Do I phone up my insurance underwriter and ask his opinion or can someone in the know advise accordingly. — Greg Sutton

Seems like a fair starting point Greg, yes the Branz white paper is pretty scary, we've only got started on EV use, but Lith-Ion batteries have been causing fires here and round the world for some time.

Must say I hadn't considered new OEM batteries, assume they are well packaged to prevent (as far as possible) someone jabbing them with a forklift tyne or shorting a few cells out, over heating them in a storage area would be a foreseeable possibility (air conditioning required?)

End of life is going to be interesting too, and the more likely point that they get damaged and go into thermal runaway.

I have a worker that says he has it but he only does 4 hrs a day on a computer but his past time is shooting is there a link between the 2 — Don Ramsay

Do you know what sort of shooting he's into Don, and how frequently he participates in his past time of choice. Fired off a few rounds in my time (had a Firearms License before a Drivers one), didn't have any issues in that way until I had to slice start up rolls of plastic sheet into 50mm wide strips for reworking

What other work does he do, could that cause Carpal Tunnel and is the computer work aggravating it, rather than directly causing it?

They cannot reasonably have foreseen a deranged person entering their shop wanting to stab people. — Dianne Campton

In Christchurch, we had a deranged Aussie with a gun invade two mosques Dianne, so really, they reasonably could have foreseen some kind of criminal act that involved one or more persons inflicting damage on shoppers.

In the wake of the Dunedin event, Countdown management stated that their staff are regularly subject to abuse, that could easily escalate to that kind of event.

And all of this ignores the possibility of a fire event taking place, technically, even an empty building is supposed to be able to opened from the inside, if it has an evacuation plan in place.

Not normally inside a Work Shop area, unless some extra hazard(s) are present which might be considered worthwhile to use the HWP system to control. NZS 4781 is the New Zealand standard for Safety in Welding and Cutting.

There are warning signs, and then there are signs that educate:

In the Dunedin case, was there a need to evacuate the building as quickly as possible? — Aaron Marshall

A deranged bloke with a knife, are you kidding me.

There are professionals whose job it is to develop evacuation schemes. IMO, this is a perception that does not accurately reflect the real risk. — Aaron Marshall

That could well be the case Aaron, but did they allow for a few unanticipated retail displays blocking entrance/exits, or perhaps there maybe only a few full service checkouts open, and there are a lot of folk with full trolleys lined up to use those.

Maybe a better way to close off a full service checkout (since there are only a few of them) could be to have a barrier arm that can be quickly raised (like a carpark exit) linked to the fire alarm to trigger on the operation of that,but also able to be triggered by the checkout operators in the event of an event like last weeks Dunedin attack. .

Sheri's article on Malte's accident is well worth reading, and comparing with what would happen here in NZ

Ranks right up there with the one on coffee cups, "Caution Contents May Be Hot" Sheri, but folk will do dumb things. A cousin of mine, 45 years ago was working on his car, washed some parts in petrol while smoking, serious burns to his chest resulted.

Another "grey literature" source that might be of use to you Chris, The European Agency for Health and Safety at Work

We have an H&S Committee and each workgroup of our laboratory is represented by an H&S Rep who is formally trained to manage engagement, participation and representation.

We now have a different group made up of casual workers cutting fruit that vary between 150-200, during the kiwi fruit season (3 months). This group is managed by 5 permanent staff who are Supervisors with 3 of them trained as H&S Reps. — Sandra Nieuwoudt

So far, has your present system worked Sandra? Are the temps able to engage with it, have input into it?

Worker participation in health and safety can be done in a number of ways, it all depends on what works best for your business and the workers. — WorkSafe

The 1-19 ratio is what the legislation states,but it isn't so chiseled in stone on WorkSafe's advisory page https://www.worksafe.govt.nz/managing-health-and-safety/businesses/worker-engagement-and-participation/

I had a fire at one site a few years back.. We placed a tile underneath the charging stations to reduce the risk of the fire spreading. Then moved to metal cabinets just for extra safety. — Michael Wilson

Yes, it's simple to do, but I'll bet a lot of items with batteries under charge are on, or adjacent to either something that will catch fire, or someone's bedroom. The fumes released when these batteries catch fire are extremely toxic.

