QANTAS'S occupational health and safety policies

[Nudlaug]

Taken from http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,18854520%255E28957,00.html


Stressed by air safety

19apr06

QANTAS'S occupational health and safety policies have been ramped up to ridiculous levels by over-zealous reps, or so we hear from frustrated Qantas staff.

The obsession with safety, which has spread from the appropriate maintenance centres into office areas, has reached the point that workers are apparently grumbled at for the most minor of issues.

One Qantas Eye reader tells us he was even told off for not holding on to the handrail when descending a flight of stairs.

And then there's the dozens of aircraft-shaped stress balls promoting Qantas's safety slogan, "Safe Airline for Everyone", that infiltrated the offices during the recent Safety Week.

So imagine our reader's bemusement when a Qantas memo arrived in his inbox last week, alerting staff to the dangers of the safety stress balls.

"Potential Choking Hazard," the memo declared.

"In the interest of safety, we are making all employees aware that the orange stress airplane distributed during Safety Week should not be given to young children.

"There have been two reported incidents of infants being at risk of choking after breaking off parts of the plane. This is a timely reminder that vigilance is required with young children and small colourful objects."

Timely indeed.




:} So very true, it is in fact getting rediculous to the max, it appears the whole safety push is a deception just to make the operation as slow and inefficient as humanly possible just to outsource sections to contractors. A lot of the stuff has nothing to do with actually improving safety, there is either a bigger plan behind all this, or it is in fact the result from overzealus safety reps that make life as hard as possible for everyone, or it is just plain stupidity.

The example with signs "To use the handrails when using stairs" and safety articles with the same content is true, believe it or not! I mean, has the last tiny bit of common sense gone out the window??? :{

Or maybe it is really all just a product or litigation threats and insurance or work cover issues. I do not know. All i know is that is a bloody pain in the :mad: :ok:

[Toluene Diisocyanate]

Don't go near Easterns, boys. You'll get nailed by the "Regulatory affairs manager" for leaving your nav bag in the wrong part of the crewroom!:} :} :yuk: Tripping Hazard!:} :}
The only one's tripping are the blokes up in the Art Gallery:8
Oh, they have put grip-tape and appropriate signage on the stairway up to the Art Gallery:E That's gotta work for the boys.

[murgatroid]

Yes, being observed ascending a flight of stairs with 2 bags (one over the shoulder providing free hand to hold rail). Was suggested it better to make two trips with one bag each time. Response - then it would be twice more likely to fall on stairs doing two trips and also leaving bag at top and bottom is trip hazard. Response - nick off smart @#%&.

[esreverlluf]

Ah yes - but what about the security breach when leaving one bag unattended at the bottom of the stairs in order to correctly ascend the stairs carrying one bag at a time leaving the other arm free to hold the rail.

Does this mean that the workplace is inaccessable and I won't have to go to work tomorrow?

[Keg]

lol. I was just wondering earlier today when I would read about this classic bit of OH&S waffle. An example such as this is just way too good to be true- except it IS true! :eek: :p

[Mr Qantas]

Just cause some staff has got a chip on there back cause they have been caught it doesnt meen safety isnt important. Take a look at the LTI level today (lost time injury) compared to 10 years ago. I appluad management for making the workplace safer and i think we should all value the importance of this.

[Capt Fathom]

If they were serious about safety, they wouldn't allow their crews to climb into an aeroplane and disappear into the wild blue yonder! :uhoh:
Think about it. Every time you get into one you may never be seen again!

[qcc2]

mr QF you do have a valid point. however, sometimes you have to realise there is an "overkill" on minor issues where major issues like aircrew fatigue, aircraft interior design, medical issues etc. are conviniently been put in the too hard basket.:ok:

[satmstr]

Just cause some staff has got a chip on there back cause they have been caught it doesnt meen safety isnt important. Take a look at the LTI level today (lost time injury) compared to 10 years ago. I appluad management for making the workplace safer and i think we should all value the importance of this.

