last month, was our Lead Tutor. We are delighted to announce that David has recently accepted the position of Director of Training for RRC and will be playing a fundamental role in managing the business into the future.

Here, David gives us a brief insight into his career so far and lets us in on his plans for the future.

NEBOSH International General Certificate – New Flexible e-Learning

We have been offering the NEBOSH International General Certificate by e-learning for some time but have now taken a step further in giving students complete flexibility as to how they study.

Click here for further details.

HOW MUCH?
The Business Case for Health and Safety

By Malcolm Rimmer, PostGrad Dip Health & Safety, BA(Hons), Dip Acoustics, AMIOA

Q. How much does an accident cost?
A. I don't know, probably a lot.

Perhaps more than a lot. Perhaps the business itself. UK and European statistics show that 70% of businesses fail within three years of a major fire, despite insurance. However, the cost of prevention was very often less than £1,000 (2005 prices). Nor were these preventative measures generally dominated by high technology. They comprise such simple things as fire and smoke detectors, fire extinguishers or a metal box to store highly flammable liquids.

The previous figures relate only to total business failures following a major fire. They do not reveal the extent of the damage done to businesses after a major fire - damage from which the businesses may never fully recover. Nor do they reveal the number of businesses broken by a significant rather than major fire.

New Services available from RRC

NEBOSH Revision Packages

Everyone feels nervous about taking exams. Here at RRC, we understand there is no “one right way” to revise and that’s why we commissioned our experts to design a varied range of revision tools so our students can choose techniques most suitable for them.

Click here for further information on our NEBOSH Certificate Revision Packages.

Click here for further information on our NEBOSH Diploma Revision Packages.

News In Brief

• Workers at Ground Zero in New York have filed a lawsuit to claim compensation from the $1 billion fund set up for victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. They claim that toxic dust from the World Trade Centre site gave them possibly fatal diseases.

• A 14-year-old boy was found dead in a swimming pool pump, three weeks after he disappeared while visiting a water park in Kazan, central Russia, with his family. Prosecutors in the case believe that the boy may have been sucked into the chamber of the pump while diving. Initial fears were that he had been kidnapped.

• Two people died and 42 others fell ill in Vietnam in July when they contracted an infection from diseased pigs. The bacteria Streptococcus suis infects workers who handle pig carcasses and also people who eat undercooked meat.

• Two domesticated elephants, a male and a female, used in logging in north-east India went berserk in late July, killing eight people and injuring five others. They rampaged through at least five villages before being shot dead by police.

• A report by the space agency, NASA, in late July revealed “heavy use” of alcohol by astronauts on at least two separate occasions just before missions. There is a ban on drinking alcohol within the 12-hour countdown to launch and managers were apparently made aware of the breach but chose to turn a blind eye to it despite warnings that the astronauts concerned posed a danger to themselves and others.

• Three workers were killed and three others injured in late July in an explosion in the Mojave Desert in California. They were testing a propellant system for a manned rocket belonging to Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic company. The rocket is designed to send tourists 62 miles above the Earth for the view from space and to experience five minutes of weightlessness.

• Two news helicopters belonging to different TV stations collided over Phoenix, Arizona, at the end of July while covering a police chase in the centre of the city for live television. Each helicopter carried a pilot and a cameraman and all were killed. There were no casualties on the ground.

• Hundreds of Jordanians were taken to hospital in the north of the country after drinking contaminated tap water and contracting a virus. An inquiry found that there had been negligence in the upkeep of the public water system and at the end of July both the Health Minister and the Water Minister were dismissed.

• Police in Lima, Peru, seized more than 60 tonnes of toys in August which were believed to contain toxic, lead-based products. The toys were smuggled into Peru from Chile and had been imported from China, Malaysia and Taiwan. They were about to be sold in the markets of Lima.

• China is planning to ban cars from the roads of Beijing during the Olympic Games because the athletes’ health is threatened by the city’s notorious pollution and events might have to be postponed. A four-day test run took place during August 2007 to keep 1.3 million cars off the city’s roads. Traffic pollution was expected to be cut by 40%, but choking smog still enveloped the city.

• Two passenger cars fell from a Ferris wheel in Pusan, South Korea, in mid-August and crashed into another section of the ride. Up to five people were reported to have died in the accident at the amusement park, including a child and a foreigner.

• A number of Somali journalists have been attacked while reporting on the violence in their country. The founder of the HornAfrik radio and television station was killed in August when his car was blown up by a remote-controlled landmine in Mogadishu. He had just buried an employee who had been shot dead that morning.

• The head of the Lee Der Industrial Co. in China committed suicide in a company warehouse in August. His company had made 967,000 toys recalled from shops in the West by the US toy company Mattel on safety grounds, as paint used on them contained excessive levels of lead.

• Clothes made in China and sold in New Zealand were found to contain dangerous levels of formaldehyde in August. Tests conducted for a consumer TV programme showed levels of the chemical in both children’s and adults’ clothing to be up to 900 times above the safety limit.

• Three players broke their arms while playing on an arm-wrestling machine installed in Japanese arcades. Atlus Company, the distributor of the machines, maintained that they were not strong and that the injuries could have been caused by the players twisting their arms in an unnatural way. The machines have now been recalled.

• Steel-toed boots made in China were the subject of a product recall in the USA in August due to the risk of electric shock. Some 9,500 Caterpillar boots were affected, which had been incorrectly labelled as resistant to electricity.

• On 4th September 2007, it was reported that workers in a pharmaceutical factory in Chongqing, south-western China, managed to smash a 25 kg porcelain tank of bromine whilst trying to move it. Bromine is a highly volatile, toxic and corrosive liquid, the gas being a suffocating irritant. The gas seeped from the plant to an adjacent clothes workshop. Around 160 people were hospitalised by the incident.

• The Italian oil company Eni SpA (E) announced that towards the end of September 2007 a Colombian worker at the Saipem SpA base in Port Harcourt was killed following an armed attack on the jetty area of the site, and two other workers, a Filipino and a Colombian, are missing. Saipem SpA is an oil services company controlled by Eni. Eni and Saipem facilities in Nigeria have been attacked in the past.

• A fire at the Moscow Institute of State and Corporate Management in early October killed at least seven people and left 30 others suffering from smoke inhalation, burns and other injuries. Some students and teachers jumped from the five-storey building into safety nets while others climbed down trees or drainpipes to escape the blaze. Helicopters were also called in to evacuate people and to drop water onto the roof of the building.

• Italy has been conducting a 12-year inquiry into Mafia involvement in nuclear waste disposal. Eight former directors of the country’s energy agency are being investigated for alleged illegal trafficking in nuclear waste and “clandestine production of plutonium”. They are suspected of connivance with the Mafia in illegal disposal of nuclear waste from Switzerland, France, Germany and America at sea, in the Somali desert and at Matera in southern Italy.

• A zoo worker died in Moscow in October during an operation to transport three elephants to new quarters at a Spanish zoo. One of the elephants, with which the 40-year-old keeper had worked for many years, is reported to have become nervous and lashed out with its trunk, killing her with a single blow.

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