Funny, Sandie and I were in our usual supermarket yesterday, and a couple of checkout operators were struggling with two or three trolleys that had been jammed together and had trapped the chain. I thought the same thing Jackie.

Technically, it's probably a breach of the Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Fire Safety, Evacuation Procedures, and Evacuation Schemes) Regulations 2018 to block an evacuation route in the event the supermarket needs to be evacuated due to a fire alarm/fire, in addition to criminal acts of whatever cause..

As a health & safety officer, I am keen to introduce practical training to help staff feel more confident and be more pro-active in dealing with work place risks. — Greg Sutton

That would be a good use of expired Fire Extingushers Greg, small ones (2kg or less) are not usually cost effective to empty, pressure test (good for five more years) and then refill. Bigger ones where it is economic to reuse are going to have to be emptied to inspect and perform pressure test, so may as well try them out before hand.

Most of the training providers that do on-site training have an oil fire to fight and a solid fuel set up, probably not too had to set something up if you have suitable location(s)

Under the Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Fire Safety, Evacuation Procedures, and Evacuation Schemes) Regulations 2018 FENZ can require building owners and/or their tenants to supply and maintain portable fire fighting equipment ( see clauses 14 & 15)

The Safety Officer

Once, an engineer, a physicist and a safety officer all applied for the same job. The Managing Director interviewed all three, and thought all were excellent. He had to think of some way to find the best person. So he told them all to come back the next day and tell him the exact height of the building. The one who was closest would get the job.

The physicist went to the top of the building, and dropped iron balls to the ground, and had his friend timed the balls. He did this several times. The engineer got out a sextant, and computed ratios of a yardstick to the building. The next day, the manager asks all three of them to tell how tall the building is. '75 feet, 2.8 inches,' says the physicist. '76 feet, 4.1 inches,' says the engineer. '75 feet, 8.4 inches,' says the safety officer.

'My Goodness, said the MD, 'the safety officer got it exactly correct. How did you manage that?' 'Well', said the safety officer, 'I went down to the planning department and looked up the height in the building records.'

Anywhere a Dry Powder FX is going to be mounted in a location subject to vibration, mounting them horizontally to prevent that compaction Rowly is a good idea.

Each time the competent checker examines them, as a part of the process, they should be giving them a few gentle taps with a rubber mallet, along with weighing them to confirm they are still their initial charge weight. Along with confirming the FX is still holding pressure.

Question, for a vehicle over a given mass, the law requires it be driven by a person holding a license of a suitable class, as an employer I can't use PPE, I can't use engineering controls, I have to employ a driver with the requisite class of license. It's a legal requirement that I, and the driver of my truck must comply with, simple man that I am, how is this situation fundamentally different from the legal requirement that boarder workers from the 1st of May 2021 must be vaccinated?

Your better to spend time & effort in upskilling supervisor — Bruce Tollan

:up: :up:

Mandatory drug testing in many workplaces and we still can't reduce injuries and deaths — Bruce Tollan

The really sad thing is Bruce, while workplace deaths are fairly static, serious workplace injuries are steadily increasing year on year.

Love the idea of cats being allowed to ponce about town unregulated — Craig Marriott

Vital at the present time with the shortage of certain feline fodder caused by the shipping issues following the Ever Givens stranding at Suez, and POA. Angry cats are, as we speak, performing staff appraisals, the results of those deliberations will be found on carpets, the backs, arms and fronts of chairs at a time of their choosing :smile: .

Thing of it is, the PCBU is legally required to comply with COVID-19 Public Health Response (Vaccinations) Order 2021 , so PPE/ workflows/etc are somewhat spurious, the NZ Government requires that boarder workers be vaccinated from May 1st end of story, so a PCBU in this situation has the options of:

• Redeployment to another role within the organisation that isn't covered by this order of the
  employee refusing to be vaccinated (if there is one and the employee will accept it)
• Terminating the employee refusing to be vaccinated (surely an option of last resort)
• Ignore the law, and face prosecution (under the regulations, so would the refusing
  employee)

So life somewhere between a rock and a hard place for PCBUs covered by this regulation.