Breaches Of WHS Legislation And Workplace Hazards In A NSW Hotel Case Study

Breaches of WHS Legislation (NSW Legislation)

Identify the breaches in WHS legislation, with specific reference to the legislation that applies in your chosen case study.

Breaches of WHS Legislation (NSW Legislation)

The hotel is currently facing issues which are in breach of NW legislation, occupational health and safety act 2000. The aim of this act is to ensure that the health, safety, and welfare of employees are promoted at the workplace. It further protects people in the work environment against any risks to their health and safety. The act also aims to provide a working environment which is safe and healthy and protects them from any injury or illness. Employees and employers must also consult so that they achieve the objectives laid out in the act. It also requires that employers make sure that there is risk identification, assessment, elimination or control. The community around the business must also be aware of any occupational health and safety issues. Further to this, the act provides a legislative framework upon which employers can come up with their own occupational health and safety regulations (NSW,2018). Employers can also refer to the act when they want to deal with the impact of any case that they may face at the workplace.

The first breach that the hotel has made is the lack of safety of employees at the workplace. The NSW occupational health and safety act requires that employees are protected by ensuring that the premises are safe and do not pose any health risk. In this case, the premises are not safe as the lifts are not working and there is dim lighting hence posing a threat of assault which causes injury. The faulty lifts may lead to one being confined in a space when the lift gets stuck. The occupational health and safety act also further states that any substance provided for use by employers are safe and do not promote any health risks. In this case, there is a breach of the cleaning substance provided is not safe and has already caused harm. The act also requires that the employer provides information or training to ensure safety. This has been breached since the employer has not performed due diligence while purchasing the chemical substance and they have not tested the substance (NSW,2018). The fact that the substance is not labeled means that the employer does not even know the ingredients and have put the lives of employees in danger by purchasing an unlabeled substance.

Safety Hazards

The occupational health and safety act of NSW also requires that other people that are in the workplace, in this case, hotel guests, must be safe and any risks to their health avoided. This has been breached because the lifts are not working and have already caused the stroke of one customer. Furthermore, lighting is poor and some guests have previously been attacked and assaulted due to this. Another issue is that anyone is allowed into the hotel without security checks being done hence posing a security threat to the hotel guests and employees. Also, the space that the hotel uses for functions is meant for about 100 people but they have booked over 150 people and another 18 birthday parties on the same day (NSW,2018). The chemical substance that is being used poses a threat to customers since one customer has already been overwhelmed by fumes and the rest are at risk.

The occupational health and safety act of NSW also states that the manufacturers of substances that are used at work must ensure that whatever substance they produce is not detrimental to anyone’s health and they should also provide enough information concerning the substance (NSW,2018). This has been breached y the manufacturer of the substance being used for cleaning since there are no labels hence once is unable to tell the ingredients that went into manufacturing the product. Further, the chemical is not safe and has already caused burns to staff and breathing problems.

Under section 14 of the occupational health and safety act of NSW, the nature of consultation requires that the employer shares relevant information concerning safety health and welfare (NSW,2018). Employees must also be given a chance to express views and that these views must be considered by the employer. The hotel has breached this since no health and safety information has been shared with staff, there is not staff induction about health and safety matters. Employees have also not been given a chance to express their views when it comes to health and safety matters.

Under section 17 of the occupational health and safety act by NSW, there should be an established committee in the workplace dealing with occupational health and safety matters. The committee is put in place when an employer has employed over 20 staff (NSW,2018). There is a breach here since there is a committee but they are not focused on health and safety issues since the last meeting was held over three months ago and the agenda was the staff Christmas party, and no health and safety issue was discussed. The role of the established occupational health and safety committee is to investigate and health and safety matters and constantly review and assess risk. There is a breach by the hotel since risks are never reviewed and the committee has not investigated the cleaning substance and interviewed staff and the customer so that they get to know what exactly happened.

Work Organization Hazards

Section 17 of the occupational health and safety act states that one should not hinder aid to someone who is injured. There is a breach to this by the hotel since the fact that there is no trained first aider means that there will be no aid offered to in case an accident occurs (NSW,2018). The act under section 86 further states that there must be notified of incidents that happen in the workplace. The incident which has happened is the injury of various staff and customers, brought about by different hazards, but this is yet to be reported.

Workplace Hazards

Safety Hazards-The hotel is facing a safety hazard because of its location in a dimly lit area and the state and condition of the lifts. Because of the dim lights, staff and guests are not able to see easily and this has led to other dangers of being assaulted. It can also lead to injury since when it is at night, one can easily fall or trip while outside the premises (Gazica & Spector,2016). The lifts pose a great threat since they do not work well and are constantly breaking down. This poses a great threat to both staff and customers since so far, an old customer has suffered a stroke while in the lifts. The constant breakdowns are risky especially if people get stuck inside the lifts.