Mr Qantas , i do agree safety is important , but only upto a point, if you work for an airline ( gee wonder what airline) , have you seen what some of the injurys there are? , they are injurys that are so stupid and then management comes and says that they belive that we can get injurys down to zero , sorry i total disagree with that statement you will NEVER HAVE ZERO INJURYS ( minor or major injurys) there will always be the odd injury that can not be avioded, and the amount of money spent to implement these stupid programs i am sure they could be spent there time and half of the money that they spent on safety to improve other areas of the airline. it just really feels like we are being treated like little kids , dont do this dont do that , like come on hold the hand rail while using the stairs, what happens when you are taking stuff up or down the stairwells when you cant hold hold the rail?? ...its just geeting to the stage were people will start to have a who cares attuide . anyhow just my two cents worth :hmm:

[Redstone]

Just cause some staff has got a chip on there back cause they have been caught it doesnt meen safety isnt important. Take a look at the LTI level today (lost time injury) compared to 10 years ago. I appluad management for making the workplace safer and i think we should all value the importance of this.


Ahh yes Mr Q, but it all depends on what the company defines as a "Lost Time Injury" and to what lengths they will go so as to fudge the figures. I agree O.H and S is important, but to link management bonusus to this sham of a system while all around the rest of Rome is burning............

[Bolty McBolt]

Rome is Burning...? :ouch:

I am off for violin lessons :yuk:

LTIs are reduce by taxiing people into work whom have a work related injury but cannot perform their duties to sign a time sheet then taxied home.
FACT !!!

[CashKing]

The fundamental problem with cost-benefit reasoning on this score, however, is that it mis-represents the issue. By challenging democracy to yield utilitarian results, advocates presume the normative legitimacy of the criterion on net benefit while completely devaluing democratic results. It is as though the choice of democracy were inherently utilitarian. The possibility that decisions arrived at through democratic participation and consent could be valued in themselves independently of their economic implications is simply not recognizable from a cost-benefit perspective.

[Mr Qantas]

this is an English speeking forum cashking take the double Dutch back to Holand.

[Hugh Jarse]

ROTFLMAO:} :}

Hook, line and sinker Mr. Qantas. You must be low to middle management judging by your spelling:E
I think CashKing might send it back to HANOI, rather than Holland (read his profile):} cough:} cough:yuk: Bloody furball:8.....................

[cartexchange]

LTI
WHat a faarrrking joke.
People are still being injured and people are still on workcover, they have reduced their LTI by making people do useless tasks in the mail room and other areas.
Its true, they send a taxi to your home, you get to work and sign a sheet after an hour or so, sometimes more, you are taxied home, its a fact! therefore no LTI as you are at work.
This whole people safe thing is the biggest joke ever, the equipment onboard the aircraft is worse than ever and people are being injured.
Half the time they wont fill out that rediculous repetitive form, again no LTI.
Mr Qantas, what frigging world do you live in!

[webber1]

QF OH&S is a sham as someone pointed out.
Example.. Blocking of anything of any safety importance that required capital to be spent in H245 in the last 18 months.
Making guys work on half assed scaffolding to do major rework on Rolls Royce interservices areas when a good designed stand had been developed is a classic. Thanks D.Cox.
Safety Glasses for one work area and not for the other.
Bump Hats for the other and not for one.
Pedestrians keeping on the crossings instead of cars keeping on the roads.
The inconsistancies are embarrassing.
No rescue procedures for people in fall restraint devices.
Crappy tank rescue procedures and equipment.
Inconsistant licencing and training requirements for mobile equipment.
(Who has a mobile crane licence and also has a Heavy Vehicle licence to drive the damn thing?).
Which Crane drivers have had the extra training required by work cover after the toppling incident last year and the crane mods?
The list goes on and on,but what ever you do make sure you hold that hand rail.

