The Pike River mine tragedy and subsequent commission of inquiry changed New Zealand’s approach to health and safety, but similar failures are found in many companies and industries today claims an investigative journalist.
Listener writer Rebecca Mcfie spent a year investigating the disaster and wrote the book Tragedy at Pike River: How and Why 29 Men Died.
She will be a key speaker at the Health and Safety Association of NZ (HASANZ) conference 2016, September 8-9 at Te Papa, Wellington.
“Pike River has changed how we approach health and safety. The emphasis on getting workers engaged in workplace health and safety can be traced back to the 2010 disaster and the Royal Commission and Taskforce on Workplace Health and Safety that followed,” says Mcfie.
Commission member Stewart Bell has likened Pike River’s failures to Swiss cheese, where the holes represent gaps in an organisation’s defense system.
At the mine, the sheer number of issues meant, “there was no cheese.”
“There were hundreds of incident reports from workers about broken equipment and things that had gone wrong that had not even been looked at,” says Macfie.
Despite the scale of the tragedy, she sees Pike River as an “ordinary” event because things that went wrong there also happen in many companies today.
These are some of the lessons any organisation can learn from Pike River.
“If you manage a business: be alert, be curious and be sensitive to what is happening around you,” says Mcfie.
“Create an environment of trust and good faith where workers feel they can say what’s going on, and ask yourself if you’re listening or just relying on a process,” she says.
Mcfie says managers should encourage feedback from everyone in the workplace on health and safety matters — not just people who report directly to them.
She says if a business has a board of directors, it should keep abreast of every source of information and have members with a diverse skillset, including technical skills.
“The board must be able to ask the right questions but maintain a healthy distance from management,” she says.
“Every person who comes to you with information about safety is a whistle-blower and deserves to be listened to respectfully,” says Macfie.
“One of New Zealand’s greatest strengths is that we can create a workplace where Jack can talk to his master,” she says.
“If a piece of equipment is a piece of rubbish, you want to know about it. That’s why the task force saw the need for worker participation as a pillar for maintaining a safe workplace,” says Mcfie.
“Prioritizing worker engagement and involvement is not only a legal requirement, but it’s also a cost-effective way for small business owners to keep people healthy and safe,” she says.
“You can’t always afford to bring in external consultants, and you know that your workers are your best resource. Please listen to them,” says Mcfie.
