Page 41 - HW June 2019

work safety
But wait there’s more from Easy Access: “We’ve taken our platform ladder and innovated it further by making it height adjustable. Now, it’s a lot more flexible and you don’t have to carry around multiple-sized ladders.”
This is the new MOBI tower system and Ben explains that, like many of their new product developments, the idea of designing MOBI frames to double as a ladder, as an alternative to using a separate clip-on ladder, was directly related to feedback from customers.
“[Customers] wanted something more compact, more portable and simpler to assemble. Everything we do has to be not just compliant, but ultra-safe. We’re uncompromising when it comes to standards.”
EVERY BREATH YOU TAKE
Work Safety in construction can essentially be broken down into three potentially high risk areas: working at heights; inhaling harmful substances (such as asbestos, concrete dust and chemicals); and misusing power tools and machinery.
As Accent Tools MD, Andrew Way, puts it, “Accent Tools has always taken a leadership position with regards to health & safety issues.
“We would be acknowledged as the company that really established and drove dust extraction and the awareness in the construction industry for proper extraction.”
Robert Bosch is another brand that is muscling up its extraction product range.
Indeed, when we talked, Bosch’s National Training Manager, Neil Palmer, had just spent a full half day demonstrating the new M Class Vac range to his sales team.
“The law requires an M Class system for collecting concrete dust and silicon-based products,” he explains.
“Our new professional dust extractors [which are expected to arrive here during July/August] as part of our dust control system will connect directly to our cordless and corded power tools such as grinders and hammer drills to give the user a safer dust free working environment.
“We’re critically aware that inhaling silica dust from cutting or grinding concrete can cause death from Silicosis.”
Tusk Tools Managing Director, Jinjun Hua, and his team are equally passionate about improving the performance and quality of their products and at the same time improving the safety of the end user.
He tells me: “We’ve designed two new blades for example: one to reduce noise emissions (9db quieter than comparative blades); and one that’s shatter-proof, so it doesn’t fall apart and risk serious injury.”
It’s always been about safety,” he says assuredly.
“We listen to end users and combine our creativity with innovation, technology and the latest quality materials to make our products. We call them the Solution Makers.”
To illustrate the point he tells me about a new wall at Paremoremo prison which had fibre cement on one side and sheet steel on the other and which no blade could cut through.
Except for Tusk’s DCO Diamond Metal Cut-off Wheel... “That’s a Solution Maker!” he exclaims.
PASSING THE BUCK IS NOT ACCEPTABLE
In a kismet moment as I finish this article, the very same key stakeholders are at the Safeguard conference, workshopping holistic solutions to lessen or eliminate risk in the workplace.
One of those big table players is Greg Dearsly, who is fervently promoting greater awareness of risk.
“Exposure to asbestos is the biggest killer from work-related health deaths right now and Silica dust is the second biggest concern. Somewhere between 600 and 900 people die every year due to that work-based exposure,” he says darkly.
In this light, Greg reminds me of the key changes in the Health & Safety at Work Act which came into force on April 2016: increased responsibility on directors and officers of organisations; a move from a hazard-based approach to a risk- based approach that takes a more holistic view of the risks; more focus on worker engagement; and last would be requiring businesses to share the responsibility across the supply chain.
In a nutshell: “It’s no longer good enough to say that health and safety is not our problem because we’ve contracted that out.”
In other words, everybody is responsible.
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JUNE 2019 | NZHJ 39