I have no idea about your job, but my book says you are doing it wrong.

Upon a visit to my Son's high school MDT department I was left shaking my head in disbelief.
Firstly, the MDT department is being halved in size to make way for an expanded art room, secondly and this is the real issue that has got right up my nose. The teacher is currently going through a long, drawn out process to justify keeping the MDT bandsaw. How precisely are you meant to operate an MDT department without one? As it stands, it is a teacher operation only tool, which is fair enough. It has the obligatory guarding, lockable isolator switch, yellow painted line bordered exclusion zone, dust extraction etc etc etc. The horrid little safety germ pulling the strings from his office 200 Km away is concerned that while operating the saw with a large workpiece, the teacher could hit a student with the piece of wood being cut.
I am angry on two grounds. Firstly, this illustrates how little understanding and respect there is within the education system for trade type pursuits. Secondly it makes patently clear, the lack of understanding that many safety germs possess about the actual risks they are managing.
Now, I know a thing or two about risk management having been a tradesman for well over 20 years and a ticketed Health and Safety rep to boot. If performing a risk assessment upon that very machine, the risk posed by hitting a student with a piece of wood pales into insignificance compared to the other hazards, all of which have been mitigated and effectively controlled from my observation. In fact, the congestion produced by the reduction in size of the department in my opinion produces a far greater level of risk, given more frequent exposure to numerous hazards and potentially serious consequences.
Will they remove the chisels next?
I should add that the MDT is the lifeblood and soul of the teacher, who through his tireless efforts has managed to connect with and divert many disadvantaged youth onto a productive path that has lead to employment. The teacher is absolutely gutted that 15 years work is effectively being devalued and thrown away. I don't blame him for one minute and have committed to giving him whatever support I can to fight this idiotic directive.
What say the learned members of this forum?

A lot of this overcaution is driven by insurance costs, and under the budget pressures that many public sector organisations have (general budget cuts plus a need to meet an efficiency dividend plus the need to self-fund pay rises) you have to save dollars in the stupidest ways.

There are several commonwealth departments here in Canberra where staff are prevented from using the building's stairs except in an emergency - stairs have a much worse safety record (falls, sprains and so on) than lifts, so by not allowing staff to use the stairs, departments can negotiate for better insurance rates.

The fact that staff will get less physical exercise and that this will eventually cost the health care system money is, of course, someone else's problem.

I agree with MS. It's purely an excuse to save money and I get really off at the way teachers are treated in these situations.

That aside I am very happy with what I sometimes see when I attend our local mens shed. While our new shed is being built we are operating out of 3 small lock up garages at the back of Como Senior High School right next to the Prevoc centre which includes a largish metal work facility (6 oxy bays, 6 welding bays, plasma cutter etc) which we also have access to for 3 half days a week. What I am pleased about is we sometimes see the start or end of the Provoc classes and I'm thrilled to see what the students (Including many females) are up to in that facility.

This whole risk thing in education has go totally out of hand but it's interesting to hear how things might be starting to balance up a bit. There was a story on the radio recently about a tree that had fallen down in a local primary school playground during one of the last winter storms. The school promptly got onto the Ed Dept and requested a clean up team attend but during the day the teachers noticed how hundreds of kids played in/on the tree while nearby structured playground equipment had hardly been used for years. The School then attempted to cancel the cleanup team but had a devil of a time doing this because the fallen tree was deemed too big a risk. Anyway after some wrangling the school managed to keep the tree and it continues to be a big drawcard for the kids. The effort to minimise risk ends by controlling everything kids do is long term counterproductive for kids. There has to be some risk to get the benefits and the benefits of unstructured play have been very underestimated. The kids play ground I'm working on at the moment has some unstructured play elements which is good to see.

I've never seen anything fly off a band saw and hit someone. Even if the bade breaks nothing goes anywhere.

There's always the possibility that 'band saw' is getting confused with 'table saw' if they are worrying about the risks of timber flying off. Never assume that a non wood/metal worker will understand that there is a huge difference between the two.

All too often promotions in the public service go to people who have little in-depth knowledge about a topic but who can happily parrot project management techniques and other 'leadership and management' bumf (for example, see the lack of knowledge shown by the people making decisions in the home insulation debacle).

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Originally Posted by Master Splinter

. . . . Never assume that a non wood/metal worker will understand that there is a huge difference between the two.

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This idea that anyone can be a manager or supervisor without knowing the business has been going on for a while. When a State Ed Dept brought in the idea that subject expertise was not required to be a State Superintendent of the subject, the first school library super under this regime was a manual arts teacher.

just remember the people that are making the rules, are most likely the ones who have LTI due to paper cuts

You only need to read the daily pages of The Canberra Times as see the lottery payouts these scumbags receive for trivia.

