Building better safety efforts in New Zealand is something hundreds of construction workers and their employers recently focused on.
More than 350 Canterbury rebuild construction workers spent a May day learning about how to keep themselves and others from being seriously injured or killed while working around excavations.
Excavations are a major component of the rebuild work and are one of WorkSafe’s top priority areas in Canterbury.
“If not planned or carried out correctly, excavations on construction sites can be extremely hazardous and may lead to serious injury or death,” said WorkSafe’s Canterbury Rebuild Health and Safety Programme Director, Kathryn Heiler. “Major hazards involved in excavations include trench collapses, coming into contact with underground cables, buried contaminants such as asbestos and hazardous atmospheres.”
Focus on Working around Excavations
According to Heiler, officials want to help workers and construction companies get up to speed as quickly as possible on how they can work safely in hazardous environments, such as working around excavations.
“It’s also a chance for industry to learn what WorkSafe inspectors are looking for when they’re visiting sites across the rebuild. In the last year we’ve doubled the number of inspectors in our program team. On top of that we’ve also brought across highly experienced inspectors from WorkCover New South Wales on a rolling secondment to ensure our inspectors have a greater presence across the rebuild,” Heiler added.
Presenters at the trade breakfast included representatives from Fletcher Construction, HEB, Orion and WorkSafe New Zealand.
Author Kori Shafer-Stack, Editor, Amaxx Risk Solutions, Inc. is an expert in post-injury response procedures and part of the Amaxx team helping companies reduce their workers compensation costs by 20% to 50%. www.reduceyourworkerscomp.com. Contact: [email protected].
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