My fellow colleagues

Welcome to the New Year and, if you are Chinese, welcome (soon) to the Year of the Monkey. May it be a good one for all without too much ‘monkeying’ around at the workplace!

While you have been lazing around on holiday and ideally getting up to no good, I have been at my post impatiently hovering over the telephone hoping for work! Yes I’m back, hungry and eager to please.

Welcome to those of you who are new to this newsletter. You all attended my November Workshops and (hopefully) consented to be included in this newsletter. I want to thank you for attending but especially your participation and contribution. I hated the Johannesburg venue and must apologise to those ‘victims’ who suffered along with me. Hopefully the lunch compensated? I was promised the other better venue but the hotel reneged at the last moment. Bottom line is that I will not be using that hotel again. People have suggested the Johannesburg Airport Hotel and I will look into it. Perhaps you Gautengers have some suggestions in this regard? Midrand has some great venues but that freeway scares me off. You may recall that I took some digital photos. The Jo’burg ones are as jinxed as the venue was. The camera shutter got jammed. Click here for (bad) Jo’burg pics and here for the rest. You guys could have look more interested. At least everyone seems awake. Sorry about CT. I forgot to haul out the camera.

Barring the apparently less than usual road accident carnage, from an OHS perspective it’s been relatively quiet over the festive period. The Ratanga gas explosion occurred since my last newsletter and perhaps the Coega Bridge collapse as well. And a trench collapsed in the Western Cape eliciting DoL condemnation. Then the cable car fell at Hartebeesfontein injuring two persons, resulting in the usual media statements from DoL warning negligent employers that they would feel the full wrath of the law. An interesting development, as election time approaches, is the sudden inclusion now of a certain political party’s name in DoL’s Media Statements / condemnations of accidents! I imagine we also will be given insight soon into the report on the marquee collapse after Premier Shilowa has eventually studied it. I guess it’s all still blowing in the wind.

Great news is that DoL has finally updated its OHS web page and it even includes some fairly useful guidelines. (It was becoming very embarrassing to have DoL publish for months on end an outdated and thus incorrect OHS Act on its very own website! Of particular interest, based on many of the questions thrown at me during the workshops, is the Guideline to the Administrative Regulations. The vexing question of exemptions is addressed in this Guideline and finally we know the criteria which DoL will use to grant such exemptions. Most applications for exemptions seem to revolve around the General Machinery Regulation 2 (1) Competent Person and I know that many employers have been tempted to approach DoL for exemptions in this regard but have become disillusioned by the unresponsive nature of DoL. Perhaps, with the publishing of the Guideline, things may change? General Machinery Regulation 2(11) does also provide for exemptions and the only additional requirement as per the Guideline appears to be the consultation requirement with Health & Safety Representatives / Committees. Also reporting and investigation of incidents although they appear to be merely repetitions of the regulations. The rest is self-explanatory. I hope we will be getting a Guideline to the Construction Regulations soon. Hopefully before the next in my series of articles on the Construction Regulations for Subscribers. The Minister of Labour is particularly displeased with the construction industry and recently said "The cavalier attitude of companies in the construction sector towards occupational health and safety increases the risks faced by workers and is contrary to both the letter and spirit of commitments made by all social partners in the Occupational Health and Safety Accord."

I personally would like to some guidelines to the sections of the OHS Act, for example, what criteria is used to determine which workplace incidents determine DoL investigation, the format of the section 31 investigation and a few other issues but since the Act is up for review this year as per DoL’s Turnaround strategy 2001 to 2004, I assume this won’t happen.

A special thanks to Heckett Multiserv for inviting me to participate in their SHE Conference on the beautiful banks of the Vaal River and Engen for the in-house workshop on the Construction regulations in the wonderful Mother City.

We are hoping to get some more Subscribers on board this year, particularly of the Gold variety. The advantages must surely be too tempting? Click here for more information.

Click here to download Cyber-Subscription Products in MS word. 10 % discount for every brave employer who subscribes before the end of February. List of Proud Subscribers.

Click here for information on workshops. You may have noticed that we have abandoned our previously complicated pricing of workshops which was based on a per delegate fee, in favour of a fixed amount irrespective of the amount of delegates.

You can all stop clicking now. And I vant to hear one click!

As always

The Devil’s Advocate

If you try to fail, and succeed, which have you done?

next