Work Organization Hazards- Work organization hazards are present in the company as demonstrated by the staff is tired and frustrated. This is a sign of staff who are being affected by the workload demands. The staff may be doing long shifts due to a shortage of staff or other underlying issues hence leading them to be in their current state. This can lead to lack of proper performance. Work organization issues have also seen the hotel not have a written occupational health and safety document hence staff may not know how to handle any health and safety issues that occur. Further to this, there is a risk committee which is only made up of administration staff and they rarely meet hence posing a hazard since there are no health and safety inspections and staff who have not been trained may not be able to guide the others accordingly (Ahmad,2017). The lack of trained first aiders also poses a threat when a staff or guest is injured since the necessary first treatment cannot be given and yet the injury may be a life-threatening one.

Chemical Hazards

Chemical Hazards-Chemical hazards have been brought about by the new cleaning substance that is currently being used in cleaning the glass shower screens. The chemical so far has led to eye burns on two staff, contact burns on four staff and breathing difficulties have been experienced by 8 staff and one customer has chocked on fumes (McCaughey,2015). The chemical poses a great danger especially since the staff has not reported the incidents, most probably due to the language barrier.

Risk Assessment and Risk Treatment

Management Level Controls for Non-Compliance

Management can deal with non-compliance in the following manner:

• Set up a Risk Committee- The committee should be made up of employees from different departments
• Train First Aiders- First aiders to be selected and trained and each shift must have trained first aiders (Reese,2015)
• Involve the NSW Office in Implementing OS & H Standards-Engage the office to know how the hotel can implement health and safety procedures and organize for inspections
• Carry out Inspection to Identify Risks-Carry out immediate inspection, identify all risks and sort them out as soon as possible to avoid injury and accidents. From there, the hotel should come up with a risk register and monitor risks actively (Toppie et al.,2015).

Risk Controls for Identified Hazards

Cost-Benefit Analysis

Consequences of Non-Compliance and Lack of Hazard Management

Non-compliance and breaches of the occupational health and safety act will lead to the hotel facing heavy fines, hence it is necessary for urgent changes to be made when it comes to occupational health and safety issues. Lack of hazard management will lead to the following consequences (Goble, Bier & Renn,2018):

Unwanted Injuries- When hazards are not managed, there is a very high risk of injuries to employees and guests. Injuries can occur anytime and this is not good for the hotel’s reputation. Hazards can lead to permanent injuries to customers or employees.

High expenses- Lac of hazard management will mean that the hotel uses a lot of money in terms of treating the injured or maintaining equipment that keeps failing. This leads to the hotel having high operational costs. Payment of penalties to the NSW local government will also be costly.

Operations Affected-Incidence occurrence due to hazards will mean that the hotel operations will be affected. This is because the incidences must be dealt with first before any operations go back to normal

References

Ahmad, A. (2017). Awareness of workplace hazards and preventive measures among sandstone mineworkers in Rajasthan, India: A cross-sectional study. Journal of Health and Social Sciences, 2(1), 69-82.

Aven, T. (2015). Risk analysis. NY, John Wiley & Sons.

Aven, T. (2016). Risk assessment and risk management: Review of recent advances on their foundation. European Journal of Operational Research, 253(1), 1-13.

Boardman, A. E., Greenberg, D. H., Vining, A. R., & Weimer, D. L. (2017). Cost-benefit analysis: concepts and practice. Cambridge University Press.

Gazica, M. W., & Spector, P. E. (2016). A test of safety, violence prevention, and civility climate domain-specific relationships with relevant workplace hazards. International journal of occupational and environmental health, 22(1), 45-51.

Glendon, A. I., Clarke, S., & McKenna, E. (2016). Human safety and risk management. MA, Crc Press.

Goble, R., Bier, V., & Renn, O. (2018). Two types of vigilance are essential to effective hazard management: maintaining both together is difficult. Risk analysis.

Haimes, Y. Y. (2015). Risk modeling, assessment, and management. NY, John Wiley & Sons.

Khan, F., & Hashemi, S. J. (2017). Introduction. In Methods in Chemical Process Safety (Vol. 1, pp. 1-36). Elsevier.

Leveson, N. (2015). A systems approach to risk management through leading safety indicators. Reliability Engineering & System Safety, 136, 17-34.

Luhmann, N. (2017). Risk: a sociological theory. NY, Routledge.

McCaughey, D., Turner, N., Kim, J., DelliFraine, J., & McGhan, G. E. (2015). Examining workplace hazard perceptions & employee outcomes in the long-term care industry. Safety science, 78, 190-197.

NSW. (2018). Occupational Health and Safety Act 2000 No 40. Retrieved from https://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/#/view/act/2000/40/part8/sec142

Reese, C. D. (2015). Occupational health and safety management: a practical approach. NY, CRC press.

Topie, J., Buchanan, E., Madden, T., & Fagel, M. (2015). Employee Safety. In Regulatory Foundations for the Food Protection Professional (pp. 251-262). Springer, New York, NY.

Yoe, C. (2016). Principles of risk analysis: decision making under uncertainty. CA, CRC press.

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