Machine guarding campaign fights shocking workplace amputations incidents

Delegates at the recent Australian Workers Union (AWU) National Conference were informed of a new safety campaign to reduce the high incidence of workplace injuries from unguarded machines.

At the conference, held 15 February 2011, delegates were told that workplace accidents were so bad in Australia that, on average, two amputations could be expected to occur every work day.

“Every year, on average about 675 amputations occur due to industrial accidents,” Paul Howes, AWU National Secretary said after the union’s national conference adopted a decision to campaign for new machine-guard regulations. “Business will almost always respond to these incidents by blaming workers and human behaviour for these incidents. Seldom will their policies, their training or their supervisors be blamed. And certainly they will not accept there were any design faults with machinery or work procedures.”

The AWU decided to resource a national campaign to raise awareness of how poor design of machinery leads to awful workplace accidents. The ‘Guard It or Ban It’ campaign will be launched in March.

Delegates heard about the horrors of workplace accidents due to unsafe machinery from Alan Newey, a survivor of a workplace accident, who lost his right dominant arm to a conveyor belt and spent 10 years in recovery and rehabilitation. Newey is now the Director of Chat Safety.

“What we need is proper machine guarding or guarding techniques,” Howes told conference delegates after hearing from Newey. “Our union officials are appalled by the many injuries inflicted on workers by moving machine parts such as the drive drum of conveyor belts and various crushers. Incidents with these machines have caused not only injuries but, at times, resulted in fatalities.

“Our Guard It or Ban It campaign will underline the union’s position that all moving parts must be guarded (by a machine guard or guarding technique) in a fail-safe manner. Any removal or breach of such guarding must automatically result in the machine immediately becoming inoperable.

“Our campaign will call on the federal Ggvernment to initiate an appropriate review process, involving union reps and other stakeholders, to ensure that all the requirements of relevant OHS regulations are adhered to strictly.”