Safety Issues And Primary Care For The Workers

The model WHS Act defines Persons Conducting a Business or Undertakings (PCBUs) as the people with primary care for the workers. It further explains that the care is not only applicable to employees but also to contractors, trainees, apprentices, and employees of a labor hire company. In the current scenario, the managing directors of both the labor hire and the metal manufacturing companies are the PCBUs. Depending on the managerial responsibilities of the host company, its human resource personnel and supervisors are also part of the PCBUs. Consequently, they should attend to the injured employee. The primary duty of care firstly falls under the metal manufacturing where the employee got injured. The company has a duty to create safe working conditions for its employees. Additionally, it should ensure that that work done on any section does not endanger other workers. On the other hand, the labor hire company should safeguard its workers with a functional insurance. Its agreement with the host companies should equally cover all aspects of safety.

Given that the worker works in a metal manufacturing company, the company should provide protective gear such as overalls and hand gloves. It should also equip employees with safety goggles to avoid injury from sharp metal chips. Depending on the nature of the weights, the company should have lifting equipment such as forklifts and hoists to avoid back injury. Finally, it should come up with a safe working structure and emphasize its implementation. The labor hire company has the duty to train its employees on the safety aspects expected in different company environments. It is also their duty to provide safety gear such as boots.

Crime prevention through environmental design can incorporate features such as surveillance cameras and natural access control systems. In this scenario, there would be no need to keep vicious dogs thus there would be no risk to the plumber. However, a CPTED model that relies on social cohesion and community connectivity would not be safe to the plumber. In this scenario, homeowners may still have to use vicious dogs that would expose the plumbers to danger. In the case of safety in the design model, the homeowners will have incorporated protection through the designs of their houses. The plumbers would not encounter vicious dogs in this case.

The environmental and product designs were sufficient to keep the plumber safe since there were checklists to tick. If they were faced with risks, they would report in time to the managing director for appropriate actions to be taken. However, this design suffered one major flaw as it did not consider eliminating the risk in time. A more useful model would require the plumbers to call the management as soon as they found risks on the ground.

Risk evasion is the control procedure in which a contractor avoids working in areas with the highest risks. Since the risk in question is vicious dogs, the contractor would not have done anything unethical in passing over high-risk areas to another contractor. The company can argue that it lacks sufficient protective gear to harm itself against the vicious dogs. On the other hand, the subcontractor may have adequate gear to have its employees protected. The alternative to this model is for the host company to purchase the required equipment to protect its employees. It would also have to sign agreements with homeowners for compensation in the event of injuries.