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 5th August 2002 Peter Tritt
The latest workplace fatality figures released by the Department of Labour's Occupational Safety and Health Service (OSH) suggest that this supposedly
independent government department is being used, as a political tool, by its anti-employer minister (Margaret Wilson) in her war on business.
According to OSH, the year to 30 June 2002 saw a huge 82% increase in workplace fatalities over the previous year - a jump from 40 to 73. It's just what the spindoctors
ordered, to justify tough new anti-employer safety laws. Not unexpectedly, Ms Wilson and her principal ally in their joint war against business (CTU boss, Ross Wilson) have
been reciting these statistics at every opportunity, to justify their punitive Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Bill.
However, what OSH and the two Wilsons don't point out, is that OSH has fundamentally changed the basis on which it reports workplace fatalities. Whereas previously its annual workplace death toll included only employees and farm accidents, OSH now
includes anyone who dies in a place of work. This means all the self-employed (not just farmers), all bystanders who die in a workplace, all employees who die in road accidents
while working, and indeed any employee who simply has the misfortune of dying while at work, for whatever reason.
OSH's 73 workplace fatalities include 24 self-employed (mostly farmers), who seem to have a propensity to kill themselves in great numbers - perhaps because they're not in
the much safer environment of an employer's workplace - and 6 bystanders. Incredibly, these 6 bystanders (for whom employers are apparently now accountable) consist of: -
An 80-year old woman who fell down the stairs in a garden centre, broke her hip, and later died. -
A 70-year old retirement home resident who wandered out one night and fell
down a 2-metre embankment. -
A 56-year old RSA volunteer who was murdered at the Panmure RSA. -
A 51-year old RSA president who was murdered at the Panmure RSA. -
A 4-year old child who drowned in a Porirua City Council public pool. -
A 4-year old child who drowned in a Manukau City Council public pool.
That leaves only 43 employees - ostensibly up 3 on the previous year's tally of 40. However this headcount includes: 4 murder victims, 2 road accident victims, a possible suicide, and one apparently inexplicable death: -
A 40-year old pizza delivery man who was attacked, robbed, beaten and left to die in Papakura. -
A 52-year old driver who went through a give-way sign and was killed in a collision with a roadsweeper. -
The 56-year old roadsweeper operator who got in the way of the above.
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A 44-year old RSA cleaner who was murdered along with 2 non-employees at the Panmure RSA. -
A 25-year old who "fell? or jumped from a car parking building" -
A 23-year old pizza shop worker who was murdered by a robber. -
A 44-year old bank worker who was murdered by the same robber. -
A 64-year old alarm installer found slumped under a ladder in a school building. "Possible heart attack but the victim was fit and healthy."
The toll, for which employers are held accountable (regardless of employee blame) can therefore reduced by 8 to 35 - five fewer than the previous year - if OSH used same
basis it has done so in the past. So what, therefore, is all this talk by the 2 Wilsons about a huge increase in workplace accidents. There is none. In fact, statistics continue to show that work remains the safest place anyone can be. Workplaces
remain safer than homes, roads, and anywhere else for that matter - and work remains the thing that is least likely to kill anyone.
This raises an important question: Why has OSH changed the way it reports workplace deaths? Did it do so on its own initiative, or has it done so at the bidding of the two
Wilsons to suit their anti-employer, pro-union agenda? While good old-fashioned government department barrow-pushing, for ever more regulation and control - which
after all is the staff of life for every bureaucracy - is the most likely reason for the change in reporting, the agenda of the two Wilsons appears to be its only beneficiary.
See Also
OSH Report - PDF only
Peter Tritt
Manager - Advisory Services
Employers' & Manufacturers' Association (Northern) Inc. Private Bag 92066, Auckland, 1030, New Zealand
DDI: 64 - 9 - 367 0921
Fax: 64 - 9 - 367 0901
Email: peter.tritt@ema.co.nz
Web:
www.ema.co.nz | 