Fall off a chair? 1 million
Sprain an ankle on stairs? 200k
Have a car hit you from behind at 5km/h? 2 million (btw, the paint didn't need fixing)
Feel you are being bullied for being asked to do your job? 600k

It doesn't matter that manual arts are no longer taught. Manufacturing in Australia is gone. It is outcompeted due to government interference.

We, as as country, are utterly doomed. Anyone setting up any form of business that makes something is doomed. If the government doesn't kill your business, international businesses will, and of not, your own employees will imperil it completely ($700k) http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-...314-34snr.html

After much effort, the safety germ has been lured from his office and is going to personally inspect the bandsaw and it's environment.
Will he understand what he observes? Your guess is as good as mine, but the teacher and myself are going to go down fighting.

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Originally Posted by Karl Robbers

After much effort, the safety germ has been lured from his office and is going to personally inspect the bandsaw and it's environment.
Will he understand what he observes? Your guess is as good as mine, but the teacher and myself are going to go down fighting.

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Hope that strategy works for you & not against ... never know what bright idea they may come up with next. I'm very pro safety so I err on the side of caution but what we are creating are generation/s of students who have no concept of managing hazards and risk with hand tools etc. Unfortunately many go on to view the reality TV shows that miraculously transform dumps into mansions in a weekend and give no clue on how to use tools and machinery safely and they expect to be able to do the same.

Shop / Manual Arts teaches far more than simply using tools - it teaches students how to manage hazard & risk. Cause & effect - some things injure, others kill. Don't do the things that kill - pretty simple lessons really but the message is not getting out there anymore. I would much rather see a small chisel cut early on than an amputation later! As a young teenager I learned skills from my father and I was using some very powerful machines that did not have the safety features we have today. Dad felt far more comfortable with me using them than almost all of his tradesman. Why? - because he taught me well to respect the hazards.

My Dad's in the William Cape Gardens nursing home at Kanwal, and a new bigboss poked her nose in the much advertised "Mens' Shed" and decided that the exposed part of dad's new Carbatec BAS350 bandsaw blade needed to be covered.
My dad tried to explain that this would make the bandsaw useless, but was quoted some Australian Standard (but not the wording).
Next, a further safety "investigation" found the need for testing and tagging, and he's copped a $200 invoice-pretty harsh on a nursing home resident!

Particularly when the toasters in the dining room are NOT tagged, but get used daily, whereas dad is lucky to toddle out to the shed fortnightly.
But what really cheesed me off was charging him 3 x $8 tests on his mobile phone charger, and tagging it 3 times!

When, as a country, are we going to tell every layer of bureaucracy, governance and obsessive safety culture that this is simply obscene?

Since when has it been OK that some minor functionary in a remote office can tell the MDT teacher and 30 year veteran what is safe? (other than said bureaucrats 3 day taxpayer funded OH&S course)

Since when is it OK that a nursing home matron forces a person to certify their own tools as safe to themselves?

Since when has it become OK that our lives have become controlled by these people? Every single thing is "managed" by a department of something-or-other...everything requires permits, rules, regulations, sign offs and approvals?

EXACTLY WHAT THE HELL HAVE WE ALLOWED OURSELVES TO BECOME?

George Orwell was wrong in 1984. We WANT the control.

If any of you have seen the "Beware of grapes" notices in your local Woolies supermarkets, that's because a shopper slipped on one and got a $45,000 payment.

But the case I liked the most was the 60+ aged Canberra woman who put in a claim for future loss of income when she fell over in a supermarket...she said her injury prevented her from taking up a position as an escort at her son's recently opened brothel!

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Originally Posted by Evanism

When, as a country, are we going to tell every layer of bureaucracy, governance and obsessive safety culture that this is simply obscene?.

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Whilst I agree that the various levels of bureaucracy have a lot to answer for, ultimately a lot of the problems come down to the public not taking responsibility for their own actions and making claims on anything that they can with the assistance of eager lawyers.

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Originally Posted by arose62

My Dad's in the William Cape Gardens nursing home at Kanwal, and a new bigboss poked her nose in the much advertised "Mens' Shed" and decided that the exposed part of dad's new Carbatec BAS350 bandsaw blade needed to be covered.
My dad tried to explain that this would make the bandsaw useless, but was quoted some Australian Standard (but not the wording).
Next, a further safety "investigation" found the need for testing and tagging, and he's copped a $200 invoice-pretty harsh on a nursing home resident!

Particularly when the toasters in the dining room are NOT tagged, but get used daily, whereas dad is lucky to toddle out to the shed fortnightly.
But what really cheesed me off was charging him 3 x $8 tests on his mobile phone charger, and tagging it 3 times!

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Many of these safety gurus do not actually understand the relevant standards and simply err on the side of caution in their minds. By rights the toasters should be tagged out until they are tested under duty of care but reporting this will only make things worse for your dad. Which is of course anti safety.
Being the safety officer is often a cushy job with few actual performance indicators that is fiercely guarded by the holder of such a position.
I feel sorry for your dad because they effectively have him over a barrel.