Aussies best dressed
but keep falling over.
 AUSTRALIAN
workers rate among the best dressed in the world with safety
clothing and ancillary items, but, when it comes to striding
out, they have a habit of falling over!
The General Mat
Company reports more than 7,000 injuries each year in
New South Wales alone result from “falls on the same
level”.According to figures from WorkCover Authority
of NSW, this incidence of three injuries per 1,000 workers
per year costs the State $86.m .
“It is obvious
employers spend fortuneprotecting their workers from
their feet up but apparently some ignore safety measures
on the floor beneath them, the lack of which causes the
fall,” Mr Michael Siegle, managing director of The
General Mat Company (GMC) said.
“Many workers are skating on thin ice. In New South
Wales alone – with the WorkCover Authority of New
South Wales increasing fines for unsafe floors by as much
as five times what they were previously – some employers
have great reason to take a hard look at the floor provided
for their employees.”
Mr Siegle says WorkCover’s handbook “Preventing
Slips”, trips and falls-guidance note (November 1998),
contains numerous suggestions as to best to combat the
problem.
“In some ways, from the ground up, employees in
Australia workforce are kitted out to highest possible
standard in the world but it is the floor beneath all this
attire which has raised serious doubts about the safety
of our workplaces”, Mr Siegle said.
WorkCover Authority reports more than 2,900 people died
at work last year, and about 650,000 were injured. This
is despite Workcover spending 15 years trying to educate
employers about the need to make workplace safety a majority
priority.
“The injury and faulty rate has reached record proportions,
which slips and falls accounting for way to high a percentage
of this,” Mr Siegle said.The New South Wales Workers
Compensation Statistical Bulletin, 1996/97 – the
most recent survey for New South Wales – proves slips,
trips and falls have been risen exponentially.The figures
attributed to one mechanism of injury, “falls on
the same level”, show 7,051 disability cases at an
average work-time loss of 11.95 weeks per person. This
cost WorkCover New South Wales nearly $86m in payouts – more
than 16 per cent of all workplace injuries – hence
major concerns over a budget blowout.
“Considering these are merely the figures for one
state of Australia (NSW), one can only imagine the enormity
of the injury factor on a national basis attributed to
slips, trips and falls,” Mr Siegle said.
“Floors may always be in view, but as they are constantly
under our feet we tend to overlook them and the importance
of ensuring they are covered with material to embody safe
practice. Even merely standing on a floor without adequate
cover has been responsible for too many personal strain
injuries which ended up as costly compensation claims”.
The Occupational Health and Safety Act 1983 states: “if
persons, while working, are required to stand in a substantially
the same position on a floor or brick, concrete, metal,
stone or other similar material, the floor (or part where
persons stand while working) must be covered, where practicable,
with a semi-resilient, thermally non-conductive material.***
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