Your Guide to Health and Safety in the Workplace

What is Occupational Health and Safety?

Occupational Health and Safety or workplace health and Safety is about preventing work injury, illness and disease.

In NSW the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2000 is a law to help protect the health and safety of people at work. Employers must follow this law.

Injuries, accidents and illnesses can happen at work. Most of them can be prevented. To prevent workplace injuries, accidents and illnesses, everybody at work – you, your co-workers, your supervisor and the employer, must work together and take an interest in health and safety at work.

Occupational Health and Safety Responsibilities

Under the law, everybody has some responsibility for occupational health and safety.

An employer must:

  • Have a safe and healthy workplace
  • Identify safety problems (hazards)
  • Reduce risks or dangers for workers
  • Support the health and safety committee
  • Train workers about workplace health and safety
  • Give workers information and instruction about health and safety
  • Have safe ways of working for each job
  • Provide equipment to protect workers (personal protective equipment) if needed.

Employees must:

  • Work safely
  • Think of other workers’ safety
  • Report health and safety problems to supervisors or to the health and safety committee
  • Help employers when they follow health and safety laws
  • Wear equipment to protect them if needed

Occupational Health and Safety Rights

Employees have health and safety rights. These include the right to:

  • A safe and healthy workplace
  • Safe ways of working
  • Safety information
  • Health and safety training
  • Safety equipment
  • Have a say about health and safety
  • Elect health and safety committee members
  • Leave work areas to report health and safety problems
  • Reporting to your employer any health and safety problems

By law an employer may not dismiss an employee for complaining about health and safety matters.

Occupational Health and Safety Committees

A health and safety committee helps make the workplace safer.

  • The committee must have employer and employee representatives from different areas in the workplace
  • There should be a person (representative) from different work areas on the committee
  • Employees can raise health and safety problems with this person
  • The committee and management should then try to solve the problem

Every employee should:

  • Find out who is on the committee
  • Find out where the notes (minutes) from the meetings are put and read them. If an employee has trouble reading English they are to ask a worker who speaks their language to help them
  • If worried about health and safety at their workplace, they should talk to somebody who is on the committee.
  • If the workplace does not have a committee, find out who looks after safety issues. This could be a safety officer, nurse, union delegate or supervisor.

Reporting Workplace Health and Safety Issues

All workplace hazards, injuries, illnesses and accidents must be reported.

An accident investigation looks at how the accident, injury or illness happened. This can help stop it happening again and prevent someone from being injured or killed.

Employees should:

  • Report all hazards, accidents, injuries, near misses or illnesses in the workplace no matter how small they think they are.
  • If they have a work injury or illness they may need to see a doctor.

What is a Health and Safety Problem?

A health and safety problem is anything at work that could cause an accident, injury or illness. These are often called workplace hazards. Some common safety hazards are:

  • Broken steps, ladders and equipment
  • Unsafe work surfaces and slippery floors
  • Chemicals and chemical products
  • Machinery that is broken, unguarded or does not work properly
  • Fires, blocked fire exits and crowded pathways/stairways
  • Fumes, noise, vibrations, heat, cold
  • Spills and drips of liquid substances
  • Electrical problems, such as loose or faulty wiring
  • Poor storage and restricted spaces
  • Work systems where people do repetitive movements or stay in one place for a long time.

To make sure the workplace is safe, with consultation with employees, employers should:

  • Identify workplace hazards.
  • Assess how likely it would be for the hazard to cause an injury, accident or illness and how serious this could be.
  • Control the hazard so the workplace is safe by:
  1. Removing it
  2. Reducing the harm by keeping it away from workers
  3. Changing the way employees work
  4. Providing equipment to protect workers

To help keep the workplace safe employees should:

  • Look out for hazards all the time
  • Report them to the supervisor, health and safety committee member or union delegate

If an employee is still worried about the hazard they can ring:

  • the nearest WorkCover office or union office (you do not have to be a union member) who can send someone to your workplace
  • all calls are confidential.

Manual handling

Manual handling is any activity that involves pushing, moving, carrying, pulling, lifting, lowering or holding

Manual handling problems can cause back, shoulder and arm injuries. These injuries can happen over time.

The law says your employer should, in consultation with employees:

  • Look at any job done that could cause a manual handling injury
  • Make changes to the job so that no-one is at risk of an injury

Always use advice given in safe manual handling, the correct use of machines that help you lift, personal protective equipment and how to lift as a team.

To lift correctly:

Step 1check the path is clear

Step 2Make sure you are

able to lift the load.

If not, don’t lift it

Step 3Place feet close to the object. One foot beside the load and the other behind the load

Step 4Bend your knees, get a good hold, keep your back straight

Step 5Lift the load using your leg muscles.

Step 6Support the load in your arms.

Step 7When putting the load down use your leg muscles and bend your knees.

Chemicals in the workplace

Chemicals may be dangerous and cause severe injuries and illnesses if not used properly

Some common chemicals are solvents, polish, wax, cleaning fluids, paints, degreasers, detergents, bleaches and pesticides.

