OHS: History and Safety Crimes

The re-vamp.

This blog's being re-designed at January 2012: no impact on content though. rw.

Costa Concordia - safety crime?

Costa Concordia - in the context of workplace and public safety, interpret the elements. This is a massive failure in duty of care - to passengers, to workers on the ship - and to the ship's captain, placed in a job for which he seems to have been ultimately unfitted. The big question is not 'what did the captain do, or not do?' but rather how in an age of extraordinary, magical, technology could the ship sail blithely into danger? What did the ship's owners Costa Cruises do, or not do, that allowed no over-ride of the decision to go too close to shore? There's a fascinating article by Robert Winston in Britain's 'Telegraph' for Monday 23 January on the known paralysing effects of disaster - that people will as easily freeze as fight. The article 'Costa Concordia: what made the captain panic?' is at http://tinyurl.com/75kbsb. It's an argument about the unpredicability of people's panic reactions - we simply do not know how we will react, until it happens to us.

Winston refers to the Titanic, as have many. He concludes that the Titanic reminds us that 'in our technologically dominated environment, the bigger and more powerful the machine, the more that can go wrong.'

Of course most of us will be far more familiar with other big and powerful transport machines. When something goes wrong with an A380, airline journalists move quickly to raising public awareness. Look at the very public chat over the past week re, um, 'hairline cracks' in the wings of this beautiful giant duck. The Costa Concordia disaster has to serve as reminder that public knowledge not delayed or diluted, a public capacity to act and/or a fearless corporate duty of care are key defenders against the mistakes, often birthed in laziness, arrogance and profiteering, that cost lives. If only one person goes down for this, if the accident is quickly sheeted home to the error of one human, the lesson will be lost. There have been and there will be bigger safety crimes. Think back to the lies over Bhopal; think the terrible inaction on Hurricane Katrina; think the fragmented lines of command during Victoria's Black Saturday fires. Listen critically to the unfolding narrative of Costa Concordia. Every such event is a failure of forethought, care and disaster management. Be loud, be noisy, be heard; they should not happen again.

Safety crimes: global context

Update: this blog focuses on north coast workplace safety history, but it's open to data and comment on workplace safety now, including beyond the north coast. The historical must be set against 21st century crimes and responses and the whole needs to be situated in an international context.  Labour's international dimensions per se, and also the intensification of risk created by modern diaspora and global capital mean that it's fraudulent to constrain the argument to home. After all, the strongest argument for action against crimes is very often the global rather than local. 

The argument is also increasingly enmeshed on the political stuff of local jobs protection vs dignity of labour opportunity for refugee and migrating workers not fortunate enough, in this context, to possess the rights to citizenship and employment in the relative comfort of the global north. Rudd Labor's recent culling of skills eligibilities for migration to Australia raise questions on the social impact of that response in countries of origin. That decision, cutting planned skilled migration intake from 133500 people 08/09 to 115000 in 09/10, and touted as one response to the GFC, reflects the persistence of border/bunker mentality in the west. 

It also reflects persistent blindness to internationalism as the essential philosophy , and political/ social strategy, for negotiating the business of living on this pretty planet. 

Rosemary

Safety and work on the North Coast

(Update at 30 May 2010) This blog was originally set up as an information clearing house for historical data on workplace safety on the north coast of New South Wales and across the border into Southern Queenland. To do that, it would largely draw on union records housed in the various archival repositories on the Australia, in particular the Noel Butlin Archives Centre at the ANU. Through recording what has happened in the region, including industrial and employer management of OHS, and events/ responses to what Steve Tombs and Dave Whyte in the UK have labelled 'safety crimes', it aimed not only to identify past negligence and outrage but also to promote awareness that might avert safety crimes now and in the future. 

It's now expanded and although still aiming to capture North Coast historical data, also includes comment, resources and links on safety crimes more broadly, and current as well as historical.

Data included in the blog link to events noted in North Coast labour history, for the North Coast Labour History Collective.