NZ health and safety slammed on international stage

Workers have voiced concerns about the reform of health and safety happening in New Zealand, at the 104th session of the International Labour Organisation in Geneva, in front of 185 countries.

Jeff Sissons, General Counsel for the CTU addressed the conference and gave a damming factual account of what has happed in health and safety since the Pike River Mine explosion when 29 men were killed (full speech below).

“It is distressing that we are having to tell the world that New Zealand is not doing all it can to keep our workers safe,” CTU President Helen Kelly said.

“New Zealand is now falling behind international standards on health and safety because the National Government is indulging the desire of some of our most dangerous employers to exclude workers from proper employee participation in health and safety.”

Full speech – Jeff Sissons, CTU General Counsel

Madam President, thank you for the opportunity to address the Conference on behalf of the New Zealand Workers Delegation.

New Zealand is grappling with health and safety reform in the wake of one of our worst workplace tragedies.

On Friday 19 November 2010, a methane explosion occurred at the Pike River Coal Mine on the West Coast of the South Island. 29 men were trapped in the mine by the explosion, condition unknown. Following a second explosion six days later, all were presumed dead. Their bodies have never been recovered.

A Royal Commission of Inquiry in 2011 found a series of systemic failures. The mine did not have safe systems of work and should not have been producing coal. Early warnings had been ignored. Government Inspection was inadequate.

The Minister of Labour resigned her warrant in response to the report. Many of those directly responsible escaped legal liability.

The Government convened an expert tripartite Taskforce in 2012 to conduct a root-and-branch review of New Zealand’s health and safety system.

The Taskforce found that New Zealand’s health and safety performance was hobbled by confusing and inadequate law and regulation, a weak regulator that did not carry out its functions properly, and inadequate leadership, capability and knowledge by all participants in the system.

The Taskforce noted that “worker participation is a crucial weak link” that must be strengthened. They also noted that small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) (employing less than 20 workers) found health and safety particularly difficult.

The Taskforce said New Zealand needed “an urgent, sustainable stepchange in harm prevention activity and a dramatic improvement in outcomes.” They made a sweeping set of recommendations. The most profound was replacing our primary health and safety law with a new law based on the Australian Model Workplace Health and Safety Law. The Government replied stating that it would broadly follow all of the Taskforce’s recommendations.

The Health and Safety Reform Bill was introduced on 10 March 2014, following the Australian model closely. While the Bill was not perfect, we were hopeful that this signalled the start of a new era.

Unfortunately, following intensive lobbying, it appears that the Government plans to amend the Bill to significantly reduce workers’ rights to negotiate a health and safety system. System design becomes the responsibility of the business alone.

The Government members intends that (unlike current law) businesses employing less than 20 workers may choose to ignore the request of workers for health and safety representatives.

Workers and unions will have less involvement in the set-up of worker participation systems. Health and safety representatives will have their remit restricted to employer-determined groups of workers.

These changes will strain the crucial weak link of worker participation to breaking point.

There is comprehensive international evidence that collectivised workplaces with strong worker voice are considerably safer. Co-determination of health and safety between workers and employers leads to significant improvements. Individualised, top-down health and safety systems do not provide the same level of protection.

We agree that SMEs pose a particularly difficult challenge. New Zealand does not have good data on rates of injury by enterprise size but OSHA research suggests that the incidence rate for fatal accidents in SMEs is around double that for large companies.

30 percent of workers in New Zealand work in SMEs and their safety is as important as workers in large companies. We understand the pressures on SMEs but they need more support not less regulation.

New Zealand ratified Convention 155 on Occupational Safety and Health in 2007. The proposed changes appear to contravene Convention 155. They are also contrary to workers ability to elect their representatives in full freedom.

We urge the Government to honour the memory of the 29 miners buried at Pike River and to be on the right side of history. It is not too late but a window of opportunity is swiftly closing.

Thank you Madame President.

ends

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