Many chemicals are used in the workplace. The effects of these are not always known. They can enter your body through:

  • Breathing
  • Eating or drinking
  • Contact with your skin or eyes

If employees are working with chemicals:

The employer shouldkeep a list of all chemicals on site.

The employee should have access to Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS). These provide information about the chemicals employees are working with.

Employees should be trained in the proper way to handle and store chemicals. This includes training in what to do if you spill the chemical, what safety equipment you must wear and what to do in an emergency

If an employee is not sure about the chemicals they are working with, what is in them, their health effects and the proper way to store and handle them, they have the right to ask their employer for information.

Noise

Working in a workplace where there is loud noise can cause hearing loss over a period of time. Noise can damage your hearing before you know it.

The employee may be at risk if:

  • The noise is so loud that they have to shout to be heard
  • They have a ringing in their ears after work
  • They have trouble hearing after work

If employees are working in a noisy area the employer with consultation should:

  • Find out where the noise is coming from
  • Check the level of the noise
  • Then remove the noise, reduce the noise level or give employees hearing protection if this cannot be done

Common types of hearing protection:

Ear muffs:These are put over the whole ear. They must fit firmly around your ear and must be cleaned and stored correctly.

Ear plugs:These are put in the ear hole. They must fit snugly and be replaced when needed

If an employee is worried about workplace noise, they should talk to their safety officer, supervisor or safety committee member.

Personal Protective Equipment

Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is safety equipment worn to prevent injuries or illness.

It should be:

  • The right equipment for the job
  • The right fit for each employee
  • Well looked after and kept clean
  • Stored properly
  • Decided on after talking with workers about their needs
  • Given to employees with instructions and training on how it should be used and stored

The employer must provide PPE where needed. Employees must wear it when needed.

Breathing protection

Dust, chemicals, fumes, dirt and poisons can get into workers lungs and cause breathing problems. Using breathing protection will help to stop this.

Common types of breathing protection

Air purifying respirators

These use a filter to clean the air and are used when working with dust. If working with fumes and chemicals special filters may be needed.

Supplied air respirators

These are used when working with dust, fumes and chemicals. They supply clean air.

Employees must always make sure the breathing protection being used:

  • Fits properly
  • Has a good seal and no air leaks
  • Is clean and well looked after
  • Is the right protection for the job;

and they must be trained on how to use breathing protection and when it is needed.

Eye protection

Most eye injuries are caused by:

  • Flying pieces from grinding, sawing, hammering and cutting
  • Dusts and very small bits of wood and metal in the air
  • Sparks from welding
  • Fumes and splashes from chemicals

Eye injuries can harm the workers eyesight. Most eye injuries can be prevented by using proper eye protection

Common types of eye protection

Safety glasses

These look like normal glasses. They are stronger and made to protect the eyes against flying pieces.

Safety goggles

These provide a safe cover around the entire eye and gives more protection. They can protect against dust, slashes and gases.

Safety shields

These are used when working with chemicals, heat or nail guns. They can be used together with safety glasses

Normal glasses alone do not offer eye protection.

Hand protection

Hand injuries can be caused by:

  • Machines used for cutting and sawing
  • Burns and dermatitis from chemicals
  • Electrical hazards
  • Constant repetitive movement done by process workers and machine operators

If an employee develops pain or numbness in the hands, wrists or shoulders, they should:

  • Have regular breaks
  • Report any pain to their supervisor, health and safety committee member or union office
  • Have their job checked to see what changes can be made
  • It is very important to report any pain experienced early to prevent an injury developing later.

Common type of hand protection

Gloves

These can be rubber, plastic, leather, metal etc. They help prevent injuries if an accident happens. Special gloves and care may be needed if working with chemicals

Always make sure gloves:

  • Fit properly
  • Do not have any holes
  • Are the right gloves for the job you are doing
  • Are kept clean

Remember: Using machines that are not guarded and equipment that does not work properly can also cause hand injuries

Foot protection

Safety shoes and boots come in a variety of types and materials to suit specific purposes.

Safety footwear has reinforced toe-caps to protect feet against falling objects. Some safety footwear may have special under-soles to resist acids or alkalis. For people working in hot metal industries, special safety footwear is available to give some degree of protection against molten metals. Correct fitting of safety footwear is important.

Check safety footwear to make sure that it is suitable for the job.

Fire Safety

All employees in the workplace should find out:

  • How they will know if there is a fire
  • What they should do if there is a fire
  • Location of the:
  • Fire extinguishers. Different types are used on different fires. Do not use water on electrical fires
  • Fire hoses. These are water hoses
  • Fire blankets. These are for small fires, smothering a bin or putting around another person
  • Emergency exits. These have a green and white EXIT sign above them.

If there is a fire employees should not try to put it out unless they are trained in fire fighting.

First aid

Every workplace must have a first aid kit and employees should;

  • Make sure they know where the first aid kit is kept
  • Make sure they know who the first aid officers are
  • Make sure they know who to report accidents and injuries to

The use of first aid equipment for work injuries is free.

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