Team talk:Safety
Bikeshedding about the safety team here
- Naming: "Safety Team" - NOT "Health & Safety Team" or "H&S Nazis"
- Motto: "Safety 0th" (play on Rule Zero)
- Purpose: -
- education
- being observant
- assessing and mitigating risks
After the meeting on the 27th February 2013 I have conducted research on the HSE website. It's obscure what we have to do legally because we have no employees. Guidance is being sort for volunteer industries but for now we present risks for our members and visitors and so this doesn't remove responsibility. I found these and would like to list the following links with advise for related activities:
Things that I will do immediately (or nearly so)
- 1. Get permission to order lone worker dongles and telephone point plus signage
- 2. put up high visibility signs HOW TO CALL AN AMBULANCE TO HERE
- 3. Find out about plus order "H&S for Voluntary Organisations"
- 4. Order H&S at Work Act poster
- 5. Promote correct behaviour and use of PPE i.e. challenge those who don't use it. Have it widely available and dispel the myth of "getting it on the cheap".
--Dominic (talk) 18:19, 27 February 2013 (EST)
As posted by Ange
Great to see people getting on with safety issues tonight. To clarify The Duty Of Care is a general legal duty on all individuals and organisations to avoid carelessly causing injury to persons. It requires everything ‘reasonably practicable’ to be done to protect the health and safety of others at the workplace. This duty is placed on:
- All organisations
- Their employees/volunteers/users
- Any others who have an influence on the hazards in a workplace
The latter includes contractors and those who design, manufacture, import, supply or install plant, equipment or materials used in the workplace. The duty is regardless of the size of the organisation, its income or whether the organisation has paid staff.
'Reasonably practicable' means that the requirements of the law vary with the degree of risk in a particular activity or environment which must be balanced against the time, trouble and cost of taking measures to control the risk. It allows the duty holder to choose the most efficient means for controlling a particular risk from the range of feasible possibilities. The duty holder must show that it was not reasonably practicable to do more than what was done or that he/she has taken ‘reasonable precautions and exercised due diligence’
In accordance with our duty of care to individuals at the Hackspace, we should aim to provide:
- A safe environment;
- Information and instruction on workplace hazards and supervision where necessary of users in safe work;
- Monitoring of the necessary record keeping;
- The provision of relevant health and safety advice;
- Monitoring of the conditions/equipment of the space under our control and management.
Meeting 1 - Wednesday, 27 Feb 2013
We started with a brief meeting in the Blue Room of those (present and) interested. ME started out by emphasising the role of the Safety Team being to "actually do stuff to make the place safer" rather than debating the (massive and ambiguous?) topic of Duty of Care and the theoretical divide of Responsibility between the organisation and the membership.
Dominic was keen that we all feel OK to challenge fellow members when we saw behaviour that could be safer.
We can have a big wish-list for expensive or complicated safety provisions - no problem wishing - just cost it up so we can weigh the benefits.
We undertook a tour of the space making observation and getting a feel for the role. This first walk-round was going to be a test of the theoretical process. When in the workshop we made a number of immediate observations: -
- The location of the two fire extinguishers - needs to be known by all members (we can have a pop quiz challenge on subjects like this!)
- The sight of the electrical distribution box and the mass of wiring (some bare) above and to the left of the workshop doors raised the question of electrical load: do we ever get close to or exceed some theoretical load limit, and what would happen if that should occur? Fire hazard, damage to equipment.
- location of instructions needs propagating (another for the safety education pop-quiz!)
- tool survey required - existing list in wiki can be updated - Davic C has some more info
- the damaged bandsaw was studied as an example of tool survey checks
- Schneider Bandsaw Model SCH190
- we don't have a manual - let's google it
- currently very juddery - inconsistent operation
- each major power tool needs a bullet point checklists for safe use - 1 page of A4, laminated.
- some are hands-on or touchy-feely: "does it sound right?", "don't force it!", etc.
- some are "must use dust extraction" (bandsaw hoover needs a big arrow pointing to power switch)
- RCD on each major power tool
- PPE for each tool needs to be with the tool - prompts user to use them! Educate: put PPE back in right place when finished - shadow board type PPE locations?
- overhead power socket above benches:-
- better than trailing cables but some of them are rather dangerous looking! strained cable, broken back-boxes
- we can hack some fixed columns/conduit to safely bring the power down to a single fixed 4-way on each bench
- The compressor - how can it be used safely - part of the compressor checklist should be to bleed after use and to bleed immediately before attaching a tool?
- the Wickes bench pillar drill: guard cracked but perfectly functional, educate on good use for best results, adjusting bed, chuck key
- education: the Norm Abram monologue about workshop safety
- education: power drill usage and good practice, torque settings, use of the charging station (wording important! "the worst thing is to come to use a drill to find that it has been left with a flat battery")
- Big Red Buttons - let's see if they are inexpensive enought to just get
- Emergency contact details - education: laminated cards
- non-slip tape for lino around wet area
Meeting adjourned and relocated to pub where we talked about it 'til last orders.