hazard identification

Recently I was asked to inspect a particularly dodgy scaffold on a petroleum storage tank.It was like going back in time to the bad old days of the eighties in Australia/West Australia where we were only coming to grips with some of the old practices of metal working which had the macho tradition of ignoring scaffolding and working at hieghts risk in favour of toughening up and overcoming fear of risks by imposing the custom of challenging workers to use their common sense and quick physical responses to weed out the faulty and weak or fussy worker, who feared doing the job?!Yes I know pretty faulty logic and descriminatory these days....pretty weird attitude to saving lives,efficiency etc.That was the attitude we lived with though.Well back to this job though.The problem was not the actual scaffold...or should I say only...it was the perception of the potential for an accident or fall.Design had not eliminated or bothered to consider the potential...which to the credit of our worker team in the most part was obvious to a degree.i say to a degree because not all hazards were as obvious to all our team.What helped was a good discussion and challenging of the perceptions of trhe arrangement and platform worrking on as well as feedback from both staff and site managers ...as well as consulting with the Australian standards and site regs annd Seniour scaffold crew.

It sounds like a lot of consultation which to a degree it was.This highlighted not the delays we were causing but the lacking of good planning.After all the idea that we were holding up the job to make it safe is always in the background as an argument about making compliance.How much time will be lost as well as process,investigation,emotional and political/IR,HR, damage to businesses would be created if an injury,death occurs???

The second aspect that struck me with this incideent is the degree that the potential for an accident or serious issue was not perceived.A lack of reflection or focus on these aspects as well as firm assertive worker response ,focus and feedback along with safety reps.certainly JHAs and job planning risk assessment left much to be desired...but why?It was obvious that we all had a long way to go on this BP site aat Kwinana.What was the key issue and why were we not perceiving these risks.was it a combination of blase,lets get the job done cavalier attitudes.Passivity,rush to complete....?Some were extremely obvious hazards...to me.A certain percentage of crew of course saw the same risk but were passive in response.In other cases it seemed as though doing the job took precedence over doing the job safely.A lack of consciousness through risk assessment was also perceived.

I also question what part being guys working in these environments play.That is it seems to be a cultural and an unritten code to identify hazards but ignore and work around them rather than fix them?Why?Does it make you a better worker nd tougher man if you just get the job done and ignore the potential for an accident...are there rewards somehow in the company or culture of the organisation we are working in?