[CashKing]

The upshot is that in most "preservation" versus "use" debates, society has NOT distinguished "ends" in order of importance--therefore economics has little to say. It may be more useful to say that when and where debates rage over any social-choice topic, economics can not resolve such debates because the body-politic has not appropriately sorted ENDS relative to one another and relative to means to each end. About all economics can do is to help cost out alternative courses of action, and can do even this only if agreement can be reached as to what might be included as costs and receipts in any such analysis.

[Animalclub]

CashKing
Beautiful.

[Jetsbest]

I have heard, on good authority too, that all this hoopla is skewed by other forms of devious accounting. QF has lots of 'contractors' on site throughout the organisation; catering, engineering, cleaners etc. The work done by contractors is counted towards the productivity and man-day stats, but injuries incurred by them don't count; that's their own employer's problem in Work Cover reports, not QF's! It helps things look a lot healthier than is really the case don't you think? Still, it makes it easier to reach KPIs and hence bonuses come easier. I try not to be cynical, I really do.:hmm:

[Metro Boy]

Cashking, you didn't by any chance write the verbal reasoning tests for Qantas pilot applicants?

[MIss Behaviour]

They're worried about descending a set of stairs holding two cases yet they're outsourcing aircraft maintenance to China! :sad: :sad:

[rupert the bear]

and why not? You're overpriced and your skill level globally outdated:confused: Not to mention the complete lack of any solidarity ranging from begining to end for pilots. What the hell do you expect?
:yuk:

[webber1]

Its just like shoping at ronnies or crazy clints. Looks like a bargain from the outside but in the end you get what you pay for.

[BHMvictim]

and why not? You're overpriced and your skill level globally outdated:confused: Not to mention the complete lack of any solidarity ranging from begining to end for pilots. What the hell do you expect?
:yuk:

take your rod, reel and tacklbox elsewhere please.

[CashKing]

It is particularly interesting to observe that the entrance of China into the WTO and China's rapid trade expansion has induced large flows of investments from all over the world. China's entrepreneurial capability developed over the past three thousand years, together with its low wages and technological competence, have lead the way in its economic restructuring. As a new, open market economy, China has quickly become an economic leader in the region. Together with this phenomenon, two more socialist economies, India and Russia have also joined the race for high economic growth as new emerging economies. In the next decade, I believe that the new global economic structure can be divided into two big groups; the advanced economies namely the US, EURO and Japan and the big three emerging economies namely China, India and Russia. Asean and other economies will probably be squeezed in between and their economic faiths will very much depend on future interactions between these two groups. Asean inevitably will have to adjust their economic and trade policies to cope with the new economic scenario.

[qcc2]

one can only hope they dont leave australia out of the future regional trade blocks.

[the shaman]

Question - will matching work place safety requirements with QF engineering in Australia be an essential requiremnt for awarding of heavy maintenance contracts to chinese MRO's ..?? I would be surprised if it did.. I suspect one of the outsourcing casualties may be OHS standards... the sh!t hits the fan at mascot if someone sprains there ankle, but if a worker in Beijing falls out of an entry door and bounces on the hardstand what happens, can I assume they just get another set of arms and legs brought in.?

[Redstone]

Question - will matching work place safety requirements with QF engineering in Australia be an essential requiremnt for awarding of heavy maintenance contracts to chinese MRO's ..?? I would be surprised if it did.. I suspect one of the outsourcing casualties may be OHS standards... the sh!t hits the fan at mascot if someone sprains there ankle, but if a worker in Beijing falls out of an entry door and bounces on the hardstand what happens, can I assume they just get another set of arms and legs brought in.?


Different country, different legislation. Qantas don't care anyway, they only pay lip service at the moment because huge bonuses are riding on the backs of LTIs'. If their KPIs' were changed over night, this Be Safe business would evaporate never to be seen again.

[webber1]

Qantas cant even get a uniform safety policy across the sydney jet base, how the hell couold they do it world wide?