So what should I start to consider?

There are a number of topics and law to consider when genuinely beginning or engaging workers in health and safety:

This is only a beginning.

What can I do if the place I work at is not doing health and safety in a way that ensures my health and safety at work?

Short answer: Get assistance from outside your organisation. Why? because if the culture is to say they do health and safety and you still feel unsafe it is likely that this organisation is not genuinely doing health and safety in a way that will prevent injury and illness.

The traits of these unsafe health and safety cultures are likely a lot of paper controls and personal protective equipment and not a lot of engineering controls of ways to physicaly prevent injury or accident to workers.

Dangerous health and safety cultures also do not involve workers in the creation of policies or engineering controls and never hold elections for worker health and safety representatives.

What is the importance of the regulations that are attached to the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015?

What is often missed from the health and safety responsibilities of all parties is the regulations. The regulation suite is signifigant and features a number of important rights and responsibilities.

For example, workers should consider Health and Safety at Work (Worker Engagement, Participation, and Representation) Regulations 2016 and the Health and Safety at Work (General Risk and Workplace Management) Regulations 2016 to begin with.

It is very likely that the policy many employers, incorporated societies, companies, and other organisations may not actually conform with these.

Given that these regulations must be complied with, Working For Workers is repeatedly invovled in cases where they are not.

If the organisation only has policies and no controls in place, they have likely already failed in their obligation to protect workers, the public, stakeholders, contractors, and customers.

A shining example of where procedure and paper policies ended in the death of a worker is the most recent incident at the Ports of Auckland where a worker was crushed by a shipping container and killed.

The father of seven (7) was a stevedore who had only worked for Ports of Auckland for a couple of month. Adding insult to injury two (2) weeks before this incident the same policies in place at the port had to the port company being fined after the Ports of Auckland admitted a health and safety charge at the Auckland District Court following the death of twenty-three 23-year-old Laboom Midnight Dyer two (2) years earlier.

Summary: Two (2) deaths, same workplace, same Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking.

No father for seven (7) children. Heartbreak for families. Employer repeated the mistakes and didn't have the right controls in place to protect workers.

Had the workers organised and refused to work under those conditions by citing the regulations then this may not have happened.

If you want to discuss this feel free to contact Working For Workers and we will happily assist.