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Safety at work: we are dying for it
You may have heard this one before.
A scorpion walks up to a frog on the side of a lake. "I need to get to the other side. Let me sit on your back and you can swim across." The frog responds: "Do you think I'm crazy? You're a scorpion - you'll sting me." The scorpion's response is obvious: "Why would I do that? If I stung you, we would both surely drown." The frog gives in to the scorpion's logic and, putting him upon his back, starts to swim across the lake. Half way across, however, the scorpion stings him. "Why did you do that?," says the frog. "I can't help it. It's in my nature," replies the scorpion.
Some things are just so deeply engrained within us that nothing can change them.
Of course, a lot of the time we would like to think that this isn’t true - that we could change our bad habits, and reform our ways. But it often doesn't happen that way at all.
Workplace safety is a great example of a bad habit that New Zealand just doesn't seem to be able to break.
In broad terms, legislation to safeguard workplaces has been around for about 50 years. The Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992 was, in reality, nothing more than a modern reiteration of several industry-specific predecessors.
But the health and safety legislation was supposed to make a difference. It increased fines – to previously unheard levels (most typically involving the potential for a fine of $50,000). But did workplace safety improve?
Put simply, no.
Workplace fatalities continued at about the rate of 80 to 100 per year. The number - and - frequency of claims for workplace injuries - remained about the same.
And here is the really interesting fact: penalties for breaches of the legislation levelled out at an average of about $6,000 per offence.
Have some sympathy for the inspectorate of the Department of Labour (whose job it is to identify accidents for prosecution). Over the first 10 years of the legislation, they averaged about 260 prosecutions per year. When faced with an annual average of about 240,000 accidents, that is a pretty small drop in the bucket.
Faced with these damning statistics, Parliament responded in 2003 by fortifying the health and safety legislation. Significantly, it increased fines - so that for most offences the current limit is now $250,000.
But, here's the funny thing. The number of workplace accidents in New Zealand hasn't changed. Not one bit.
The average number of fatalities per year is the same as it ever has been – and, if anything, is increasing (levelling out at about 100 per year). The number of claims per year remains at about 240,000 – and, interestingly, the number of claims per full-time employee (which is a good guide to the accident rate in New Zealand) has remained almost identical for the last 20 years. We have 140 claims per 1,000 working days. And the profile of an accident victim remains the same: three-quarters of all victims are male, and most of them are aged between 25 and 40.
And now for the really interesting thing. Having increased the level of potential fine by $200,000, you would have thought that the average fine would have increased proportionately. You would be wrong. Since 2003, the average fine for a health and safety prosecution has been $6,200 – just a smidgeon above the average in the ten years prior to that.
So, in short, it seems that irrespective of the action taken by our legislature, accidents in New Zealand happen at the same rate - and are punished in the same way - that they always have been.
Put another way, we can’t help it. It's in our nature.
So what are they doing about it overseas? Curiously, there is news this month from England that the UK Government looks certain to introduce a concept of corporate manslaughter into English law next year. In essence, a director - or manager, who could be said to have had some responsibility for a death in the workplace, could be charged with the crime of manslaughter.
It is, of course, possible that under New Zealand legislation a director could be held liable for a breach of the health and safety legislation. Except that hardly ever happens. Of 154 prosecutions brought last year, four involved directors. It is the exception, not the rule, that the boardroom is held liable for New Zealand's accident rate.
This is a difficult question - and one which has troubled our country for many, many years. At the moment, however, it seems that our legislation offers few answers.
